††A lifeboat is a boat specially equipped for rescuing people at sea. In 1785 an Englishman, Lionel Lukin, was granted a patent for an 'insubmergible boat'. It was a flat-bottomed boat with added buoyancy tanks. Lukin used his boat to rescue those in danger in the sea off North-East England. An early lifeboat appeared in 1819, the brainchild of American Joseph Francis. The design included hydrogen tanks for buoyancy. In 1838 he modified his invention so that it could be attached to the shore by a cable.
