Grantville Gazette Volume 93

by Bjorn Hasseler

  EB11 considers the rocket to be second in importance only to the rescue boat. Line-carrying rockets were proposed as early as 1807, and came into use in 1832. In the 1860s, the Boxer two-stage rocket was introduced."It's two-stage design gave it extra range and gentler acceleration, which reduced the chances of the rope breaking . . . The Boxer rocket was still in use at the beginning of World War II. . . ." (Van Riper).

  Regarding the Lyle gun (1870s), EB11 says it is a "small bronze cannon weighing, with its 18 pound elongated iron projectile to which the line is attached, slightly more than 200 pounds, and having an extreme range of about 700 yards." It was used with any of three shotlines, 4, 7 or 9 thirty-seconds of an inch in diameter, depending on the range to the target.

  Unfortunately, EB11 leaves out some important particulars. The projectiles were "made of cast iron with a wrought iron eye bolt screwed into the base as an attachment point for the shot line," and the projectile was inserted in the barrel so the eye bolt stuck out (the projectile would turn over during flight). Because the gun was light and short-barreled (24 inches), the charge used was very small compared to the projectile weight. Black powder of uniform grain was used. The shotline was preferably a waterproofed braided linen, not hemp (Wikipedia).

  In the twentieth century, some modified smoothbore shoulder guns (M1903, M16) were used to fire a rodlike projectile with a line attached, the line being drawn from a canister attached below the front end of the stock (TFB).

  CG1999 requires that vessels also carry a line-throwing appliance [199.170]. Those of the shoulder gun type fire eight-ounce projectiles with an eye at the muzzle end. The service lines are of nylon, at least 600 feet long [160.031]. There is also the impulse-projected rocket type [160.040].

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  Typically, a "beach cart" was used to transport the line-thrower and other equipment to the water's edge, often across soft sand.

  Regardless of the type of device used to deploy the shot line, the subsequent procedure was much the same. The shot was fired so it overshot the wreck, and then hauled back until it caught on the wreck or by a sailor on the wreck. The shore end of the shot line was tied to a tail block (pulley). An endless "whip line" ran around the tail block and, on the beach cart, the whip block. On the wreck side, the shot line was used to haul over the tail block, which was then secured to the wreck. The whip line could then be used to transport an even heavier line, the hawser, and its traveling block.

  Once the hawser was in place, either a breeches buoy or a life car could be hauled over. "The breeches buoy is a cork life buoy to which is attached a pair of short canvas breeches. . . . The life-car . . . is a boat of corrugated iron with a convex iron cover, having a hatch in the top for the admission of passengers . . . and a few perforations to admit air, with raised edges to exclude water" (EB11).

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  Rescue Boats

  A "rescue boat" is one "designed to rescue persons in distress and to marshal survival craft." These could be ship's boats used to rescue a "man overboard" from the same or a different ship, or shore-based boats that put out to sea to rescue castaways.

  EB11/Life-Boats credits the first design to Lukin (1785); his "insubmergible boat" was a Norway yawl fitted with cork gunwales and bow and stern air-filled compartments ("end-boxes"). It saw only limited use. After the Adventure was wrecked on the River Tyne, and all lives were lost despite it being just 300 yards offshore, a design competition was held. The winning Wouldhave-Greathead design, 30 feet long and 10 feet wide, had almost 800 pounds (7 cwt) cork padding. It was double-ended and had a curved keel. It could carry 20 people, including a crew of 12. By 1803, Greathead had built over thirty rescue boats (Id.; RNLI).

  By the late nineteenth century, improvements had been made in self-righting and self-emptying capability, including relieving valves for automatic discharge of water off deck, side "air-cases," centerboards, drop-keels, water ballast tanks, and an iron keel ballast. EB11 provides a profile, deck plan, body plan and midship section for a then-modern English self-righting lifeboat, as well as for the Cromer, Liverpool, Norfolk-Suffolk, tubular, and Wason non-self-righting types.

