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Plan of North Carolina sharpie of the 1880's
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Image 9703
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Image 9700
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Image 9701
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Image 9699
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The light-draught Mississippi steamers bear little resemblance to the Hudson River and Long Island Sound boats while the American steam ferry-boat is a thing certainly not of beauty, but unique.
The J. M. White, of 1878, was deemed “a crowning effort in steamboat architecture in the West.” She was 320 feet long and 91 feet in width, over the guards. Her saloons were magnificently furnished, and all her internal fittings of the most elaborate description. She carried 7,000 bales of cotton and had accommodation for 350 cabinpassengers. Her cost was $300,000. She was totally destroyed by fire in 1886.
310 visits
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The Clermont made her first voyage from New York to Albany, August 7th, 1807.
Her speed was about five miles an hour. During the winter of 1807-8 she was enlarged, her name being then changed to North River.
She continued to ply successfully on the Hudson as a passenger boat for a number of years,
her owners having acquired the exclusive right to navigate the waters of the State of New York by steam.
226 visits
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The Rhine steamers and those plying on the Swiss lakes are in keeping with the picturesque scenery through which they run.
Painted in bright colours, they present a very attractive and smart appearance. They are kept scrupulously clean and are admirably managed.
Many of them are large, with saloon cabins the whole length of the vessel, over which is the promenade deck covered with gay awnings.
They run fast. The captain sits in state in his easy chair under a canopy on the bridge—smoking his cigar.
The chief steward, next to the captain by far the most important personage on board, moves about all day long in full evening dress—his main concern being to know what wine you will have for lunch or dinner that he may put it on ice for you.
The table d’hote is the crowning event of the day on board a Rhine steamer, i.e., for the misguided majority of tourists to whom a swell dinner offers greater attractions than the finest scenery imaginable.
254 visits
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Fifty years later witnessed the full development of Mr. Bell’s ideal in the Columba, then as now the largest river steamer ever seen on the Clyde, and the swiftest. The Columba is built of steel, is 316 feet long and 50 feet wide. She has two oscillating engines of 220 horse-power, and attains a speed of twenty-two miles an hour. Her route is from Glasgow to Ardrishaig and back, daily in summer, when she carries from 2,000 to 3,000 persons through some of the finest scenery in Scotland. She is provided with steam machinery for steering and warping her into the piers, and with other modern appliances that make her as handy as a steam yacht. She resembles a little floating town, with shops and post-office where you can procure money orders and despatch telegrams And what is the Columba after all but an enlarged and perfected reproduction of Bell’s Comet!
217 visits
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Nothing more was heard of the steamboat in Britain until 1812, when Henry Bell surprised the natives of Strathclyde by the following advertisement in the Greenock Advertiser:
STEAM PASSAGE BOAT,
“THE COMET,”
Between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh,
for Passengers Only.
The subscriber having, at much expense, fitted up a handsome vessel, to ply upon the River Clyde, between Glasgow and Greenock, to sail by the power of wind, air and steam, he intends that the vessel shall leave the Broomielaw on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, about mid-day, or at such hour thereafter as may answer from the state of the tide; and to leave Greenock on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, in the morning, to suit the tide.
The elegance, comfort, safety and speed of this vessel requires only to be proved to meet the approbation of the public; and the proprietor is determined to do everything in his power to merit public encouragement.
The terms are, for the present, fixed at 4s. for the best cabin, and 3s. for the second; but beyond these rates nothing is to be allowed to servants, or any other person employed about the vessel.
The subscriber continues his establishment at Helensburgh Baths, the same as for years past, and a vessel will be in readiness to convey passengers to the Comet from Greenock to Helensburgh.
Henry Bell.
Helensburgh Baths, 5th August, 1812.
197 visits
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In 1801 the London newspapers contained the announcement that an experiment had taken place on the Thames, on July 1st, for the purpose of propelling a laden barge, or other craft, against the tide, by means of a steam-engine of a very simple construction.
“The moment the engine was set to work the barge was brought about, answering her helm quickly, and she made way against a strong current, at the rate of two and a half miles an hour.”
In 1802 a new vessel was built expressly for steam navigation, on the Forth and Clyde Canal, under Symington’s supervision, the Charlotte Dundas, which was minutely inspected on the same day by Robert Fulton, of New York, and Henry Bell, of Glasgow, both of whom took sketches of the machinery to good purpose.
This boat drew a load of seventy tons, at a speed of three and a half miles an hour, against a strong gale of wind. Under ordinary conditions she made six miles an hour, but her admitted success was cut short by the Canal Trust, who alleged that the wash of the steamer would destroy the embankment.
