1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class VIII.: Robert Anderson
190 ANDERSON, ROBERT, Westoe, South Shields — Inventor.
Small pattern life-boat, clinker-built, fitted with airtight ceiling, feathered and grooved up to her gunwales, forming an air-tight inner skin. This boat has a well or tank in her centre bottom, holding 44 gallons of water, with which it is ballasted when in the water with the crew on board;— and when the well is full, the valves shut down tight by their own weight. The boat is also provided with air-tight compartments in her bottom surrounding the well, to the sides and ends, rising at each end with nearly the same sheer as the gunwale and in other parts. The boat is intended to answer either for beach service or for a passenger ship or steamer; for the latter purpose it is fitted with two small self-working lug-sails, and a jib and a rudder to use when under sail. The well, in this service, can be filled with fresh water, and the air-cases with bread and provisions.
This boat has been severely tested in heavy broken water on the hard sand, and could neither be swamped nor upset.