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

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

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

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

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 sailing 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

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

Sumner's Manual Captain Thomas Hubbard Sumner publishes a New and Accurate Method of Finding a Ship’s Position at Sea . This is the fruit...

Captain Thomas Hubbard Sumner, 30 years old, commanding the sailing ship Cabot, travelling from Charleston, Virginia, to Greenock, Scotland, makes a practical discovery. Smalls Lighthouse where Sumner landed Due to constant bad weather all along his journey, he has navigated on a dead reckoning basis until he finally encounters a piece of blue sky which gives him sight of the sun. He uses the altitude of the sun to make a calculation of longitude based on his estimated latit