  A "transporting carriage" was used to transport large rescue boats to the water's edge. From 1888, they were equipped with "Tipping's sand-plates," composed of an "endless plateway or jointed wheeled tire" for easier movement over soft sand (EB11).

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  According to 1999CG, both passenger and cargo vessels must carry at least one rescue boat (one on each side if the passenger vessel is over 500 tons). A lifeboat is accepted as a rescue boat if it meets the requirements for such [199.202, 199.262] Those requirements are that the boat be square-sterned, 11-14 feet long, readily maneuverable, of open construction, suitable for use by three persons, and possessing internal buoyancy imparted by unicellular plastic foam (the amount per a formula). There are also drop survival and freeboard requirements [160.056].

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  Water Survival Lessons

  Floating

  Human buoyancy depends on the salinity of the water, and the build (musculature and body fat), and the amount of air in the lungs of the person. "Tests on Service personnel in Great Britain indicate that about 10% are negatively buoyant in fresh water and about 2% in salt water" (TransportCanada).

  Floating requires being able to stay calm (as opposed to flailing about in a panic). It is unlikely that someone who has never practiced it before will be able to do it in a crisis situation.

  When you float horizontally on your back, in "starfish" position, it is likely that only your nose and mouth, not your whole head, will be above water. "According to the U.S. Naval training on survival floating, floating on your back . . . works only in calm water. If you are in a rough ocean or lake, water can come over the top of your face and enter your mouth and nostrils, causing you to aspirate" (Capello). The Navy suggests a face-down float. When you need to take a breath, you lift your chin and make compensatory movements with the rest of your body.

  There is also the "vertical back float." Your arms are extended out to the sides and only your head and upper chest are above water.

  If you are wearing a PFD, you don't need to use your arms and legs to keep your head above water, and the HELP (Heat Escape Lessening Position) is recommended. Essentially, you bring your knees in close to your chest and cross your arms tightly across the chest.

  Treading Water

  Treading water keeps you in a vertical position with your head above water by virtue of leg (and possibly also arm) movements. It of course uses more energy than merely floating and your body core temperature will cool you down about 35% faster than floating (USPS).

  Swimming

  What you are eager for, Leander, to swim, the sailors fear: Always for them it follows the wreck of their ships.

  -- Ovid, Heroides

  (Orme, 6)

  Would learning to swim help save sailors' lives? It depends. Perhaps no one is looking for you, and you need to swim to reach shore or another ship. But swimming ability doesn't help if you are unconscious or too injured to take advantage of it and is of limited value if the water is cold. And good swimmers might foolishly decline to wear a life jacket. Still, there are definitely instances in which those who swam survived, and those who didn't perished.

  Attitudes toward swimming vary with time and place. In the Augustan imperial navy, basic training included "being taught to swim" (Pitassi). And Vegetius, in the fifth-century treatise De re Militari, Book III, said that in summer, if the sea or river was near a Roman camp, the legionaries "should all be made to swim." Swimming ability was even considered a civic virtue, the Romans looking down on those who could not swim.

  During the Middle Ages, the notion developed in Europe that swimming was dangerous to one's body and soul. Swimming ability became rare even among mariners. The "son of Christopher Columbus reported that his father had jumped from a burning ship during a sea battle, swimming several miles to shore, while most of his companions, unable to
swim, either died on the boat or in the water" (Goldsmith). This was in 1476, in Atlantic waters off the Portuguese coast, so his companions were mostly Portuguese sailors. Summer sea temperatures in that region are presently mid-60s.

  In the 1530s, some German schools and universities instituted a total ban on swimming, apparently to reduce the incidence of student drownings. (I suspect drunkenness was often a factor; it still is the major risk factor in recreational boating drownings (Maxim 25).) Cambridge imposed a similar ban in 1571, with "two public whippings, a fine of ten shillings and a day in the stocks for a first offence and expulsion for the second" (Chaline).