306 visits
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An experiment was made by Patrick Miller, a banker in Edinburgh, aided by Mr. Taylor, tutor in his family, and Alexander Symington, a practical engineer. Mr. Miller had a boat built and fitted with a small steam-engine, for his amusement, on Dalswinton Loch, Dumfriesshire. It was a twin-boat, the engine being placed on one side, the boiler on the other, and the paddle-wheel in the centre. It was launched in October, 1788, and attained a speed of five miles an hour. The engine, of one horse-power, is still to be seen in the Andersonian Museum, in Glasgow. Encouraged by his experiment, Mr. Miller bought one of the boats used on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and had a steam-engine constructed for it by the Carron Ironworks Company, under Symington’s superintendence. On December 26th, 1789, this steamboat towed a heavy load on the canal, at a speed of seven miles an hour; but, strange to say, the experiment was dropped as soon as it was tried.
255 visits
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Paddle-wheels for driving boats through the water were used long before steam-engines were thought of.
They were worked by hand and foot-power without, however, any advantage over the old-fashioned oar.
The horse-boat, in a variety of forms, has been in use for many years, and is not yet quite obsolete.
In its earlier form two horses, one on each side of a decked scow,
were hitched to firmly braced upright posts at which they tugged for all they were worth without ever advancing beyond their noses,
but communicating motion to the paddle-wheels by the movable platform on which they trod.
For larger boats four or five horses were harnessed to horizontal bars converging towards the centre, and moved around the deck in a circle,
the paddles receiving their impulse through a set of cog-wheels.
338 visits
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Last of the Clipper Passenger Packets, 1854.
The clipper “packet ship” was a vast improvement on the ordinary sailing ship. It had just reached its highest point of development when the ocean steamship first made its appearance. It was to the upper strata of the travelling community, sixty years ago, the counterpart of the express steamer of to-day. The packet-ship was built for fast sailing, with very fine lines, was handsomely fitted up and furnished, was exceedingly well found in eatables and drinkables, and carried a great spread of canvas. To see one of these ships under full sail was a [Pg 27]sight to be remembered—a rare sight, inasmuch as all the conditions of wind and water necessary for the display of every stitch of canvas are seldom met with in the North Atlantic. They not unfrequently crossed in fourteen or fifteen days. In winter they might be three months on a single voyage, but their average would be from twenty-five to thirty days.
282 visits
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I will now give you a sectional division of a first-rate line-of-battle ship. Such a ship, carrying 120 or more guns, has four decks on which her guns are placed. The highest is open to the air, and is called the UPPER DECK
At the after part, extending a little way beyond the mizen-mast, there is a raised platform, called the POOP. It has no guns on it.
On the main deck is the steering-wheel, with the binnacle in front of it.
The after part of this deck between the poop and the main-mast is called the quarter-deck, and is the place where the officers especially walk. The part under the poop is divided into cabins, appropriated to the use of the captain. Here, also, is a clerk's office and a pantry. Between the main and fore-mast the large boats are stowed, and on either side are the gangways at which sentries are stationed.
The next deck under this is called the MAIN DECK. In the after part is the admiral's cabin. Immediately under the boats is a pen for the officers' live-stock ; and just abaft the fore-mast is the galley, or kitchen.
The third deck from the upper is called the MIDDLE DECK. The after part is fitted up for the lieutenants, chaplain, surgeon, paymaster, marine officers, &c., and called the WARD-ROOM. In the fore part of the deck is placed the sick-bay, a compartment fitted up as a hospital ; about the centre of this deck is one of the capstans.
The fourth from the upper is called the LOWER or GUN DECK. In the after part is the GUN-ROOM, where the midshipmen, and other junior officers, mess. The tiller of the rudder works through the gun-room just above their heads. A second capstan is placed on this deck ; and forward are the riding-bitts for securing the cables. It is the lowest deck on which guns are carried.
The ORLOP DECK is the fifth deck from the upper. It has no guns or ports, though lighted up by bull's eyes or scuttles. In the after part is the purser's issue-room ; next to it is the after cockpit, where the midshipmen and other junior officers sleep in hammocks. Before it again will be found the sail-room, where the sails are kept, and the cable-tiers, where the cables are stowed. Before it again, just abaft the fore-mast, is the fore cockpit, and the warrant officers' cabins, while right in the head of the ship are the carpenter's and boatswain's stores.
