The first submarine which achieved any measure of success was that of David Bushnell, an American, who devised it in the hope of blowing up a British warship and failed egregiously. Bushnell, who was born at Saybrook, Conn., in 1742, devoted a large amount of attention to submarine warfare. His idea was to fix a small powder magazine to the bottom of a vessel and explode it by means of a clockwork apparatus. He constructed a tortoise-shaped diving boat, made of iron, and containing sufficient air to support a man for half an hour. This boat, called the American Turtle, was propelled by a sort of screw or oar worked from inside. It could be immersed by admitting water through a valve in the bottom, and lightened by pumping the water out again. She was tried, without success, against the British warship Eagle in New York harbour, and a later attack on the Cerberus left that frigate unharmed, but blew up an American schooner and some of her crew.
The Gemini twin steamer, invented by Mr. Peter Borrie, was a double-hulled boat, launched in the summer of 1850. The keels and stems were not placed in the centre of the hulls but towards the inside of them, thus making the water-lines very fine on the inside. This was intended to diminish the tendency of the water to rise between the hulls. The inner bilges were much fuller than the outer ones, the idea being to afford a greater degree of buoyancy on the inside, in order to support the weight of the deck. The steamer was 157¹⁄₂ feet long over all, and 26¹⁄₂ feet broad on deck. Each hull was 8¹⁄₂ feet broad, with a space 9¹⁄₂ feet between them. The frames were of angle iron, and the keels were formed by carrying the plates downwards, so as to form channels for the bilge-water inside the hulls. This arrangement was intended for river craft of this type, but for sea-going vessels drawing more water the inventor planned keels of iron bars, with the garboard-strakes riveted upon them in the customary way. The plating was not carried to the top of the frames on the inner side of the hulls, except at the space in the middle for the paddle-wheel, but was carried up to the deck, thus forming an arch between the two hulls, which were bound together with stays. The hulls were divided into water-tight compartments. The vessel was two-ended and could travel in either direction without turning. There was a rudder at each end, placed in the centre of the opening between the two hulls. It was constructed somewhat in the manner of the balanced rudder of later years, as it was affixed, to a vertical shaft in such a way that it was divided into two unequal parts, and when left free would accommodate itself to the vessel’s motion. The steamer was estimated to carry from 800 to 1000 passengers.
Whether in the sailing days or since, the crossing of the Channel between Dover and Calais has been attended with an amount of misery altogether disproportionate to the shortness of the voyage. It is therefore not surprising that inventors have at one time and another attempted to design vessels which should give the maximum of speed and comfort and the minimum of sea-sickness. The English Channel Steamship Company, Limited, was formed in 1872 to adopt the plan of a steam-ship designed by Captain Dicey, and construct the steam-ship Castalia. His idea was that two large hulls should be used, and placed at such a distance apart that each should act as an outrigger to the other, and the whole structure should remain comparatively steady. The Castalia was built by the Thames Iron Works Company. She was 400 feet long, and each hull had a beam of 20 feet, with a depth of hold of 20 feet. The distance between the two hulls was 35 feet, and they were united by strong girders. The hulls were very sharp at the ends, and flat in the floors, and the draught of water was only 6 feet. The inner sides of the hulls had a freeboard of 14 feet, and the uniting girders were slightly arched, but a difference in the methods of fixing them to the hull was made, compared with previous experience with double-hulled vessels. In former attempts to solve the problem of the navigation of twin steamers, the connecting beams had usually been placed in such a way that their ends extended under the decks of the hulls. This in the case of wood was manifestly a plan which did not permit of a very large vessel or of a certain limit of strength being exceeded. Captain Dicey’s scheme in adopting the arched form of girder was to utilise to the utmost the strength of the iron, and bind with the utmost rigidity the whole structure together. Where the girders entered the hulls the upper part was just under the deck; the girders were carried right across to the outer sides of each hull, additional strength being provided by bolting every girder to a bulkhead. The space between the hulls was decked over, and allowed ample accommodation for passengers. Each hull carried a powerful engine for driving a large paddle-wheel, the wheels being placed with a space between them amidships between the two vessels. The vessel could be steered at either end, thus obviating the necessity of turning, and a navigating bridge extended across the tops of the two paddle-boxes. It was even claimed that the ship would be large enough to carry railway trains across the Channel, but this does not seem to have been tried. As she drew only a trifle over 6 feet of water she could enter the harbours on either side of the Channel at any state of the tide, and though she was steady enough as a sea boat she was too slow, and was withdrawn from service.
