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 Eng

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 foundational. His career looks like Georges Fournier’s one, sixty years ago - a Jesuit mathematician who becomes a chaplain for the Atlantic fleet, so a scholar scrutinizing ships and observing manoeuvres, as well a

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

Henry Wimshurt Henry Wimshurt, 34, designed and also built Archimedes, a 240-ton three-masted schooner launched last year, which this year has been fitted with a machinery supplied by Mssrs Rennie, consisting in a flue boiler feeding twin vertical 30-hp engines acting on the same crankshaft, itself extended by a shaft driving a whole 360° screw in a single thread. This propeller is retractable so as to reduce its drag when the ship intends to sail instead of steaming. It is

SS President President, the largest packet ship in the world, has disappeared with all 136 souls aboard in her third voyage. Last year, the British and American Steam Navigation Company, led by Junius Smith, 61, and Macgregor Laird, 43, famous for having made the Sirius cross the Atlantic ocean under steam for the first time three years ago, commissioned a second steamship for the line New York-Liverpool, after the successful 1850-ton British Queen (1838). She was the 2350-t

Samuel Cunard Last year, Samuel Cunard, 53 years old, was awarded the Mail Packet Service between Liverpool and Halifax, as he promised the British Admiralty to ensure a mail transport every fortnight all year long, what neither the Great Western Steamship Company nor the British and American Steam Navigation Company dared to propose. He has accordingly established the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in Glasgow with his associates, famous George Bu

Louis, marquis of Phélypeaux The defeat suffered at La Hougue last year has discouraged the king from attempting a new grand strategic manoeuvre as the destruction of the Allied fleet or the invasion of England. King Louis XIV, 55, and his Secretary for the Navy, Louis de Phélypeaux, 49, have decided to focus on attacking the Anglo-Dutch trade in the Atlantic ocean with their main Western fleet under steady Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, count of Tourville's command. This is

Permettez-moi de dire quelques mots d’un personnage sympathique aux marins, Edmund Halley, dont je crains fort qu’il soit assez méconnu. Edmund Halley dans sa féconde jeunesse La comète qui porte son nom, suite au calcul qu’il fait de sa période lors de son apparition en 1682, l’a installé dans la mémoire collective comme un astronome mineur. Mais il a été aussi mathématicien, physicien, hydrographe, météorologue, ingénieur, un authentique marin, ainsi qu’un vrai gentilhomme

En 1602, est fondée à Amsterdam la Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie , la compagnie des Indes orientales. C’est une société par actions, ce qui est assez nouveau. Elle remplace plusieurs entreprises de commerce avec les Indes apparues au cours des sept années précédentes. Les Staten-Generaal des Provinces-Unies – sénat & parlement réunis – la dotent d’une charte lui assurant le privilège du commerce avec l’Asie pour 21 ans. La VOC va devenir la plus puissante entreprise de

Thomas Slade Britain and France are at war in North America. War has been latent for two years between the endless rivals but, on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, events have already gone bad. Last year, on the Ohio river, the French thwarted the aggression of a fort by a militia led by a certain George Washington. The British navy is now harassing French merchant fleet and just seized a ship of the line. The awful struggle of the British settlers against the allied

Body Plan of 74-gun Terrible The 74-gun Terrible was lately launched in Toulon dockyard. Built after a design by François Coulomb the Younger, aged 48, this ship seems to be the prototype of a new sort of mighty two-deckers. Coulomb streamlined and enlarged the hull of former 74s so as to reach superb qualities of seakeeping and of swiftness as well as to accommodate 28 guns at the main deck, 30 guns at the upper deck, 10 guns at the quarterdeck and 6 more at the forecastle

92-gun three-decker Prins Willem Last year, Cornelis Evertsen, 42 years old, Lieutnant-Admiral of Zealand has replaced Tromp as Lieutnant-Admiral General. He is known as being both gallant and skilful, and also considered as politically neutral, in contrast with Tromp, an active Orangist. Present time requires consensus behind Prince Willem for a war against France is considered as short-term unavoidable by every observer. ¤ Moreover, Tromp is certainly known as competent

Grønland (1756) The Danish 50-gun Grønland, launched five years ago at Nyholm island near Copenhagen, departs for a scientific expedition in the Mediterranean sea. She got used to navigating these dangerous waters for she protected Danish trade ships against Barbary pirates lately. This expedition is named the Arabia mission. It has been mounted under the auspices of King Frederick V, who has wisely achieved not to get involved in the global war which begun five years ago.

Cornelis Marteenszoon Tromp The Staten-Generaal, that is the assembly of senate and house of representatives, has decided to build thirty-six ships to replace the core of the fleet built in the 1660s. This decision results, first, from the French threat, on land as at sea, and, second, from the decay of the ships hastily built in the 1660s, many having already been broken up. ¤ As everybody knows, Duquesne defeated Ruyter in the Mediterranean sea in 1676, and D'Estrées defe

Aurore After having tackled the building of a marine watch in 1756, Pierre Le Roy, 50 years old, has reached a new step last year. It is said that the chronometer he presented to the Académie Royale des Sciences is as precise and reliable as famous Harrison's H4 made in 1759. ¤ Le Roy already invented the detent pivot escapement, or detached escapement, that he presented the Académie in 1748, the temperature-compensated balance by using bi-metallic components, and lately th

John Fitch, 43, originally a clockmaker then a gunsmith, successfully trials his steamboat Perseverance on the Delaware river. Fitch's first model (1785) Two years ago, Fitch achieved to convince the state legislative bodies of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia to award him a conditional 14-year monopoly for steam navigation on their waterways. He just missed Maryland and the district of Columbia to get a complete area of business in the core of the y

Charlotte Dundas The duet composed of Thomas Laurence Dundas, Baron Dundas, 62, & William Symington, an engineer, 39, undeterred by the failure of a previous attempt in 1801, has renewed it with a stronger steamboat named Charlotte Dundas. ¤ The first steamboat built by Dundas & Symington steamed successfully on the Carron river in 1801 but was dismissed from navigating on the Forth & Clyde canal for fear of damaging the banks. She had a paddle on each side - a feature whi

James Cook James Cook, the famous explorer, 44 years old by now, departs for his second voyage around the world with a copy of famous Watchmaker John Harrison’s H4, that is the watch K1, and three other time-keepers made last year. ¤ Harrison's H4 was the prototype which achieved to meet the accuracy requirement set by the Board of Longitude when crossing the Atlantic ocean. It completed it twice, in 1761 and 1763 - results met with some initial scepticism by the Board of L

The Santisima Trinidad y Nuestra Señora del Buen Fin, a 2,200-ton 60-gun Manila galleon, has made a bad journey from Manila to Acapulco. Having 435 persons aboard initially, she has lost 74 ones of typhus during her 221-day long journey. Three hundreds and ten or twenty more are lying, unable to move, near death. ¤ A standard journey takes five or six months. A seven-month one is long but not surprising. What is surprising is that a few men achieved to handle this quite bi