Man on the Ocean: A Book about Boats and Ships

by R. M. Ballantyne

Several opposing difficulties have now to be met in the construction of ironclads. Invulnerability as regards the enemy’s guns, protection to the men on board, speed, and the quality of being easily managed at sea,—all these points have to be carefully considered; and the difficulty is that one quality wars against another. A ship might be built which was proof against any guns that could be devised, and then might be found utterly unmanageable and unsafe at sea. A balance of qualities has therefore to be struck, and this perfect equipoise has by no means been as yet attained. Every year—we might say every month—witnesses the birth of some new type of armour-plated war-ship, built in every case at an enormous cost. The new sea-monster looks formidable enough in all conscience; but the question that arises the instant she quits the dock is, Is she sea-worthy? And with the fate of the Captain and the Vanguard in our memories, the question may well arise. The story of modern war-ships has, up to this, been one of mingled success and failure. Does not the epigram on our war-ships—our “sub-marine fleet”—owe its point and sting, in a measure, to its truth?

Of the various types of modern war-vessels, the most formidable yet devised are undoubtedly the steam-rams and turret-ships. The steam-ram is armed with a strong steel beak, with which it charges an enemy in much the same way as the war-galleys of ancient times charged a foe, or as a sword-fish attacks its adversary. The turret-ship carries one or more shot-proof circular turrets, in which one or more guns are worked by the crew, the guns being capable of being turned and pointed in any direction. Both turret-ships and steam-rams are, of course, iron plated.

Vessels of this description were first employed by the Americans in the great civil war. The careers of the Merrimac and Monitor may be said to have become a part of American national history. The Merrimac was the first iron-plated steam-ram. She was originally a wooden frigate; was cut down, coated with iron, and furnished with a ram. In her famous encounter with the Congress and the Cumberland, two wooden frigates of the Federals, she steamed alongside the former, delivered a raking fire, and then, turning upon the Cumberland, attacked that vessel with her ram. Of the Cumberland she made quick work; for having torn a gaping rent in her side, she poured a damaging fire into the gap, hanging on by the sharp iron beak with which steam-rams are furnished.

Then withdrawing to a short distance, she again charged her adversary, and delivered a second terrible fire, until the Cumberland finally sank. The Merrimac then turned her attention to the Congress, whose fate she sealed in about half an hour. The first shot caused fearful destruction, killing every man at one of the guns, blowing away the bulk-heads, strewing the deck with a carnage too horrible to dwell upon, and finally setting the ship on fire. The Congress at last struck her colours, but during the night she blew up.

This formidable vessel had subsequently to haul down her colours before the Monitor—in a figurative sense, that is, for she did not actually surrender, but retreated after a contest of some hours. In this notable struggle the Merrimac sustained much damage, without succeeding in inflicting on her enemy anything like the same amount of injury; in fact, the Monitor came out of the action scathless.

The changes that are taking place in the construction of war-ships are so various and so rapid, that we cannot attempt to do more here than take note of a few of the principal; and even what are mentioned as novelties now, before these pages appear may have ceased to be novelties.

Iron is now employed in almost every part of a war-ship, the masts themselves being in many cases of iron—hollow tubes through which the running rigging may be let down when there is danger of its being damaged by the enemy’s fire. The majority of modern ironclads are built in compartments, with this advantage that, if damage is sustained in one part of the vessel, and the water rush in through the gap made by shot or any other cause, the ship will still float until the water can be let out again.

The American ironclad turret-ship Monitor has given her name to a whole class of vessels built within recent years for the English navy; but in many respects our vessels are superior to their American prototype. All these ships—which are characterised by low free-boards and absence of masts and sails—fight their guns from turrets. They are sometimes known as “coast-defence ships,” from the circumstance that they were constructed mainly for home service.

Of these “English monitors,” four—the Cyclops, Gorgon, Hecate, and Hydra—are built on identically similar principles. In appearance they may be best compared to a raft with a battery on top of it, from which fortress or battery rise various funnels and a flag-staff. The deck is but three feet and a half above the level of the sea. While the ships are in port the deck is roofed in with an awning and railed round; but both awning and railing are removed when the vessels put to sea.

The battery or fortress is in the centre of the ship, and fills up about one-third of her length and three-fourths of her breadth. The surrounding deck is flush, its surface being broken only by the skylights, which are three in number. The skylights allow but a scant and dim light to penetrate to the officers’ and seamen’s quarters below; but even this is wanting in time of action, when a shot-proof shield takes the place of the glass windows.