Carley float

The Carley float (sometimes Carley raft) was a form of invertible liferaft designed by American inventor Horace Carley (1838-1918).cite web|url = http://www.navalandmilitarymuseum.org/resource_pages/chars/carley.html|title=Horace Carley: Unknown Inventor|work=CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum|accessdate=2008-03-24] Supplied mainly to warships, it saw widespread use in a number of navies during peacetime and both World Wars until superseded by more modern rigid or inflatable designs. Carley was awarded a patent in 1903 after establishing the Carley Life Float Company of Philadelphia.cite book | last = Mayne | first = Richard | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = The Language of Sailing | publisher = Taylor & Francis | date = 2000 | location = | pages = p55 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 1579582788 ]

Description

The Carley float was formed from a length of copper or steel tubing 12-20 inches (30-50 cm) in diameter bent into a ring,citation
first=John | last=Ashton
first2=Cathy | last2=Challenor
first3=Bob | last3=Courtney
title=The scientific investigation of a Carley float
publisher=Australian War Memorial
year=1993
url=http://www.awm.gov.au/Encyclopedia/hmas_sydney/carleyfloat.pdf] surrounded by a buoyant mass of kapok or cork, and covered with a layer of canvas rendered waterproof via painting or doping.US patent|734118 - "Life Raft". Horace S. Carley. (Filed May 14 1902; Issued July 21, 1903.)] The metal tube was divided into waterproof compartments with vertical baffles. The raft was thus rigid, and could remain buoyant, floating equally well with either side uppermost, even if the waterproof outer was punctured. The floor of the raft was made from a wood or webbing grating. Boxes containing paddles, water, rations and survival equipment were lashed to the floor grating. Men could either sit around the rim of the raft, or, if in the water, cling to rope loops strung around its edge.cite book | last = Lavery | first = Brian | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Churchill's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1939-1945 | publisher = Conway | date = 2006 | location = | pages = pp104-105 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 1844860329 ] The largest model could accommodate up to fifty men, half inside the raft, and the others in the water holding onto the ropes.cite book | last = Golden | first = Frank | authorlink = | coauthors = Michael Tipton | title = Essentials of Sea Survival | publisher = Human Kinetics | date = 2002 | location = | pages = pp186-187 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0736002154 ]

Some variants included a calcium flare that would automatically ignite on immersion in water. The flare could however expose a raft to hostile fire, as then-Lt. Stuart Bonham Carter found during the 1918 Zeebrugge Raid as he escaped the scuttled blockship HMS "Intrepid". Only the smoke of the burning vessel behind him prevented him from being targeted. [cite book | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=rNtCAAAAIAAJ | title = Submarine and Anti-Submarine | author = Henry John Newbolt | publisher = Longmans, Green and Co. | year = 1919 ]

Operation

Simply by casting it over the side, the lightweight Carley float could be launched more rapidly than traditional rigid lifeboat designs, and without the need for specialised hoists. It could mounted on any convenient surface and survive the battering against the ship's sides during heavy seas, and unlike the rubber inflatable rafts of the period, was relatively immune to compromise of its buoyant chambers. Seafarers in it were however completely exposed to the elements, and would suffer accordingly. An inquiry of 1946 reported that many sailors who had succeeded in getting to the safety of Carley floats had nevertheless succumbed to exposure before rescue could be made. The crew of the Canadian minesweeper HMCS "Esquimalt", sunk offshore of Nova Scotia in April 1945, lost at least 16 to hypothermia during the six hours in which they awaited rescue. Few of the survivors could still walk. [ cite web|url=http://www.familyheritage.ca/Articles/esquimalt1.html |title=Within Sight of Shore: The Sinking of HMCS "Esquimalt", 16 April 1945 |accessdate=2008-03-26 |last=Fisher |first=Robert C. |date=1997 ]

Despite these shortcomings many seamen did owe their lives to the Carley float. Chinese sailor Poon Lim survived for a record 133 days adrift in the South Atlantic aboard a Carley float after his freighter SS "Ben Lomond" was sunk on 23 November 1942. He fashioned fishing gear from components of the raft. He was close to death when discovered off the coast of Brazil on 5 April 1943, but was able to walk ashore unaided.

Though its occupant did not survive, a bullet-ridden Carley float carried the body of an unknown man to land on Christmas Island in February 1942. The sun-bleached corpse had evidently spent a lengthy period at sea, though to this day it remains unknown from where the sailor had come. It has long been suspected that the body was that of a sailor from HMAS "Sydney", which was lost with all hands under mysterious circumstances off the coast of Australia on 19 November 1941. [cite web | title = The Sinking of HMAS "Sydney" | url = http://www.naa.gov.au/naaresources/Publications/research_guides/guides/sydney/pages/chapter09.htm | work = National Archives of Australia | accessdate =2008-03-29] A second Carley float, more confidently believed to be from "Sydney", was recovered drifting 300 km off the Australian coast one week after the ship sank. It had been badly damaged by shellfire, but was empty. The float is now displayed at the HMAS "Sydney" exhibit of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

In fiction

The 1942 British war film "In Which We Serve" centres around a group of survivors clinging to a Carley float. As they suffer from the elements, the story of how they came to be there is told through a series of flashbacks. [citation
first=Neil | last=Rattigan
title=This is England: British Film and the People's War, 1939-1945
page=75
publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
year=2001
isbn=0838638627]

References