Launch

The movement by which a ship or boat descends from the shore into the water when she is first built, or afterwards. A vessel already in the water cannot be launched; Homer v. The Lady of the Ocean, 70 Me. 352. A large, long, low, fiat-bottomed boat Mar. Diet The long boat of a ship. R. H. Dana. A small vessel emploj'ed to carry the cargo of a large one to and from the shore. The goods on board of a launch are at the risk of the Insurers till landed; Osacar V. Ins. Co., 5 Mart N. S. (La.) 387. The duties and rights of the master of a launch are the same as those of the master of a lighter. When the master of a vessel agreed to take cotton on board his vessel from the cottonpress, and employed a steam-lighter for that purpose, and the cotton was lost by an explosion of the steam-boiler of the lighter, it was held tliat his vessel was liable in rem for the loss; 23 Dost. L. Rep. 277.