I went to SUNY Maritime, and freshman year we had to read this book. It was titled something like “How to Survive in a Lifeboat” or “Lifeboat Survival”
It was certainly a technical book, and not “Unbroken” or some other historical non fiction account. The book was really old, and I remember it was hard to find in print. It was a step by step guide. Interestingly enough it was written by a guy on a lifeboat after his ship sunk in WW2. I remember the guy that wrote it, wrote the book to pass the time.
I may be misremembering all of this. It was a while ago. I am looking for this book because I have a friend who is pretty interested in WW2, and has pretty much every book on it. I think this book would be a really neat Christmas gift. An interesting history piece. I don’t need the original print just a reprint.
Unlike other lifeboat manuals this one was written by authors who had actually survived being torpedoed, and who had interviewed other survivors. Lots of nitty-gritty details about how to actually get a lifeboat off a sinking ship.
I remember one detail they mentioned was to mount metal rails along the ship- side of lifeboats because you might not get the option of using the boats on the low side of a listing ship. The metal rails would protect the boats as they scraped down the high side as they were lowered.
That’s what made the book good. It was no STCW manual. It was just guys talking about how you actually did it.
We called those skates. Steel with a timber backing against the hull and a hook under the keel . A clamp on the top kept the pair secure until in the water and clear when they could be jettisoned.
One master I sailed with was torpedoed in the Atlantic as third mate. He sailed a lifeboat 700 miles to Bridgetown, Barbados.
One of the things that I regret in a way is I didn’t bother with a camera back in the day and in an age before cellphones many scenes and opportunities went begging.
On tankers before everything was back in the after house we had 4 lifeboats, 2 oars and motor and 2 oars and sails. They were open boats and were on alternate sides. The skates,skids, whatever, were designed to be jettisoned because there was a different design concept and the boats were designed to be navigated.
Haha nice, that Survival at Sea - The Lifeboat and Liferaft PDF is the kind of old-school manual a lot of us have been hunting for. Fun piece of maritime history and actually useful if you’re into the practical side of survival craft too.