A double-hulled boat of a somewhat different type, and from which great things were expected, was the Calais-Douvres. Her principal features were to be an increase in speed and stability, and by means of the steadiness of her double hull, the abolition of sea-sickness. She was an enlarged Castalia. The expectation of her owners on these points was not realised and after a few trips she was withdrawn from service and replaced by another and more efficient vessel of the ordinary type.
To the category of magnificent failures there should be added the steam-ship Bessemer, launched at Hull in 1874 and designed by and named after Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Bessemer. The object her designer had in view was to mitigate the horrors of the cross-Channel passage, and to accomplish this he fitted his boat with a spacious saloon which, by means of a series of pivots and a gyroscope, would remain in a level position without oscillation, no matter how much the vessel might roll or how rough the weather might be. These arrangements worked perfectly in theory, but immediately the Bessemer went to sea for her trials and the test became a practical one, it was discovered that she must be relegated to a conspicuous place among the successes that might have been. Everything about her was on a lavish scale. A peculiarity was that she had four paddle-wheels, two a side, an experiment that has never been successful. Her form also was against her, and in dirty weather she would have been a wet ship, difficult to steer, and almost helpless.
On her private trial trip the Bessemer attained a speed of eleven knots in crossing from Dover to Calais, but was thirty-five minutes in getting alongside the French pier.
One of the most extraordinary vessels ever designed was that known as the Connector. She was not rigid, but was built of sections which could be joined together, so that she would bend in accord with the motion of the waves. The joints were constructed by giving to the after end of all sections (but the last) a concave form so that it would overlap the convex bow of the adjoining section. These were joined and hinged by massive iron bolts resting in stout wrought-iron sponsons built into the ship’s sides and framework. If necessary one of the sections could be disconnected and the other three joined up. As each section was fitted with a fore and aft rig, like a cutter, it could make its way under sail alone if necessary. The engine was contained in the hindmost section, which really pushed the other three along. She was intended to be used as an iron screw collier in the London and North-East coast coal trade. Each section was to act as a lighter, and could be left where desired, while the others were sent to their respective destinations, to be picked up again in turn when it was desired to reunite the vessel, and send her for another cargo. The advantage claimed for this peculiar system was that vessels of very light draught, and of length far greater than hitherto and carrying the largest cargoes, might be used without the danger of breaking their backs, or even straining, the yielding of the joints neutralising that liability; also that their great length, light draught, and narrow midship section, permitted unprecedented speed, while the facility for detaching part of the vessel in case of collision, fire, sudden leakage, or grounding with a falling tide, would afford a means of saving life and a portion of hull and cargo, when otherwise all would be lost. A company called the Jointed Ship Company was formed to exploit this novelty in ship construction. Like other experimental schemes it was not a success, the theory of the designers and the practice of Father Neptune not being in accord.
The Winans cigar ship, as her name indicates, was shaped like a huge cigar. Messrs. Winans began experimenting in the ’fifties at Baltimore with a view to ascertaining the amount of water-friction sustained by surfaces of differing smoothness at various speeds, the relative resistance of proportions and speeds, and whether any advantages were to be gained from spindle-shaped vessels as compared with ordinary vessels. These experiments resulted in the launching in October 1858 at Ferry Bay, Baltimore, of a spindle- or cigar-shaped vessel having about its middle a ring bearing flanges set at an angle calculated to strike the water and propel the vessel. She had four powerful engines placed amidships, and rudders at both ends measuring 4 feet by 3 feet. She was 16 feet in diameter at the widest part and 180 feet long, and it was expected she would cross the Atlantic in four days; she belied those expectations. The owners stated that she was designed “to obtain greater safety, despatch, uniformity, certainty of action, as well as economy of exportation by sea.” They believed that “by discarding sails entirely, and all the necessary appendages, and building the vessel of iron, having reference to the use of steam alone, these most desirable ends may be even still more fully attained than by vessels using both sails and steam.” They continue: “The vessel we are now constructing has no keel, no cutwater, no blunt bow standing up above the water-line to receive blows from the heaving sea, no flat deck to hold or bulwark to retain the water; neither masts, spars, nor rigging.” The plan and position of the propelling wheel were supposed to be such that its minimum hold of the water would be much greater in proportion to tonnage than the maximum hold of the propelling wheel or wheels in ordinary steamers. The engines were high pressure with a cut-off variable from one-sixth to full stroke; combined, they were to exert threefold more power in proportion to displacement of water than those of the most powerful steam-packets then built. Her boilers were of the locomotive type, consuming 30 tons of coal in twenty-four hours, the smoke, &c., being carried away by two funnels. She was divided into several water-tight compartments. With 200 tons of coal on board she was to displace about 350 tons of water, and accommodate about twenty first-class passengers and the United States mail, with room to spare for small valuable packages, specie, &c. The same principles and properties which were to adapt the vessel to high average speed were claimed to be also adapted to the cheap, safe and sure transportation of freight as compared with vessels using sails only or sails and steam combined. There was a railed-in space on her upper surface for the deck.