Low as we have got, we have still further to go down to the HOLD, which, if it may be so called, is the sixth deck from the highest. It is often divided into two decks for the greater convenience of stowage. Here are the FORE AND AFTER MAGAZINES, WATER TANKS, WINE AND SPIRIT ROOM, CHAIN CABLE LOCKERS, SHOT LOCKERS, BREAD ROOM, SHELL ROOM, GUNNER'S STORE ROOM, DRY PROVISION, and BEEF AND PORK IN CASKS. Since the introduction of auxiliary steam-power into ships of war, a large portion of the hold is devoted to the steam-engine and boilers, coal bunkers, and the shaft of the screw, while the funnel runs up through all the decks ; but it is wonderful, comparatively, how little space these are allowed to occupy, considering the great aid the steam-engine affords to the movements of the ship.
604 visits
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Launched in 1863
Among the numerous huge monsters constituting the iron-clad fleet of England, the Minotaur, is one of the most gigantic and formidable; and the sister ships, the Agincourt and Northumberland, all of precisely the same tonnage, power, rig, and equipment, are the largest and most powerful ships in the navy.
The Minotaur was built at Blackwall, by the Thames Ship Building company and the engines were constructed by Messrs. Penn, of Deptford.
She is 6,621 ton's measurement, and propelled by screw engins of 1,350 horsepower, with a speed of 15 knots an hour.
She is 400 feet in length by 59 in width, and carries in all thirty-four of the heaviest guns used afloat. Among these which form her chief batter on the main deck are four 300-pounder Armstrongs.
640 visits
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Image 2889
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Image 2888
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Image 2887
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Image 2886
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Image 2885
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The Goubet class are of iron, sixteen feet long, three feet wide, and about six feet deep. The motive power is a Siemens motor driven by storage batteries. Fifty of these boats were purchased by the Russian government. They have no rudder, but a universal joint in the screw shaft permits of the screw being moved through an arc of ninety degrees. The torpedo is carried outside the boat, secured by a catch worked from inside. On arriving under the enemy, the torpedo is released, and striking the ship's bottom, is held there by spikes. The boat then withdraws, unreeling a connecting wire; and when at a safe distance, fires. The absence of a rudder, however, causes erratic steering, and the spikes with which the torpedo is fitted might fail to stick in steel-bottomed ships.
796 visits
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Some of the earliest three-deckers, or, as we may almost call them, five-deckers, were built at this dockyard; and of these the most famous was the Great Harry, so named after the king, which was launched here in 1514. For the period, the ship was a large one, being of a thousand tons burden; though we should not think much of her size now, when we have ironclads of over eleven thousand tons. There are models of her in the Greenwich Naval Museum, which is not far from Woolwich; and a curious lofty wooden castle she is, rising far up above the water-line, and offering a fair target, if the cannon of those days had any accuracy.
1105 visits
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One of the largest sailing-ships afloat is the French five-master, La France, launched in 1890 on the Clyde, and owned by Messrs A. D. Bordes et Fils, who possess a large fleet of sailing-vessels. In 1891 she came from Iquique to Dunkirk in one hundred and five days with 6000 tons of nitrate; yet she was stopped on the Tyne when proceeding to sea with 5500 tons of coal, and compelled to take out 500 tons on the ground that she was overladen.
1202 visits
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On the Banks
To sell the great quantities of fish they dragged up from the Banks or nearer home, foreign markets must needs be found. England and the European countries took but little of this sort of provender, and moreover England, France, Holland, and Portugal had their own fishing fleets on the Banks.
743 visits
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Image 200
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The old-fashioned whaling tubs kept the seas, while the growing scarcity of the whales and the blow to the demand for oil dealt by the discovery of petroleum, checked the development of the industry. Now the rows of whalers rotting at New Bedford's wharves, and the somnolence of Nantucket, tell of its virtual demise.
800 visits
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Schooner rigged Sharpie
For the fisheries a multitude of smaller types were constructed—such as the lugger, the shallop, the sharpie, the bug-eye, the smack.
791 visits
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Americans on board "General Armstrong" repelling attempts to board her while in a Portugese harbour.
663 visits
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Taking it in his jaws
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For the fisheries a multitude of smaller types were constructed—such as the lugger, the shallop, the sharpie, the bug-eye, the smack.
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The Dreadnaught
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Piracy was an everyday occurence for the sailors.
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The ketch was a two-master, sometimes rigged with lanteen sails, but more often with the foremast square-rigged, like a ship's foremast, and the mainmast like the mizzen of a modern bark, with a square topsail surmounting a fore-and-aft mainsail. The foremast was set very much aft—often nearly amidships.
765 visits
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The "Jersey" prison-ship was not an uncommon lot for the bold privateersman, who, when once consigned to it, found that the reward of a sea-rover was not always wealth and pleasure.
