View source for Carley float

{{short description|Liferaft design}}
{{use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}
[[File:At Cape Town (MP) 2018 151.jpg|thumb|A Carley float]]

The '''Carley float''' (sometimes '''Carley raft''') was a form of invertible [[liferaft]] designed by American inventor [[Horace Carley]] (1838–1918).<ref name="Esquimalt">{{cite web|url=http://www.navalandmilitarymuseum.org/resource_pages/chars/carley.html |title=Horace Carley: Unknown Inventor |work=CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum |access-date=2008-03-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723211030/http://www.navalandmilitarymuseum.org/resource_pages/chars/carley.html |archive-date=2008-07-23 }}</ref> Supplied mainly to [[warship]]s, it saw widespread use in a number of navies during peacetime and both World Wars until superseded by more modern rigid or inflatable designs.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]].<ref name="Language">{{cite book | last=Mayne | first=Richard | title=The Language of Sailing | publisher=Taylor & Francis | year=2000 | pages=55 | isbn=1-57958-278-8 }}</ref>

==Description==

[[File:Carley float cross-section.svg|thumb|Carley float cross-section]]
The Carley float was formed from a length of copper or steel tubing 12–20&nbsp;inches (30–50&nbsp;cm) in diameter bent into an oval ring.<ref name="AWM_Carley">
{{Cite tech report
 |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 
 |pages=1, 2
 |url=http://www.awm.gov.au/Encyclopedia/hmas_sydney/carleyfloat.pdf 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080725153706/http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/hmas_sydney/carleyfloat.pdf 
 |archive-date=2008-07-25 
 |quote=The float comprises a hard rolled copper tube ... Diameter of tube ... 12 in ... 20 in ... [figure 1 shows oval ring shape]
}}</ref> The ring was surrounded by a buoyant mass of [[Ceiba pentandra|kapok]] or [[Cork (material)|cork]], and then covered with a layer of [[canvas]] rendered waterproof via painting or [[Aircraft dope|doping]].<ref name="patent">{{US patent|734118}} – ''Life Raft''. Horace S. Carley. (Filed May 14, 1902; Issued July 21, 1903.)</ref> The metal tube was divided into waterproof compartments with vertical [[baffle (in vessel)|baffle]]s.<ref name="patent"/> 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 wood slats or a [[webbing]] grid. Boxes containing paddles, water, rations and [[Survival kit|survival equipment]] were lashed to the floor grid. Men could either sit around the rim of the raft, or, if in the water, cling to rope loops strung around its edge.<ref name="Lavery">{{cite book | last=Lavery | first=Brian | title=Churchill's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1939–1945 | publisher=Conway | year=2006 | pages=104–105 | isbn=1-84486-032-9 }}</ref> The largest model could accommodate up to fifty men, half inside the raft, and the others in the water holding onto the ropes.<ref name="Essentials">{{cite book | last=Golden | first=Frank |author2=Michael Tipton | title=Essentials of Sea Survival | publisher=Human Kinetics | year=2002 | pages=186–187 | isbn=0-7360-0215-4 }}</ref>

Not all Carley float tubing had a round outer cross section.  Some had square cross sections.  And those with square cross-section may have been exclusively associated with a square-shaped boat perimeter, similar to a [[Punt (boat)|punt]].   

Some variants included a [[calcium phosphide|calcium]] [[Flare (pyrotechnic)|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 (1891)|HMS ''Intrepid'']]. Only the smoke of the burning vessel behind him prevented him from being targeted.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/submarineandant00newbgoog | title=Submarine and Anti-Submarine | author=Henry John Newbolt | publisher=Longmans, Green and Co. | year=1919 }}</ref>

==Operation==

[[File:HMS Rodney cropped.jpg|thumb|Nested Carley floats visible on the wall on [[HMS Rodney (29)|HMS ''Rodney'']]]]
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.<ref name="Esquimalt"/> It could be mounted on any convenient surface and survive the battering against the ship's sides during heavy seas. Unlike the rubber inflatable rafts of the period, it was relatively immune to compromise of its buoyant chambers.<ref name="Esquimalt"/> 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 [[Hypothermia|exposure]] before rescue could be made.<ref name="Lavery"/> The crew of the Canadian [[Minesweeper (ship)|minesweeper]] [[HMCS Esquimalt (J272)|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.familyheritage.ca/Articles/esquimalt1.html |title=Within Sight of Shore: The Sinking of HMCS ''Esquimalt'', 16 April 1945 |access-date=2008-03-26 |last=Fisher |first=Robert C. |year=1997 }}</ref>

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|Benlomond|1922|6}} 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.<ref name="Essentials"/>

A shrapnel-ridden Carley float carried [[Thomas Welsby Clark|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, and was long suspected to have come from [[HMAS Sydney (1934)|HMAS ''Sydney'']], which was lost with all hands under mysterious circumstances off the coast of Australia on 19 November 1941. On the eightieth anniversary of the sinking, the Australian Department of Defence announced [[DNA testing]] had shown the body to be that of Able Seaman [[Thomas Welsby Clark]], a sailor who had been lost with ''Sydney''.<ref>{{cite web | title=Unknown HMAS Sydney II sailor named after 80 years | url=https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/minister/andrew-gee/media-releases/unknown-hmas-sydney-ii-sailor-named-after-80-years | work=Department of Defense Ministries | access-date =2021-11-19}}</ref> A second Carley float, also believed to be from ''Sydney'', was recovered drifting 300&nbsp;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]].<ref name="AWM_Carley"/>

==In fiction==
{{External media
|float=right
|image1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170206111213/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6ad3f6f2 Scene from ''In Which We Serve'']
}}
The 1942 British war film ''[[In Which We Serve]]'' centres on a group of survivors clinging to a Carley float. As they suffer from both the elements and repeated strafing attacks, the story of how they each came to be there is told through a series of flashbacks.<ref>{{Cite book
|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=0-8386-3862-7
}}</ref>

In [[Nicholas Monsarrat|Nicholas Monsarrat's]] 1951 novel ''[[The Cruel Sea (novel)|The Cruel Sea]]'' the survivors of the fictional Royal Navy [[corvette]] ''Compass Rose'' gather on a pair of Carley floats after the ship is torpedoed south of Iceland. The ship has sunk so fast that nothing else is available. The men on one float are led through the night by Commander Ericson; the second by first officer Lockhart. 11 men survive from a crew of 88 before they are rescued by a RN destroyer the next morning.<ref>Nicholas Monsarrat, ''The Cruel Sea'', Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1951, pp. 320-343</ref> This is also portrayed in the [[The Cruel Sea (1953 film)|1953 film]] of the same title.

In the 1964 film ''[[Ensign Pulver]]'', after an altercation on deck during a storm, the captain (played by [[Burl Ives]]) falls overboard in an apparent state of shock. The title character Ensign Pulver ([[Robert Walker (actor, born 1940)|Robert Walker]]), upon finding the captain cannot swim, releases a nearby Carley float as a life preserver. The captain in his state can't swim to the boat, so Ensign Pulver jumps in and pulls the captain onto the liferaft. The two spend some time in the raft together before washing up on an island.

In the 2016 film ''[[USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage]]'' the crew are stranded in South Pacific clinging to square-shaped Carley floats.

==References==
{{Commons category|Carley float}}
{{Reflist}}


[[Category:Lifeboats]]
[[Category:Rescue equipment]]