  Nonetheless, there were some advocates of swimming lessons, most notably Wynmann (1538) in Ingolstadt, and Everard Digby, author of "The Art of Swimming" (1587) and "A Short introduction for to learne to swimme" (1595), in England.

  It is possible that swimming was more common among Europeans who grew up by the sea—especially warm waters such as those of the Mediterranean and Caribbean—and who had occupations that took them regularly onto the water. In my "Escape from Nagasaki" (Grantville Gazette 79), the protagonist is a professional ship's diver.

  In the early nineteenth century, a mariner who could swim was still the exception rather than the rule. The crew of the sloop Childers presented a sword to the shipmaster, George Wilson, "as a mark of their esteem for his jumping overboard at sea, and saving, at the risk of his own life, one of their shipmates from a watery grave, who had fallen from the fore-yard-arm, and was in the act of sinking." And the incident was considered worthy of mention in the December, 1810 issue of the Naval Chronicle (AgeofSail).

  In early 1918, four thousand navy recruits arrived in San Diego, and the Navy discovered that 40% of them couldn't swim. The Navy pleaded for conversion of a Balboa Park lily pond into a training pool, and the local newspaper editorialized, "a sailor who cannot swim is a sailor whose life is constantly in extra danger." Forty sailors were taught at a time, taking "instruction for thirty minutes each day until they could swim unassisted for five minutes" (Crawford).

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  Rescue Swimming and Resuscitation

  EB11/Drowning and Lifesaving talks about rescue swimming, in particular, how to release oneself from a dangerous grip by the victim, and how to "carry" the victim back to safety. It also discusses resuscitation methods.

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  Miscellaneous Comments

  If you are in cold water, you need to maintain your body temperature as best you can. Clamber onto a floating object if that will get you partially out of the water, or huddle with other people if you can swim to them easily. Don't swim unless you know you can reach someplace nearby that would improve your survival chances (LJA), because swimming (like treading water) increases the rate at which you lose heat. If waters are rough, or you are injured, floating (and swimming) are more difficult.

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  Conclusions

  Edwin Louis Cole wrote, "You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there." The goal of this article is to show how up-time procedures and gadgets can reduce the loss of life from drowning and exposure.

  Given the dramatic character of both "man overboard" and "abandon ship" situations, I hope this analysis will prove fruitful for 1632 universe authors.

  Note: The bibliography for this article (and indeed for all my articles) will be posted to my new subdomain, iver1632.myartsonline.com and/or to https://1632.org/1632-tech/gazette-extras/.

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  Notes from The Buffer Zone: Heroic Lazy Sods

  by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  The German government has produced a series of amusing Public Service Announcements about Covid-19. (Yes, you saw that. I used "amusing" and "Covid-19" in the same sentence.)

  The videos resemble those videos that documentarians put together with interviews from survivors of some great tragedy. The older person reminisces, and some actor portrays that older person in the flashbacks.

  The conceit? That the heroes of the pandemic . . . stayed home. Ate. Played video games. Got bored.

  The Germans show them with medals and with scrapbooks and with a mask pressed between the pages of a book. The theme: we had different plans, but the world called on us to make a sacrifice. The world called on us to do . . . nothing. Or in German, one of the language's shortest words. "Nix." Nothing.

  You can see these videos here. https://www.radio.com/kluv/news/german-health-department-releases-funny-covid-19-psas

  The conceit is fun for a variety of reasons. Just by existing, the videos grant hope. We are going to get through this, they say, and people will want us to remember, to add to the historical record. There is a future.

  But they're also fun because of the stories of heroism. The real heroes of this pandemic are our overstressed healthcare workers. My God. Holding an iPad so people can say goodbye on Skype. Hugging the dying. Putting in twelve-hour days with no time off at all.

  And then there are the virologists, the epidemiologists, the scientists, as I've been saying all along. The superheroes who are coming to rescue us.