The "Jersey," which had been originally a 74-gun ship, then cut down to a hulk and moored at the Wallabout, at that time a lonely and deserted place on the Long Island shore, now about the center of the Brooklyn river front.
632 visits
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Image 190
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The Snow. an obsolete type
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The Treachourous Kayak
Mastering all the literature of the Arctic, he (Charles Hall) determined to undertake himself the arduous work of the explorer. Taking passage on a whaler, he spent several years among the Esquimaux, living in their crowded and fetid igloos, devouring the blubber and uncooked fish that form their staple articles of diet, wearing their garb of furs, learning to navigate the treacherous kayak in tossing seas, to direct the yelping, quarreling team of dogs over fields of ice as rugged as the edge of some monstrous saw, studying the geography so far as known of the Arctic regions, perfecting himself in all the arts by which man has contested the supremacy of that land with the ice-king.
585 visits
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The Whaleback
Another form of lake vessel of which great things were expected, but which disappointed its promotors, is the "whaleback," commonly called by the sailors "pigs." These are cigar-shaped craft, built of steel, their decks, from the bridge aft to the engine-house, rounded like the back of a whale, and carried only a few feet above the water. In a sea, the greater part of the deck is all awash, and a trip from the bridge to the engine-house means not only repeated duckings, but a fair chance of being swept overboard.
620 visits
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The Waterfront of New York
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Whale sending boat flying
While the right whale usually takes the steel sullenly, and dies like an overgrown seal, the cachalot fights fiercely, now diving with such a rush that he has been known to break his jaw by the fury with which he strikes the bottom at the depth of 200 fathoms; now raising his enormous bulk in air, to fall with an all-obliterating crash upon the boat which holds his tormentors, or sending boat and men flying into the air with a furious blow of his gristly flukes, or turning on his back and crunching his assailants between his cavernous jaws.
623 visits
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Whistling bouy
Less picturesque than lighthouses and lightships, and with far less of human interest about them, are the buoys of various sorts of which the Lighthouse Board has more than one thousand in place, and under constant supervision. Yet, among the sailor's safeguards, they `rank` near the head. They point out for him the tortuous pathway into different harbors; with clanging bell or dismal whistle, they warn him away from menacing shallows and sunken wrecks. The resources of science and inventive genius have been drawn upon to devise ways for making them more effective. At night they shine with electric lights fed from a submarine cable, or with steady gas drawn from a reservoir that needs refilling only three or four times a year. If sound is to be trusted rather than light, recourse is had to a bell-buoy which tolls mournfully as the waves toss it about above the danger spot, or to a whistling buoy which toots unceasingly a locomotive whistle, with air compressed by the Page 355action of the waves. The whistling buoy is the giant of his family, for the necessity for providing a heavy charge of compressed air compels the attachment to the buoy of a tube thirty-two feet or more deep, which reaches straight down into the water. The sea rising and falling in this, as the buoy tosses on the waves, acts as a sort of piston, driving out the air through the whistle, as the water rises, admitting more air as it falls.
536 visits
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A pink was rigged like a schooner, but without a bowsprit or jib.
701 visits
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A vanishing type on the lakes
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Adrift on an ice-floe
DeLong caught in the ice-pack, was carried past its northern end, thus proving it to be an island, indeed, but making the discovery at heavy cost.
Winter in the pack was attended with severe hardships and grave perils. Under the influence of the ocean currents and the tides, the ice was continually breaking up and shifting, and each time the ship was in imminent danger of being crushed.
In his journal DeLong tries to describe the terrifying clamor of Page 209a shifting pack. "I know of no sound on shore that can be compared with it," he writes. "A rumble, a shriek, a groan, and the crash of a falling house all combined, might serve to convey an idea of the noise with which this motion of the ice-floe is accompanied."
671 visits
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An Armed Cutter
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Early type of Smack
For the fisheries a multitude of smaller types were constructed—such as the lugger, the shallop, the sharpie, the bug-eye, the smack.
964 visits
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A favorite trick of the slaver, fleeing from a man-of-war, was to throw over slaves a few at a time in the hope that the humanity of the pursuers would impel them to stop and rescue the struggling negroes, thus giving the slave-ship a better chance of escape. Sometimes these hapless blacks thus thrown out, as legend has it Siberian peasants sometimes throw out their children as ransom to pursuing wolves, were furnished with spars or barrels to keep them afloat until the pursuer should come up; and occasionally they were even set adrift by boat-loads. It was hard on the men of the navy to steel their hearts to the cries of these castaways as the ship sped by them; but if the great evil was to be broken up it could not be by rescuing here and there a slave, but by capturing and punishing the traders.
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A deckload of cotton
766 visits
