power and built a 25-foot double-hulled pleasure boat of iron fitted
with a steam engine built by William Symington. Also named _Experiment_,
she was an apparent success, so Miller had a 60-foot boat built of the
double-hull design and fitted with an engine built by Symington. She
reached a speed of 7 mph on the Forth and Clyde Canal. However, Miller
lost interest when he found that the Symington engine was unreliable and
that Great Britain showed very little public support for such projects.
Fulton was acquainted with Symington's work and probably had heard of
Miller's vessels. At any rate, he employed the double-hull principle in
his steam ferryboats, the first of which was the _Jersey_, a 188-ton
vessel built by Charles Browne, which began service July 2, 1812. The
next year he had a sister ship built, the _York_. These vessels were
based on his patent drawing of 1809. In 1814 he had another vessel of
this type built, the _Nassau_. It was, therefore, logical that he should
apply this design to the _Steam Battery_. The double-hull design had
worked well in these ferries, and the design would give protection from
shot to the paddle wheel. The _Battery_ would have the ability to run
forward or astern so as not to be exposed to a raking fire from the
enemy while maneuvering in action. The application of this "ferryboat"
principle to the _Battery_ reduced the need for extreme maneuverability,
the catamaran's weakest point, even at low speed.
The resistance factors in the design are of relatively small importance,
for the speed possible under steam in this period was very low. However,
the plans show an apparently efficient hull form for the power
available, aside from the drag of the beams across the race in the
vicinity of the keel. The displacement was adequate. The height of the
gun-deck above the water at the race made the _Battery_ unsuitable for
rough-water operation, but there is no evidence that Fulton or the
sponsors of the vessel considered the _Battery_ as a coastwise or
seagoing steamer. However, the clearance of the gun deck above the water
and the dip of the paddle wheel would have made the additional weight of
an upper- or spar-deck battery prohibitive even had experience in action
proven it desirable.
Sail and Inboard Plans
[Illustration: Figure 13.--LINES OF _Taurus_. From the Admiralty
Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.]
The sail and rigging plan is likewise a Danish copy and shows the
two-masted lateen rig employed. The hull is shown with bulwarks and
gunports on the spar deck but no other evidence that the _Battery_ was
finished in this manner has been found. The rig resembles that of some
of Josiah Fox's designs for Jeffersonian gunboats--double-enders
designed to sail in either direction but without the jibs. The topmasts
do not appear to be more than signal poles and apparently were not
fitted with sails; however, some European lateeners did have triangular
topsails over a lateen and it is possible the _Battery_ may have carried
such sails. Considering the stability and displacement of the _Battery_,
the rig is very small and not sufficiently effective. Shrouds were not
required; the masts were supported by runners that were shifted when the
yards were reversed, and in tacking. Apparently the jibstays also could
be slacked off so that the lateen yards would not have to be dipped
under them.
[Illustration: Figure 14.--RUDDER DETAIL of _Taurus_. From the Admiralty
Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.]
The inboard profile is on tracing paper and the notes are in French.
This drawing is of a simplified hull form having flat-bottom hulls with
chines. It is possible that this is a tracing of a preliminary drawing
obtained by Marestier or Montgery, but no documentation can be found.
Its importance is that it shows in some detail the engine and boilers,
as well as the wheelbox, and another drawing of the paddle wheel, more
or less duplicating the wheel shown in the Danish plan. No details of
the deck arrangements are shown in any of the plans, except for the dome
skylight over the fireroom in the boiler hull.
Both the lines plan and the inboard drawing show construction
midsections and hull connections. These plans show that the engine was
not inclined, but rather was vertical, contrary to Fulton's patent
drawing. The piston rod and the crosshead obviously passed through its
gun deck in a large hatch. Also it is plain that there must have been
large hatches afore and abaft the wheelbox to make the stepped wheelbox
construction desirable. There also must have been a hatch in the gun
deck under the domed skylight. It is improbable that the engine and
skylight hatches were used for ladderways, passing scuttles, or
companionways.
The boilers are shown in the inboard profile about as described and
drawn by Marestier but with two stacks on each boiler, one to each flue;
Marestier's sketch in his report on American steamships shows the flues
of each boiler trunked into a single stack. The battery had two boilers
and the stacks are at the boilers' fire-door end. The steam lines came
off the crown of the boilers and probably passed through the ends of the
wheelbox to the engine; a trunk for the steam lines would undoubtedly
have been necessary.
