Boats

  The number of boats to be supplied to a merchant ship was not fixed by law and was left to the discretion of the owner up to the time of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, when it was specified that boats should be adequate to the number of persons aboard. Lloyd's Rules are concerned with the safety of the ship as a whole, it being left to civil authorities to protect the safety of individuals aboard, and they simply required at that time an adequate number of boats of good quality. The Liverpool rules for iron ships by the 1860s called for three boats (lifeboat, pinnace and gig) for ships of over 400 tons, which was the minimum usually found on the tea clippers. The larger American clippers, built to take passengers, carried up to five boats.

  The largest boat, dating back from naval practice, was the longboat or launch. This was carvel built, possibly diagonal or double skinned, of a length between 30 and 42 ft and proportions of length divided by beam between 3.5 to 4. The launch of the American Challenge was somewhat narrower at 26 X 9 X 3 ft 6 in. with 12 oars. The longboat, heavily built with sawn timbers like a ship, usually had removable thwarts and could stow another small boat inside it if necessary. Its use was for transporting stores, water, etc. or occasionally laying out an anchor, but when stowed on deck advantage was taken of its size by filling it with livestock pens, and even surrounding it by a portable set of rails to confine livestock on the deck. A number of American ships used to berth the longboat inside along deckhouse of which the after sides and end were removable so that the boat could be moved into the open on rollers. The British clipper Vision had this arrangement but it was a rarity on British ships. The longboat was too large to be suspended from davits and was launched by tackle from yardarms or a special strong stay slung between the fore apd main masts, called a triatic sta y . It carried between 10 and 12 oars which could be shipped in semicircular metal crutches; with wooden thole pins ;
or in metal-Iined notches which were cut into an additional wash strake above the sheerstrake and gunwale.