Howe, 120-gun Ship of the Line Robert Seppings, 48 years old, previously Master Shipwright at Chatham dockyard, now Surveyor of the Navy for two years, applied his system of diagonal bracing to the whole hull of a new ship, Howe, a tremendous 120. He also used iron knees in substitution for grown timbers, so difficult to find within sparse woods. ¤ In England as in France, loggers stride over stands of oaks in search of curved boughs that could become wooden knees to suppo

Franklin at the forefront Franklin, launched in 1815 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, rated as a 74 in the USA, has passed by Portsmouth to bring the new minister, Richard Rush, 37 years old, replacing John Quincy Adams to negotiate a treaty with Britain, to settle the borders with Canada in particular. It has given British officers the opportunity of examining this astonishing ship. She has made an impression, to say the least. "She is built of seasoned oak, admirably put to

Profile of Courageux, a French 74 Courageux was a French 74, designed by Jean Geffroy, launched at Brest dockyard in 1753. Battered by raking broadsides at point-blank, having 240 men killed and 110 ones wounded out of a complement of 650, she surrendered in 1761 off Vigo to the British 74 Bellona after a short duel. ¤ Both ships were excellent. French guns were excellent as well, even better perhaps than the British ones. During the approach, the French achieved to damag

Lightning It has been said that enthusiasm for clippers was waning lately. No doubt that experts question the future of clipper against steamer on the long run. Yet the clipper is in full boom today, thanks to China tea trade, to California gold rush and to Australia gold rush, which have urged fast transport as well as mass migration. China, California and Australia are still too far to expect reaching them through steam navigation, There are meant to clipper runs as fas

Hindostan (P&O) The Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation company (P&O), founded in 1822, has been awarded the service of mail to Alexandria, then to India. It has been delivered the steam packet ship Hindostan for linking Suez with Calcultta, where lie the seats of the Governor-General and of the East India Company's government. ¤ The P&O operates the line Southampton-Gibraltar-Malta-Alexandria, firs segment of the route to India, through steamers as Oriental and Royal L

Block Mill The Block Mills have entered service at Portsmouth dockyard. This is a decisive step for the introduction of steam engines into shipyards. Two centuries after the introduction of wind-powered sawmills into Zaandam works, we are attending the advent of a new era of mechanisation in shipbuilding. ¤ Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest is the inventor of the wind-powered sawmill, which swiftly developed during the first half of the 17th century in the United Province

Caledonia in two positions Caledonia has just been launched. She is the first 120-gun man-of-war of the British navy. She supersedes the previous giants, two 110-gun vessels, Ville-de-Paris and Hibernia. It was decided to build her in 1797 under the feeling that larger ships were necessary to face the French three-deckers, especially the tremendous 118s designed by Jacques-Noël Sané twenty years ago. ¤ At the battle of the Glorious First of June (1794), the 110-gun Révolu

Nonsuch, Baltimore schooner Nonsuch has been launched in Baltimore. This is an outstanding model of a sort of swift merchant vessels built lately on the East coast of the United States of America. She is meant to fast trade travels between Maryland and the West Indies. She displays a long bowsprit fit for multiple jibs, raked masts carrying large gaff sails, a stem and a stern both raked, and a V-shaped hull. She is 90-foot long and 29-foot broad. Her tonnage is likely a

H4 chronometer, outside and inside views After twenty-three years of tries since his first H1 marine clock meant to precisely metering time at sea, John Harrison's work has just come to its highlight with the completion of the H4 chronometer, as we all name it, or of the watch number one, as the old clockmaker names it. This is effectively the fourth chronometer attempted by John Harrison, 66 years old, to achieve the goal assigned by the Longitude Act forty-five years ago,

Frank Abney Hastings The struggle for Greek independence has just given steam the possibility of demonstrating its value at war. It has been thirteen years that the Filiki Eteria, a society of Greek patriots, was founded in the hope of liberating Greece from the Ottoman rule, with this bold motto : Eleftheria i Thanatos Freedom or Death It has been six years that the uprising begun. It succeeded in freeing the inland and Athens within three years. At that time,

