Rescue apparatus: coiled rocket line

3D Model

An original notebook where Henry Trengrouse compiled evidence of the need for special life-saving equipment, and descriptions of his inventions for making it.

The Anson wrecked on the shore of Gunwalloe parish was one of half a dozen ‘H.M. Ships’ tragedies Trengrouse referred to, where hundreds of lives were lost ‘through the want of a rope communication’. To get a rope aboard he proposed that a rocket bearing a line could be fired, using a gun.

Trengrouse noted that lines could be stored ready on a pin in a box; an idea subsequently developed to produce the systematic stowage seen here.

3D scanned by Tom Goskar (@tomgoskar) as part of the Wreck and Rescue at Gunwalloe project commissioned by Cornwall Archaeological Unit (CAU) and funded by Historic England to mark the 50th anniversary of the Protection of Wrecks Act, 1973.