The joys of colloquialisms. Not all Higgins boats were produced by Higgins. Not all Xeroxes came from Xerox machines. I’ve come across official documentation that gets things wrong, so it’s possible you’re both correct, in a sense.
Mike,
Hi. May I ask you about your comment of “And the USCG Cape Class patrol boats did cary Carley floats.”
You say those were Carley Floats? Would you happen to have, or access to documents stating what material they were made from?
The article did state that the balsa rafts came into use in 1943, so prior to that it is obvious genuine Carley Floats were in use by US forces. But by 1943 the US ship/boat/watercraft production was just so prolific that I can see a cheap and easier to produce substitute would take precedence over the older style. And if sailors had been calling them by one familiar term, why would they stop just because the innards were different? They still looked the same to them.
I like the term “floater nets” as that pretty much sums it all up. Thanks, Mike.
Lee, …
If you were to ask me, your points are plausible and laudable and I agree with you, but is there any documentation to support it?
I wouldn’t where to look. It is just common sense to me.
Here is a link to a page at White Ensign that calls them floater nets and carley floats:
Well, … according to people like the ones you see here who are some of my ardent detractors, there must be documentation to support even the most common sense type of things, or else, you aren’t supposed to be taken seriously.
Would you like to assist me in digging into this … you can do my legwork …
I’ll take a stab at it for you, Garth, but I’m not promising you anything.
And … That’s all I can ask of you Lee … and I’ll tell you I appreciate your help. What was your rank in the Navy? My father and grandfather were both CPOs. And, I believe my father made it to Master Chief.
That’s interesting. Though, the person who wrote that review is not named. And I did see where both terms were used.
And, it said FLOATING NET BASKET - which - at least to me anyway - that what ‘drops down’ in the center was made from a canvas netting - whereas the Carley Floats/balsa rafts had wooden stripes which dropped down when the raft was in the water, right?
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…
[whstl]
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.
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:
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.