Question About Carley Floats

The  "basket" referred to in the website is the rack attached to the ship to contain the floater net until needed.

I left the Navy after my first enlistment as a Quartermaster 2nd class. I went on to retire from Navy Civil Service after 40 years total service.

OK, which one is the carley float?  (The orange legs on the bottom photo are supports to allow display and not part of the float)

I don't have the credentials to add much to this discussion, but I got curious about the term and Googled it. Here's the Wikipedia article to which Google linked me:  en.wikipedia.org/.../Carley_float .

It's a short article, but it does tell us who Mr. Carley was.  And it says "several navies" used Carley floats in both world wars.  And the genuine Carley float is older than I thought.

It's pretty clear that - despite the fact that Mr. Carley patented his invention - not every float (or raft) that people called a "Carley float" was manufactured by the Carley Life Float Company of Philadelphia.  I have the impression that "carley float" turned into a generic term for "liferaft" - and, not surprisingly, got used that way by all sorts of people in all sorts of documents.  That being the case, I'd suggest that the use of the term in just about any document doesn't mean much - and if we use the term interchangeably with "liferaft" we have plenty of precedent.

There ya go, Prof, using logic and common sense...

And, after all of this, I was convinced that Mr. Carley was an Englishman for some reasson.

Here is something that I found. It is the regulations and  requirements for lifeboats and life rafts during WWII.

Section 153.4 pertains to floats. Although carley floats aren't referred to by name, they would fall under the same reqs. as balsa floats except as to construction requirements. I wish that I could find the entire document as I would like to see the diagrams.

http://www.usmm.org/lifeboat.html

I confess I also had the notion that it was a British term.   Maybe because the first time I saw it was on an Airfix instruction sheet.

The bibliography for that Wikipedia entry contains some interesting links, including one to Mr. Carley's original patent application and drawings.  It's clear that the genuine, original Carley float did indeed have a core of copper tubing (though the patent application just specifies "sheet metal").  There's also a reference to a collapsible float that Mr. Carley had patented earlier.

Hello JTILLEY,

So, please let me see if I understand you correctly, you're saying that a raft/float/what-have-you could have been manufactured by a - let's say - midwestern furniture company (meaning a company not known to  make something that they were not known for ... like Oldsmobile manufacturing the automatic 37mm cannon), that raft or float could be called a Carley Float - even though it's not?  

So, my calling them that in my Revell book was not, necessarily, an error on my part?

If I understood you correctly?  May I quote you?

To answer your question above, Garth:

http://fromemuseum.org/notts_industries.html

And scroll down to page 2 of this PDF file and check out the names of three Australian manufacturers of these rafts:

http://www.awm.gov.au/Encyclopedia/hmas_sydney/carleyfloat.pdf

Lee,

Again, thank you ...

See?  I do know some stuff ...

Garth,

What I'm saying is that lots of people over the decades have used the phrase "Carley float" generically, interchangeably with "life raft."  I'm not in the habit of pronouncing people "right" or "wrong," but you've got plenty of eminently respectable company.

So, I was not - as it has been put forth I am - wrong in my referring to a liferaft float as a carley float?  Interesting ...

"YOU'VE GOT PLENTY OF EMINENTLY RESPECTABLE COMPANY"?  Who would some of they be?

The phrase "you've got plenty of eminently respectable company" was intended as a slightly facetious reference to the people who wrote the various documents Garth (and other Forum members) have mentioned.  I don't know enough about the subject to be more specific.

I do hope this thread isn't going to get emotional.  The subject is an interesting one, and worth discussing, but surely not worth getting upset about one way or another.

Well, probably a list of people more than willing to buy you a round of beer given the chance.  If, possibly, not in a way that would make for a concise foot or end note in style book-recognized citation form.

Now, floater-nets--which were loaded into baskets--on USN ships are not Carley floats.  They are assemblies which look much like cargo nets, excepting the spacing is adapted to have disks of buoyant material interspersed in the grid of lines.  Much as the Carley float was intended, they were to be a stop-gap flotsam that would survive minor damage, and be self-releasing in case of foundering.

However, in practice, they had many shortcomings.  Like coming astray in their baskets due to waves, or wind or the like.  Painting them to match camouflage meant they would not be buoyant.  Further, to keep the weight & cost down, natural materials like cork, balsa, even kapok for the flotation disks were used.  All of which would lose buoyancy after being exposed to rain, waves, ice and the like.  Which could not be tested except by tossing them into the water.  The item was a hold-over from the leaner years between the wars.  Which is why most vessel also had stockpiles of the much larger life rafts, which may or may not have been built to Carely patent design.

Just by documentary evidence there was a large standard size, which was used on every thing from DD to BB to AP & AK--all of which would be too large for the foredeck of a PT.  Also, were there a range of such floats, the documentation-obsessed US military establishment would have printed at least one document on the topic (think of the numbers of landing craft publications that exist).

