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Lifeboat Design On June 5, 1912, U.S. Senator Charles E. Townsend of Michigan introduced a bill in Congress to consolidate the U.S. Life-Saving Service with the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service to form a new organization to be called the U.S. Coast Guard. After a considerable number of congressional hearings and much delay, the measure was passed and became law on January 28, 1915. The merger of the two services not only confirmed their past close relationship , but established the basis for an improved and more efficient system of operation in the traditional areas of responsibility , including, of course, the operation of coastal lifesaving stations. An immediate result of the Coast Guard’s formation was the centralization of small-boat building at the service ’s depot at Arundel Cove on Curtis Creek, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, a facility that is now called Curtis Bay. The Revenue Cutter Service had acquired the location in 1899, and for many years used it as the winter quarters of the Service’s training ship, the cutter Chase. In effect, it became the first shore location of the Service’s academy for training Revenue Marine officers. In 1900, a small marine railway was constructed to repair lifeboats for the Life-Saving Service. Major overhauls of and repairs to Revenue Service cutters and small craft were made at the Curtis Bay Yard, and by 1915 the yard had become a major installation. It was further expanded during World War II into a large, versatile shipbuilding and repair facility, and some of the Coast Guard’s largest cutters have been built there.1 Parallel to the development of small-boat construction facilities at Curtis Bay was the centralization of small-boat design in the Office of the Superintendent of Construction and Repair at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington , D.C. Before the consolidation of small-boat building at Curtis Bay was completed, a few interim contracts were awarded to private builders for lifeboat and surfboat construction as had been the custom in the Life-Saving Service. The boats built under these contracts were very few in number, but are of interest as they represent the first phase of a transitional period between the lifeboats/ surfboats designed and built under the Life-Saving Service , and the completely new types of lifeboats/surfboats designed and built by the Coast Guard. In April 1916, the Camden Anchor–Rockland Machine Company of Camden, Maine, was awarded a contract to build two 36-foot motor lifeboats of a modified McLellan design. These were to be the first lifeboats constructed with major modifications since the first 36-foot motor lifeboats were built in 1908. Overall measurements and specifications were the same as for the earlier 36-foot boats, and, although the two-masted dipping lug rig was still carried, there was no centerboard. The motor, still located in the aft end box, was now a Sterling Model F, four-cylinder gasoline engine developing 40 hp at 600 rpm and 75 hp at 1,000 rpm (see appendix C for detailed specifications).2 Prior to the installation of Sterling engines in the Maine-built lifeboats, the 36-foot motor lifeboat Victory, assigned to Station Wood End, Provincetown, Massachusetts , had its original Holmes Auto Marine engine replaced by a Sterling Model F for testing purposes. As a result of the success of this trial installation, it was decided to install Sterling Model F engines in the new Camden Anchor lifeboats. With the use of its Model F engine, the Sterling Motor Company of Buffalo, New York, began an association with American lifeboat construction that, with the exception of only a few years, would last through World War II, and for almost thirty years Sterling Motor 4 The Modern Age Matures The Modern Age Matures 55 would be the major supplier of gasoline engines for Coast Guard motor lifeboats. During this period, they also developed and built many other types of gasoline engines for other Coast Guard boats.3 In addition to the new engine and the elimination of a centerboard, other major changes from the original McLellan design were incorporated into the Camden Anchor boats, including a galvanized cast-iron keel instead of gunmetal, and air case boxes made of canvas-covered white pine instead of copper. Self-bailing features were still achieved by means of ten copper relieving tubes that ran from the watertight main deck through to the bottom . These...

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