White Jacket Chapter XVII - Away! Second, Third, and Fourth Cutters, Away!

In which the crew discovers a barnacle-encrusted life-buoy adrift at sea, prompting reflections on the contrasting attentions to human safety between men-of-war and merchant vessels. Then, faced with the urgent alarm of a man fallen overboard, the ship’s company launches a desperate and fruitless search, mourning the loss of one whose own duff life-buoys proved pitiful safeguards against the deep.