Messrs. Winans’ first cigar ship, though not fulfilling all the hopes formed of her, was, on the whole, sufficiently successful to encourage the continuance of the experiments, for in the two following years she was severely tested both for speed and seaworthiness in all sorts of weather. Another vessel was built at St. Petersburg in 1861 with a submerged screw propeller at the stern, which gave so much more satisfactory results than the revolving belt apparatus that Messrs. Winans were encouraged to order a third spindle ship. This was built by Mr. John Hepworth of the Isle of Dogs, and was named after her inventor, Mr. Ross Winans. This boat was 256 feet in length with a diameter and depth of 16 feet, and was circular in form throughout. The top of the vessel was strengthened for 130 feet amidships by four longitudinal ribs of steel which supported the deck, and also rendered the top as strong to resist tension and other strains as the bottom. Internally there were iron ribs running round the vessel 4 inches deep and 3 feet apart in the engine and boiler room, and 7 inches deep and spaced 6 feet elsewhere. The bottom and side plates were of iron, were thicker amidships than at the end, while the bottom was further strengthened and protected outside the skin plates by a plate of iron 1 inch thick and 33 inches across at its widest and diminishing to a point at the ends. The skin plates of the top were of toughened steel ³⁄₈ inch thick amidships. The two screw propellers, one at either end, were 22 feet in diameter and were only half immersed in the water, though it is difficult to imagine what advantages were supposed to be gained by incomplete immersion, seeing that the exposed part represented so much dead weight to be carried, to say nothing of the other drawbacks. A space 48 feet 6 inches long amidships was devoted to the engines and boilers. Each of the four boilers had a fire-box, and was surmounted by two vertical cylinders containing vertical tubes; while the centre portions of the boilers were tubeless to allow of more ready cleaning and a better circulation. A fan increased the draught and also the ventilation of the ship. The engines were surface-condensing. The problem of allowing the longest possible stroke was ingeniously solved. Above each of the three jacketed steam cylinders was a shaft, carrying two cranks and working by the sides of the cylinder, the piston-rods passing the shaft and connecting with a cross-head above, which was connected with the cranks by two rods. The three engines were joined by a system of return cranks and a peculiar coupling, which prevented cross-strains from the transmission of power from engine to engine, and from the shafts of the different engines getting out of line. The ship could carry coal for twelve days at normal consumption. On deck it carried two masts and two funnels, all having a considerable rake aft.
In 1860, Captain George Peacock, F.R.G.S., formerly a London merchant, and then residing near Exeter, invented a yacht in the shape of a swan. Her title, the Swan of the Exe, was displayed on a banneret, the brass rod of which was held in the swan’s beak. This mechanical bird was 17 feet 6 inches in length, with a maximum beam of 7 feet 6 inches, and its height from the keel to the top of the back was 7 feet 3 inches. Its neck and head, which were gracefully curved, rose 16 feet above the water. Its long neck had to do duty as a mast for supporting by means of halliards the two wings, each of which consisted of a double lateen sail. The halliards passed through gilt pendant blocks, attached to a ring, fastened round the neck just below the head. The vessel itself consisted of twin boats beneath the water-line, there being an oblong compartment in the centre, though viewed from the front or side it appeared to consist of one hull only. She had two powerful webbed and feathering feet, constructed of steel, to propel her. These were placed between the keels or hulls, and worked by a lever attached to a contrivance such as is seen on old-fashioned hand fire-engines, operated by two or four persons as required. With two oars which she could also carry, her fishtail-shaped rudder, her feet, and her wings, she could get up a speed before the wind of five miles an hour. She was only intended for ornamental waters or inland lakes. Her interior fittings suggested those of a first-class railway carriage, with plate-glass windows at the sides, &c. Her centre table was big enough for ten persons to dine comfortably at, and at night it could accommodate a mattress upon which to sleep. A description of her at the time adds: “In the table are small apertures which open to the water underneath, and thus afford the opportunity of fishing while sitting at table. Any aquatic prey thus obtained may be dressed in a multum-in-parvo cooking apparatus on board, the smoke from which is conveyed through the bird’s neck, and out at its nostrils. In the breast of the bird is a ladies’ cabin fitted up as a boudoir.” The Swan was of about 5 tons register, and when fully stored and carrying 15 persons, only drew 17 inches of water. About the only thing of which the inventor had not thought was to make one eye green and the other red, to represent ship’s lights.