[Illustration: Figure 15.--SKETCH OF 130-GUN SHIP proposed by Patrick
Miller to King Gustav III of Sweden in 1790. In Statens Sjoehistoriska
Museum, Stockholm.]
[Illustration: Figure 16.--PATRICK MILLER'S manually propelled
(paddle-wheel) catamaran ship _Experiment_, built at Leith, Scotland,
1786. Scale drawing in Statens Sjoehistoriska Museum, Stockholm.]
The engine is shown to have had counterbalanced side levers, one on
each side, and a single flywheel on the outboard side. The cylinder is
over the condenser or "cistern," connected by the steam line and valve
box on the side. The cylinder crosshead is shown in the inboard profile
to have reached the underside of the beams of the upper deck. The
crosshead was connected by two connecting rods to the side levers. These
levers operated the paddle wheel by connecting rods to cranks on the
paddle-wheel shaft. There is another pair of connecting rods from the
side levers to the crosshead of the air pump. All connecting rods are on
one arm of the side levers, the other end having only a counterbalance
weight beyond the fulcrum bearing. The flywheel has a shaft fitted with
two gears, and is driven through idler gears from gears on the
paddle-wheel shaft; it turns at about twice the speed of the paddle
wheel. No other pumps or fittings are shown in the engine hull, although
manual pumps were probably fitted to fill and empty the boilers. Piping
is not shown.
[Illustration: Figure 17.--PAINTING OF THE _Experiment_ in the Statens
Sjoehistoriska Museum, Stockholm.]
The four rudders, toggled in pairs, are shown in both the lines and
inboard drawings, but the shape is different in the two plans. Operation
must have been by a tiller under the gun-deck beams. The outer end of
the tiller may have been pivoted on the toggle bar and the inboard end
fitted, as previously described, with steering cable or chain tackles.
This seems to be the only practical interpretation of the evidence.
Reconstructing the Plans
In the model it was necessary to reconstruct the deck arrangements
without enough contemporary description. The outboard appearance and
hull form, rig, and arrangement of armament require no reconstruction,
for all that is of importance is shown in the lines and rig drawings, or
in the inboard profile. The masts are shown to have been stepped over
the race on the gun deck. The iron stanchions are shown in the lines
drawing and in the construction section. However, their position at the
ends of the _Battery_ are apparently incorrectly shown in the original
lines plan. The construction section shows these stanchions to have been
stepped on the inside face of the inner ceiling and, as the ceiling
structure was carried completely around the ship, the stanchions in the
ends must have been placed inboard, as along the sides. The bowsprit was
above deck and would probably be secured in the knighthead timbers at
the ends of the hull, as well as by the heel bitts shown in the Danish
lines drawing. With the riding bitts shown inboard of the heel bitts at
each end of the vessel, it is obvious that she would work her ground
tackle at both ends and would therefore require two capstans; the
wheelbox would prevent effective use of a single one. The capstans might
be doubleheaded, as in some large frigates and ships-of-the-line.
[Illustration: Figure 18.--SAIL PLAN OF FULTON'S _Steam Battery_ as
reconstructed for model in the Museum of History and Technology.]
As to the remaining deck fixtures, hatches and fittings, these must be
entirely a matter of speculation. Ladderways, passing scuttles, hatches,
trunks, galley, heads and cabins were obviously required in a fighting
ship and can only be located on the theory that, when completed, the
_Battery_ was a practical vessel.
It has been stated that the officers' cabins were over the race; the
logical place for the heads, galley, wardroom and mess also would be
over the race, giving the remaining part of the gun deck for the
necessary hatches, ladderways, trunks, etc., in the two hulls, space
required for armament, and to sling the hammocks of a watch below. As
the vessel was never fully manned, apparently, the space for hammocks is
not a serious problem in a reconstruction. If the vessel had been manned
as proposed by 500 men, hammocks for over 200 would have been required,
which would give very crowded quarters in view of the limited space
available.
