davits can be got for $100 to $150 a set. The new style davits,
quick launchers in type, come as low as $400 a set.

According to some naval constructors, an ocean steamship
can carry in davits enough boats to take care of all the passengers
and crew, it being simply a question as to whether the
steamship owners are willing to take up that much deck room
which otherwise would be used for lounging chairs or for a
promenade.

Nowadays all life-boats are equipped with air tanks to
prevent sinking, with the result that metal boats are as
unsinkable as wooden ones. The metal boats are considered
in the United States Navy as superior to wooden ones, for
several reasons: They do not break or collapse; they do not,
in consequence of long storage on deck, open at the seams and
thereby spring a leak; and they are not eaten by bugs, as is
the case with wooden boats.

Comparatively few of the transatlantic steamships have
adopted metal life-boats. Most of the boats are of wood,
according to the official United States Government record
of inspection. The records show that a considerable
proportion of the entire number of so-called "life-boats"
carried by Atlantic Ocean liners are not actually life-boats
at all, but simply open boats, without air tanks or other special
equipment or construction.


{illust. caption = CHAMBERS COLLAPSIBLE LIFE RAFT}