Although an influential company was formed to work the Bessemer and other vessels embodying her novel features, which it was thought might follow, she was virtually abandoned after one or two trials across the Channel. Her failure was assumed without exhaustive and conclusive trials being made of the many novelties embodied in her construction, some of which were obviously of an experimental character. This is the more to be regretted because of the beneficent issues involved in the project, and also in some degree because of the extent to which the faith of some intrepid and experienced men was pledged to its success. Nevertheless, it was always a matter of grave doubt, even when the fullest measure of mechanical success was allowed for, whether the idea of the pivoted saloon was calculated to secure that immunity from the effects of ship motion in a seaway, for which the celebrated patentee felt induced to hope.
It is maintained by many who profess to have given the subject attention, that sea-sickness in its most virulent forms, and in the majority of instances, is less attributable to the transverse and longitudinal oscillations—known respectively, as the “rolling” and “pitching” motions—than to the vertical movement termed “dipping,” which in its descent from the summit of one wave until upborne by the wave next following, the vessel undergoes. Now, this is a condition for which, in the Bessemer project, there was no provision, nor indeed well can be under any circumstances, save in the simple but costly expedient of adding to the dimensions or bulk of vessels, irrespective of form. The Czar of Russia’s yacht Livadia, built some years ago, exemplified in her extraordinary dimensions and great bulk the truth of such reasoning. The actual rolling and pitching of this remarkable vessel, as observed in the height of a gale in the Bay of Biscay, and in the midst of very heavy seas, was exceeding small. This never exceeded four degrees for the single roll, or seven degrees for the double roll, nor beyond five degrees for the forward pitch, or nine degrees for the double pitch, so to speak. This horizontal steadiness appeared to experts, who were on board at the time, most remarkable, and Sir E. J. Reed, in a communication to the Times, commented amongst other things on the agreeableness of the contrast the voyage on the Livadia afforded, with his experience of voyaging at sea in ordinary ships.
After all, it must be acknowledged that attempts hitherto made to obviate the evils of sea-sickness by novelty in design fall very far short of attaining the beneficent results sought after. The Bessemer, the Livadia, the Calais-Douvres, and other unique craft primarily conceived with regard to this end, are now, it would seem, exemplifying in their latter fate the futility of the endeavour. Such attempts, however ill-advised they may possibly appear in the light of the knowledge their very failure or their partial successes yield, have still their creditable and praiseworthy aspects. The spirit which has prompted some of them is not wholly one of money-making, and their histories enrich the general fund of experience far more than libraries of untried theories. Shipowners are too ready to shut their minds against everything which seeks the acme of comfort and safety by other means than those which guarantee economical success, or those which consist in increasing the size and power, and enhancing the accommodation of conventional types of vessels. These novelties and innovations, on the other hand, represent more of the intrepidity essential to genuine advancement than is forthcoming in a thousand merchant ships of the conventional type.
Happily the need for such enterprise as is involved in at once departing from tried types, has within recent years been largely, if not altogether, obviated, through improved procedure in the work of design. The more thoroughly analytic process of investigation and experiment now in vogue, greatly curtails the number of novelties introduced, or which reach the constructive stage. Many present-day projects never get beyond the “paper stage,” which in times not so far distant would have spelled out “failure” to the very last letter. Since the system of model experiment has begun to be practised in a reliable manner, and since theoretical prediction generally has become better appreciated, over-sanguine inventors have been spared the penalties of failure in actual practice, and ingenuity has been reclaimed or warned away from channels that would inevitably have proved chimerical.
List of Papers bearing on the safety and comfort of modern steamships, to which readers desiring fuller acquaintance with the technique and details of the subjects are referred:—
On the Necessity of Fitting Passenger Ships with Sufficient Watertight Bulkheads, by Mr Lawrance Hill: Trans. Inst. N.A., vol. xiv., 1873.
On Water and Fire-tight Compartments in Ships, by Mr Thomas May: Trans. Inst. N.A., vol. xiv., 1873.
On Causes of Unseaworthiness in Merchant Steamers, by Mr Benjamin Martell: Trans. Inst. N.A., vol. xxi., 1880.
On Modern Merchant Steamers, by Mr James Dunn: Trans. Inst. Naval Architects, vol. xxiii, 1882.