y sixteen men inside, seated
on water-ballast tanks; sufficient room being left at the ends inside
for the accommodation of ten or twelve shipwrecked persons; while a
mate near the bow, and the captain near the stern in charge of the
rudder, were stationed in recesses in the deck about three feet deep.
The whole apparatus was almost cylindrical, and watertight, save in the
self-acting ventilators, which could only give access to the smallest
portion of water. I considered that, if the lifeboat fully manned were
launched into the roughest seas, or off the deck of a vessel, it would,
even if turned on its back, immediately right itself, without any of
the crew being disturbed from their positions, to which they were to
have been strapped.

It happened that at this time (the summer of 1850) his Grace the late
Duke of Northumberland, who had always taken a deep interest in the
Lifeboat Institution, offered a prize of one hundred guineas for the
best model and design of such a craft; so I determined to complete my
plans and make a working model of my lifeboat. I came to the
conclusion that the cylindrico-conical form, with the frames to be
carried completely round and forming beams as well, and the two screws,
one at each end, worked off the same power, by which one or other of
them would always be immersed, were worth registering in the Patent
Office. I therefore entered a caveat there; and continued working at
my model in the evenings. I first made a wooden block model, on the
scale of an inch to the foot. I had some difficulty in procuring
sheets of copper thin enough, so that the model should draw only the
correct amount of water; but at last I succeeded, through finding the
man at Newcastle who had supplied my father with copper plates for his
early road locomotive.

The model was only 32 inches in length, and 8 inches in beam; and in
order to fix all the internal fittings, of tanks, seats, crank handles,
and pulleys, I had first to fit the shell plating, and then, by finally
securing one strake of plates on, and then another, after all inside
was complete, I at last finished for good the last outside plate. In
executing the job, my early experience of all sorts of handiwork came
serviceably to my aid. After many a whole night's work--for the
evenings alone were not sufficient for the purpose--I at length
completed my model; and triumphantly and confidently took it to sea in
an open boat; and then cast it into t