  They have a vaccine now. Several, in fact. And we're on the cusp of having them delivered. The day before I wrote this, the U.K. approved a vaccine and is working on getting it to the population. We have plans, nationally and statewide, to deliver the first doses of vaccines which will go—here in Nevada, anyway—to health care workers, first responders, people who work in prisons and nursing homes and other enclosed environments, nursing home residents, and . . . . . .

  And then we wait. For the next batch of vaccine to be delivered. And the next and the next. If we're lucky, we'll all be vaccinated by August.

  The problem is that the U.S. has a large population that's anti-science. They don't believe in vaccines or in the ability of our medical community to help them. Their disbelief is as infectious to the people around them as the virus is, and just as deadly.

  We all need to do our part. Not just by staying home, but by getting the vaccine when it's available.

  Recently, a Twitter post went viral. It said (and I paraphrase) that we have to remove the idiom "avoid it like the plague" from the English language because apparently humans don't do that. Yeah. I know. Who would have guessed?

  Oh, wait. All of those writers of post-apocalyptic fiction, who chronicle the human failures that lead to the apocalypse. Sometimes I listen to the news, and I think I'm in one of those awful prologues to a post-apocalyptic movie. Or some sideways thriller, with the news on in the background, harping on this virus, virus, virus.

  It feels weird to be here, actually living two prongs of a science fiction novel. Prong one is the disaster, with the attendant human stupidity of the anti-maskers and the anti-vaxxers (not to mention the politicians who are flaming this idiocy). Prong two is the heroic scientists and the truck drivers and the freezer manufacturers and the planners who get the vaccine to everyone.

  Forty years from now, historians will write about this period. They'll dissect each action, figure out who was to blame or what cause led to what effect. They'll get those of us who are still alive to relate what we did or didn't do in this time, and they'll try to get a sense of it all.

  Or maybe not. There aren't a lot of histories about the 1918 flu pandemic. Most of what's written is combined with the aftermath of World War I, which pretty much got subsumed as the prologue to World War II.

  I don't think the lack of writing about the flu as a straight historical narrative is an accident. There's not a lot of writing about the Bubonic Plague either, not as a straight historical narrative. As part of something else, yes, but not standalone—unless you're dealing with a history of science book or a history of disease book or a history of medicine book.

  I don't think that's an accident, either. We humans don't like to be sick, so we don't like reading about being sick. Besides, surviving plagues and pandemics looks a lot like what we're going through right now.

  Those who want to avoid the illness stay home, stay aw
ay from others, do nix as the Germans said in their PSAs. That's tough to write a dramatic narrative about.

  The dramatic narrative belongs to the health care workers, the first responders, the governmental officials who aren't sleeping because they're trying their damndest to keep their constituents alive. There's drama in that, maybe more so now, because medicine is not in the dark ages (literally).

  I'm sure there will be books about the race for the vaccine. The opening chapters will be harrowing, as the virus spreads like wildfire around the world. There will be an example here and there of what one community is suffering through, and how many people died—the continual sounds of sirens in the night (as reported by my New York City friends) or the nightmarish conditions in Italy in April or the sheer early terror in Wuhan.

  But then the topic becomes too big for historians, and they'll pivot. They'll find the perfect hero scientist to illustrate the vaccine part of the story, the CEO of some corporation to illustrate that part of the story, and the creative person in some small town who makes it possible to get the vaccine early to tell that part of the story. Historians will identify the villains, big and small—those politicians who actively killed their constituents with their terrible "it's a hoax" advice, the people who are trying to profit from the vaccine, and probably some villain I haven't even heard of yet.

  It'll make for good reading, or good watching, primarily because it's not going to dwell on the sickness itself. It'll focus on the active parts of the story. Not the kid trying to get comfortable on his couch while watching videos, like the German PSAs show. That's not drama. That's . . . real life. Life in 2020, as we all wait.