life-arrow

noun

life-arrow

noun

1

Historical A stick with a line attached that was fired from a musket to a ship that had foundered.

Colonel Delvigne, of the French army, invented a life-arrow, to be fired from an ordinary musket.1885, Chambers's New Handy Volume American Encyclopædia:
Numerous life-arrows, kites and similar devices have been invented to carry lines to wrecked vessels, but none has proved superior to the Lyle gun.1897, Day Otis Kellogg, New American Supplement to the Latest Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica:

1 more example

There was a contrivance for rendering the rope visible to the crew, and another to assist those on shore to descry the exact position of the ship in distress. The life-arrow, a cue-shaped stick of mahogany, with the thinner end projecting beyond the end of the barrel, is fired from an ordinary musket, and can carry 80 yards with a mackerel line attached.1912, Frederick Converse Beach, George Edwin Rines, The Americana:

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