Now, I want to remember some pre-internet controversy over whether or not PTs were designed to carry a liferaft, or if one was just provided out of yard/base supplies.

But, what do I know?  I'm just an O5 with 2¢; person wanting a happy meal will need another $4.
But. I'd elbow a space at the bar and spot any in the thread a beer if opportunity and desire allowed.

JTILLEY ...

No ... this thread will not become emotional.

CAPNMAC, make it a bourbon or mojito and you've got me for a friend for life.......

Now back to business:

John Lambert emailed me today ....

This is what he said:

"I don't know how definitive this answer will be view as, however, John Lambert, in an email this morning told me:

"Hi Tim (and all on this Carly Float line)!

The Carley float was designed in the U.S.A. but soon copied all over the world as it was a cheap alternative to emergency ships boats.  Some were indeed made of lightweight Balsa, but most I suggest were copper tubes welded together, giving watertight sections, covered with canvas and painted to suit."

Garth - I'd say let the right/wrong thing drop and just leave it as a learning experience for all parties.

With regards to manufacturers, keep in mind that the US Military quite often contracts out designs to the lowest bidder.  I mentioned "Higgins Boats" before - a colloquial term for for landing craft. However, there were several manufacturers of the design, even though the original came from Higgins Industries. Chris Craft built the small-ramped LCPR, for example.  General Motors built the Grumman Avenger, and three different companies built the Corsair fighter.

The same sort of thing happened with all sorts of weapons.  As I understand it, a number of companies produced Jeeps to the Willis design.  And the North American Aviation plant in Columbus, Ohio (where I grew up) made "Curtiss" Helldivers.

Given that, in extremis, you need to rescue 15-17 and keep them dry, having a hard-side wherry/skiff/punt that holds 6-7 (and oft shown inverted over the after deckhouse), a "wet" Carley float for the remaining ten might be less-than ideal.  This logic might not have stopped a fitting-yard or forward-operating base/tender from equipping its "Ron" with such floats.

Only size I have been able to generate with google-fu is 10 x 7.5 x 2.5 which does not much match the size available on the foredecl of Higgins or Elco Peter Tares.  But, I could be wrong--i could be influence by one too many dinky kits built hastily four decades ago.

This remains a fascinating discussion, though.  I'll but Garth down for knob Creek and a branch back, too <g>

Well Capn I'll jump in where angels fear to tread. The APA I was on had a crew of around 450 and could have accommodated around 1200 troops for a total of 1700. We carried 26 boats but only 4 could have been launched if the ship lost power and that would have been cut to two if the ship had started to list.

Now we also did carry around 26 life rafts. These were the size you mention and were to the best of my knowledge balsa wrapped in canvas. They were never called Carley Floats, always referred to as life rafts. They were secured with cables with hydrostatic releases so they would pop up if the ship sank. If the gripes on the boats were released some of those might also have floated off and been able to be used. But between the rafts and available boats there is no way we could have saved 1700 people based on the rated capacity of each. BTW we never had the floater nets that you speak of.

When we were in for a shipyard overhaul the life rafts were tested by putting them in the water. Any that didn't float at the proper level were discarded and more were drawn from stock. I guess there were plenty left over from WWII. There was a program underway to replace the balsa rafts with inflatable rubber rafts but my ship never got them.

Amphib

Message received Tracy.  And, understood Good Sir.

My father said that he was a Cox'n on a LCVP and then, a 45-foot ASRC in VA before he was sent to the Pacific and ended up on SC-699.

He said he rode out a hurricane on the 45-footer.

Floater nets only lasted through WWII, the standardized liferafts being more reliable, and requiring much less attention from the Deck Department..

I bit more google-fu comes up with some references to there being three standard sizes, which will nest together three at a time.  Not that dimensions get mentioned, or any such useful thing.

Even more frustrating, somewhere, recently (within the last week) there was a beautiful color photo of an AK loading up landing craft.  The AK's rails are lined with two-deep (IIRC) liferaft, and the Measure 32 (I think) is carried right across the life rafts (and at least one of the LC).  Dang, i wish I could find that url again.

That's common; the pattern camouflage was to be carried over rafts. Occasionally you'll see a photo where a raft has shifted and is somewhat out-of-line with the camouflage.

Gack, what I meant was that it looked like they had added a significant number of floats to the AK's rails.  Which suggesting of being tasked with more personnel than were in the 'normal' load out of an AK.

What I failed to fill in in actual text (ex nihilo nihil fit) was that it looked like some of the rail-edge rafts had taken a bump from a being-swung out LC.  Which was probably very exciting at the time (and likely demonstrated at least one CPO's vocabulary of profane invective).

Other stupid part is that I started to save the image for the next time some one wanted to know the definitive paint color for landing craft--three visible, and not one matches the other.

Sigh, one more instance of my being mas stupido ChoSa Baka.

Yeup, CPOs have a great handle on profanity .................