Ship puzzle

[Top-of-the-hill]

   My mother travelled with her elderly employers to India in 1937. When writing to her father from Ceylon, she says "(her wealthy host's) launch took us off the boat and his car met us and brought us here."
    I have been trying to visualise how this would have been done, and can't rid myself of the vision of an elderly lady on a ladder! Any better suggestions welcome.

[Erato]

She'd get into the launch and then they'd lower it over the side with davits and pulleys.  Either that, or they swung her down in a bosun's chair.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Would they raise the launch up on to the ship? I can't see a bosun's chair being acceptable! It seems like a great performance - the gang plank might have been easier.

[PaulineJ]

Or they had a parallel gangway, lowered to launch level.

https://www.marineinsight.com/know-more/gangway-and-types-of-gangways-used-in-the-shipping-world/

[majm]

It may also have been possible that the ship had a bulwark (not sure if this is the correct term) just above 'water level' with access so a tender launch vessel could come alongside and a short gangway ramp then be run across to provide access perhaps just one slight raised step up and then one back down from the ship to the tender-launch. 

JM

[antiquesam]

All ships in that period had a gangway of steps lowered down the side of the ship to a small platform at the water level. This was particularly necessary on ships carrying passengers where they were unable to tie up to a quay.

[Top-of-the-hill]

 
   "All ships in that period had a gangway of steps lowered down the side of the ship to a small platform at the water level. This was particularly necessary on ships carrying passengers where they were unable to tie up to a quay."


Thanks for all your answers - as soon as I saw the picture of the steps down the side of a ship, it all fell into place! (In a manner of speaking.)