Antique Lifeboat Water Barrel from a Liberty Ship. Authentic WWII era lifeboat water cask or keg constructed of white oak staves in natural finish. Six galvanized iron hoops, with two formed as feet to keep the cask upright. Single bail handle with wood grip on top. Brass filling bung with a brass water-tight screw cap is fitted on top, with a brass spigot on one end for dispensing the contents. Small hole on other end. Would hold 5 gallons of liquid. This particular design had been in use since before the Civil War on both sides of the Atlantic to distribute water below decks and as safety equipment aboard lifeboats, but in Britain it was also used for collecting the daily rum ration (or grog), prior to the abolition of this practice in 1970. 

Overall: 20 X 10 1/2 in. 

#7142 . 

Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Although British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass-produced on an unprecedented scale, the Liberty ship came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. The class was developed to meet British orders for transports to replace ships that had been lost. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945 (an average of three ships every two days), the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design. Their production mirrored (albeit on a much larger scale) the manufacture of the “Hog Islanders” and similar standardized ship types during World War I. The Liberty ships also had the distinction of being the last to use old-fashioned wooden water kegs, both in the galleys and aboard lifeboats, as ships built in the post-War era transitioned primarily to plastic and waterproof fabrics. The immensity of the effort, the number of ships built, and the role of female workers in their construction have become legendary among seafarers and ship enthusiasts. The survival of some for far longer than their original five-year design life (four of them are still in operation as of 2024, though mostly as harbor-bound museums) make them the subject of much continued interest for nautical engineers and collectors of military memorabilia as well.