Though no specific requirements were stated in the reports of the
trials, it seems reasonable to suppose that additional hatches were cut
in the decks to improve the fireroom ventilation. In the reconstruction
drawings, these hatchways as well as the other deck openings and deck
fittings--such as bilge pumps, companionways, skylights, binnacles,
wheels and wheel-rope trunks, cable trunks, steampipe casings, and stack
fiddleys--have been located in an effort to meet the imagined
requirements of the working of a ship of this unusual form.
[Illustration: Figure 19.--MODEL OF _Steam Battery_ in the Museum of
History and Technology. (Smithsonian photo 63990-E.)]
[Illustration: Figure 20.--LINES OF STEAMER _Congo_, built in 1815-1816
for the British Admiralty and converted to a sailing survey vessel. From
Admiralty Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.]
There are some unanswered questions that arose in the preparation of
the reconstruction drawings. As has been shown, the original inboard
arrangement plan found in Copenhagen shows four smokestacks, while
Marestier's sketch of the vessel's boilers shows trunked flues
indicating that two stacks were used. It is possible that the boilers
were first fitted so that four stacks were required; alterations made as
a result of steaming trials may well have included the introduction of
trunked flues and the final use of two stacks in line fore-and-aft. This
would have required a rearrangement of the fiddley hatches amidships.
Another troublesome question was the doubtful arrangement of the four
companionways on the spar deck. Perhaps only two were fitted, one on
each side of the officers' staterooms while the ladderways at the crew's
end of the ship were simple ladder hatches.
The decision to use four bilge pumps is based upon the lack of drag in
the keel of the hulls, which would prevent accumulation of bilge water
at one end of the hull. The use of four single-barrel pumps instead of
four double-barrel pumps may be questioned, for chain pumps requiring
two barrels would have been practical.
Allowance for stores was made by use of platforms in the hold. It is
known from statements made to the Court of Inquiry, that the magazines
were amidships and that a part of these was close to the boilers. Fuel
and water would be in the lower hold under the platforms; hatches and
ladderways are arranged to permit fueling the ship.
A few prints or drawings of the ship, aside from the patent drawing,
have been found. There are two prints that show the launch of the
vessel. One, a print of 1815, is in possession of the Mariners' Museum,
Newport News, Va., and is reproduced in Alexander Crosby Brown's _Twin
Ships, Notes on the Chronological History of the Use of Multiple Hulled
Vessels_.[20] A poor copy of this print appears on page 13 of Bennett's
_Steam Navy of the United States_, and another and inaccurate sketch is
shown on page 8. These pictures were of no use in the reconstruction as
they show no details that are not in the Copenhagen plans. The patent
drawing does not show deck details and in fact does not represent the
vessel as built in any respect other than in being a catamaran with
paddle wheel amidships between the hulls.
The _Steam Battery_ did not have any particular influence on the design
of men-of-war that followed her. In the first place, steampower was not
viewed with favor by naval officers generally. This was without doubt
due to prejudice, but engines in 1820-30 were still unreliable when
required to run for long periods, as experienced by the early
ocean-going steamers. The great weight of the early steam engines and
their size in relation to power were important, and also important were
practical objections that prevented the design of efficient naval ocean
steamers until about 1840; even then, the paddle wheels made them very
vulnerable in action. Until the introduction of the screw propellor it
was not possible to design a really effective ocean-going naval steamer;
hence until about 1840-45, sail remained predominant in naval vessels
for ocean service, and steamers were accepted only in coast defense and
towing services, or as dispatch vessels.
No immediate use of the double hull in naval vessels of the maritime
powers resulted from the construction of the _Steam Battery_. The
flat-bottom chine-built design employed by Fulton in _North River_,
_Raritan_, and other early steamboats was utilized in the design for a
projected steamer by the British Admiralty in 1815-16. This vessel was
about 76 feet overall, 16-foot beam, and 8-foot 10 inches depth in hold.
Her design was for a flat-bottom, chine-built hull with no fore-and-aft
camber in the bottom, a sharp entrance, and a square-tuck stern with
slight overhang above the cross-seam. Her side frames were straight and
vertical amidships, but curved as the bow and stern were approached. She
was to be a side-paddle-wheel steamer, and her hull was diagonally
braced; the wheel and engine were to be about amidships where she was
dead flat for about 14 feet. However, the engine and boilers were not
installed; the engine was utilized ashore for pumping, and the vessel
was completed in the Deptford Yard as a sailing ship. Under the name
_Congo_ she was employed in the African coast survey. Her plan is in the
Admiralty Collection of Draughts, at the National Maritime Museum,
Greenwich, England.
