Such are the vessels contemplated to supersede the existing Dover and Calais packets. Although the Castalia has not realised the anticipated speed, and the Bessemer has been found altogether unsuitable for the service for which she was built, it would be premature to condemn even her as a failure, while the Castalia, from the comparative comfort she affords, is daily increasing in public favour. I have not, however, hesitated to furnish my readers with full particulars of these vessels, because they are interesting from their novelty, and no great strides have, hitherto, been made, as we have seen, in the art of ship-building or in the mode of propulsion, without the aid of men, who have been bold enough to enter on novel and, frequently, very costly experiments.
The cigar ship built at Baltimore, 1858.
Similar ship built on the Thames in 1864.
In these novelties, the Americans have, during recent years, taken the lead, and, on this subject, I cannot omit to mention one of the greatest maritime curiosities of this age, the cigar ship built at Baltimore in 1858 by Messrs. Winans of that city,[457] who also, subsequently, built another somewhat similar vessel on the Thames. Her model in all respects resembled a cigar, or, in other words, she is a great iron tube tapering away to a point at each end, and presenting perhaps the strongest possible form for a ship, her deck being merely the arc of a circle, on which were riveted staunchions for rails, and between these a raised platform with seats on each side. She had neither keel nor cutwater, and, in the language of the inventors, there was “No blunt bow standing up above the water-line to receive blows from heavy seas, no flat deck to hold, or close bulwark (as in the case of ordinary vessels) to retain the water that a rough sea may cast upon the vessel; neither mast, spars, nor rigging.” “The absence of sails,” they add, “not only renders the parts thus abandoned by us useless, but their abandonment in such a vessel as ours, will, we believe, most materially promote safety, easy movement, or diminished strain of vessels in rough weather; will save dead or nonpaying weight, insure simplicity and economy of construction, and will give greater speed in smooth water, less diminution of speed in rough water as well as diminished resistance in moving power at all speeds in all water, and result in shortening the average time of making sea voyages. The length of our vessel,” they continue, “is more than eleven times its breadth of beam, being 16 feet broad and 180 feet long. This whole length is made available to secure water-lines, which are, materially, more favourable to fast speed, and also to diminished resistance to moving power of all speeds, than the water-lines of any of the sea-going steamers now built, the best of which, looking to speed and ease of movement, have a length of only eight times their breadth of beam: the portion of our vessel not immersed, has the same lines as that immersed, so that it will pass through the heaviest sea; while, from its form and construction, no water can be shipped that will sensibly affect the load, or endanger the safety of the vessel, which may, we believe, be propelled at its highest speed in rough weather with an impunity which is far from being attainable with vessels as now built, to be propelled wholly or in part by sails.”
She was fitted with high pressure engines, and her boilers were on the principle of those used in railway locomotives. With regard to the propelling power it was a very novel application of the screw, being a ring to which blades were attached at certain angles to strike the water, the ring being itself made to revolve round the vessel with great rapidity by the engines fitted in the centre of the vessel; but Messrs. Winans do not furnish any further explanation beyond stating that “Its position is such that its minimum hold of the water will be much greater in proportion to the tonnage of the vessel than the maximum hold of the propelling wheel or wheels in ordinary steam-ships.” In the [illustration] to which I have referred there will be found cross and longitudinal sections of this curious vessel.
Perkins’s economical steam-engine,
These “cigar” ships appear to have failed through want of sufficient stability, or, more especially, on account of the novel and complicated character of their machinery, yet the facility with which they can be driven through the water may suggest a clue to further improvement in the construction of ships or at least in their form. There is, frequently, only a narrow line between the sublime and the ridiculous, and, in the scheme of a madman (called mad because he proposes something apparently wild and useless), there may be found the germ of really useful and grand inventions. Such fancies, therefore, ought not, in all cases, to be cast aside with contempt, even though they may create a smile from their novelty. Columbus was pronounced to be mad by the most learned men of Spain, when he talked of exploring the Atlantic in search of a world to the west. If Franklin, when he drew a spark of lightning from the clouds by means of his kite, had spoken about controlling that spark and rendering it the means of communication with other parts of the globe, all men would have called him mad.[458] Even the steam-boat herself was long considered the dream of a schemer. Something useful may therefore still be learned from the plan of the “cigar ship,” absurd as she may appear to the practical seaman. With these feelings I read the other day with great interest a prospectus brought casually under my notice of a plan for applying an improved steam-engine (patented by Messrs. Perkins and Sons, Engineers, London), to a vessel very similar in design to the cigar ship. The value of this “economical steam-engine,” as it is termed, would seem to be the greatly improved principle adopted by the patentees in the construction of the boilers, which, they say, “will work with a pressure of steam of 300 lbs. to the square inch, and on a consumption of coal not exceeding 1½ lb. to the indicated horse-power per hour when working at full speed.”[459] If anything like this can be really achieved, another surprising stride will be made in the path of progress. The Lords of the Admiralty, who have not hitherto been prone to adopt “novelties,” appear to be of opinion that it can, as I understand that an engine has been ordered from the Yorkshire Engineering Company on Messrs. Perkins’s principle, and is now in course of construction to be fitted on board her Majesty’s ship Pelican, a sea-going ship of war.
and proposed fast boat,
Combining this new principle with a form of hull somewhat resembling the cigar, Messrs. Perkins propose “to construct and run an experimental fast express steamer from England to New York for the speedy crossing of the Atlantic, by passengers and mails as well as parcels and light goods ... with a light draught of water, great length and stability, and possessing steam power greatly in excess of any steam-vessel now afloat.”
The general design of the steamer they propose is represented as follows.