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 is in Pa

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, say bold, features : an iron hull and a screw propeller. She was launched two years ago, and has just started to operate h

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

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

Une idée a traversé la sagesse grecque pendant des siècles. Elle vient d’un des Sept Sages fondateurs de la philosophie, Anacharsis semble-t-il. Elle fait des gens qui sont en mer une catégorie entre les vivants et les morts, livrée au hasard du vent et des vagues. Appareiller, c’est jouer sa vie et disparaître du monde dès que le bateau passe l’horizon. Plus encore que les marins antiques, ceux de l’ère des découvertes ont vécu cet exil. Ils ont accompli de longs périple

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