Paddlewheel aviso Sphinx (1829) It is well known that Muhammad Ali Pascha, 64 years old now, Wali of Egypt for the Ottoman sultan, viceroy if one prefers, offered France the two obelisks flanking the gate of the temple of Luxor. It was three years ago. The operation consisting in extracting, moving, boarding, transporting, unloading and erecting the gift in Paris has been entrusted to Jean-Baptiste Apollinaire Lebas, a naval engineer aged 36 by now. A first obelisk has come

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Famous Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, 39, made William Patterson & Son build at Bristol the new vessel of the Great Western Steamship Company for the purpose of transatlantic packet service. She is named Great Britain. Her commissioning was delayed by the solution of high-level engineering issues. She displays two innovative, we may say bold, features : an iron hull and a screw propeller. She was launched two years ago, and has just started to op

Charles Napier Aaron Manby, named after the master of the Horseley Ironworks, Aaron Manby, 46, is a small 116-ton iron-hulled steamship. Jointly designed by Manby, by his son Charles, 18, and especially by Captain Charles Napier, 36, she was launched last year. She is up to date of innovation. She is obviously meant to prove validity of Napier's conceptions and of a Manby's invention. ¤ Manby is a talented civil engineer. In 1813, he patented a technique to form blocks o

Pierre Claude Pajot, known as Pajol, Count Pajol Last year, a shipowner, Pierre Andriel, 34 by now, purchased the small steamship Margery, built at Dumbarton by William Denny & Brothers for the purpose of navigation on the Clyde. A 120-tonner, she is 90-foot long and 15-foot broad. Her 14-hp machinery was made at Glasgow by John Robertson. It drives two paddle wheels which give the ship a speed of six knots. Andriel renamed it Elise after having required modifications whic

Commerce de Marseille, launched at Toulon Dockyard in August 1788, the largest ship in the world Three years ago, an Anglo-Spanish fleet under Admiral Samuel Hood's command brought troops to the city of Toulon, where an uprising against the French Republic had broken out. The French fleet was caught in port. There were 31 ships of the line, 13 frigates, 11 corvettes and 2 brigs in the harbour, under construction, under refit or active - a heavy blow to the French navy which

Jean Maritz II, 22, continuator of his father Johannes' Work, co-inventor of the Horizontal Drilling Machine Johann Maritz, 54, is a Swiss gun-maker, established as Commissionner of the French Royal Foundry at Strasbourg. He first invented a method of vertical drilling twenty-one years ago to replace the old commonplace method of casting the gun around a core made of clay. The purpose was to improve bore accuracy and was met, but the process was rather slow. This time, the

Steam Tugboat Hercules, first to be fitted with a two-stage steam machinery Gerhard Moritz Roentgen, 38 years old, a former naval officer and an engineer, who co-founded the Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij (NSM) in 1823, has invented a new compound steam engine and has decided to apply it to a sea-going vessel, a paddle wheel steam tug named Hercules, that he designed four years ago. ¤ Roentgen discovered steam machinery and iron industry through a long study voyage in

a later edition of Hoste's treaty Paul Hoste, a Jesuit priest and a mathematician, aged 45, publishes two masterworks : L’Art des Armées Navales ou Traité des Évolutions Navales and Traité de la Construction des Vaisseaux. The first one is especially original and even foundational. Hoste's career looks like Georges Fournier’s one, sixty years ago. They both are Jesuit priests and mathematicians. They both became chaplains for the Atlantic fleet, so they were scholars scrut

Moses Rogers It has been three years only since the steamship Elise crossed the English Channel. Thus it was extremely daring that somebody considered crossing the Atlantic ocean under steam so early after a short trip in comparison. His name is Moses Rogers, 40 years old now, born in the port of New London, Connecticut. Last year, Savannah, a 320-ton merchant packet sailing ship, was under construction at Fricket & Crockett Shipyards, in New York, on behalf of Mssrs Scarbo

John Stevens For the first time a 50-foot long steamboat, the Phoenix, has sailed the open ocean, over 120 miles from New York to the mouth of the Delaware river. Then she has gone upstream over extra 90 miles to Philadelphia. The journey has been done under steam solely since Phoenix is deprived of sail. As everybody knows, Robert Fulton's partner, Robert Livingston, 63, obtained the monopoly of navigation on the Hudson river as early as 1798. The success of the steamboat