The double hull continued to be employed in both steam and team
ferryboats in the United States and in England and France. A few river
and lake steamers were also built with this design of hull. Continued
efforts to obtain fast sailing by use of the double hull produced a
number of sailing catamarans; of these the Herreshoff catamarans of the
1870's showed high speed when reaching in a fresh breeze.
Designs for double-hulled steamers appeared during the last half of the
19th century; in 1874 the _Castalia_, a large, double-hull, iron,
cross-channel steamer, was built by the Thames Iron-works Company at
Blackwall, England. She was 290 feet long, and each hull had a beam of
17 feet. The paddle wheel was placed between the hulls and, ready for
sea, she drew 6-1/2 feet. She ran the 22 miles between Dover and Calais
in 1 hour and 50 minutes, a speed much slower than that of the
paddle-wheel, cross-channel steamers having one hull. Another
double-hull steamer was built for this service by Hawthorn, Leslie and
Company, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Scotland, in 1877. First named _Express_,
she was renamed _Calais-Douvres_ when she went into service in May 1878.
Her length was 302 feet, her extreme beam 62 feet, and each hull had a
beam of 18 feet, 3 inches. She drew 6-foot 7-1/2 inches ready for sea
and the paddle wheel was between the hulls. On her trials she made 14
knots and burned coal excessively. Sold to France in 1880, she was taken
out of service in 1889. Though popular, she was not faster than the
single-hull steamers in this service and had been a comparatively
expensive vessel to build and operate.
The many attempts to produce a very fast double-hull steamer and large
sailing vessels have led to disappointment for their designers and
sponsors. In the history of naval architecture, since Petty's time,
there have been a number of periods when the new-old idea of the double
hull has become popular. Craft of this type have been commonly well
publicized but, on the whole, their basic designs have followed the same
principles over and over again and have not produced the sought-for
increase in speed and handiness.
In very recent years there has been a revival in interest in sailing
double-hull boats that is enthusiastic as to very small craft and
somewhat restrained as to large boats. A few projects are under
development for double-hull craft, power and sail, of over 90-foot
length, including an oceanographic research vessel. In general, however,
the performance of double-hull boats has shown that Chapman's estimate
of the type was reasonably correct and that there are limitations,
particularly in maneuverability in the double-hull craft that could have
been found by reference to the history of past experiments with the
type.
NAVAL STEAMERS.
THE DEMOLOGOS; OR, FULTON THE FIRST.
At the close of the year eighteen hundred and thirteen, Robert Fulton
exhibited to the President of the United States, the original drawing
from which the engraving on Plate One is sketched, being a
representation of the proposed war-steamer or floating-battery, named by
him, the Demologos. This sketch possesses more than ordinary interest,
from the circumstance that it is, doubtless, the only record of the
_first war-steamer in the world_, designed and drawn by the immortal
Fulton, and represented by him to the Executive, as capable of carrying
a strong battery, with furnaces for red hot shot, and being propelled by
the power of steam, at the rate of _four_ miles an hour.
It was contemplated that this vessel, besides carrying her proposed
armament on deck, should also be furnished with submarine guns, two
suspended from each bow, so as to discharge a hundred pound ball into an
enemy's ship at ten or twelve feet below her water-line. In addition to
this, her machinery was calculated for the addition of an engine which
would discharge an immense column of water upon the decks, and through
the port-holes of an enemy, making her the most formidable engine for
warfare that human ingenuity has contrived.
The estimated cost of the vessel was three hundred and twenty thousand
dollars, nearly the sum requisite for a frigate of the first class.
The project was zealously embraced by the Executive, and the national
legislature in March, eighteen hundred and fourteen, passed a law,
authorizing the President of the United States to cause to be built,
equipped, and employed, one or more floating batteries, for the defense
of the waters of the United States.
The building of the vessel was committed by the Coast and Harbor Defense
Association, to a sub-committee of five gentlemen, who were recognized
by the Government as their agents for that purpose, and whose
interesting history of the Steam Frigate is copied in Note A, of the
Appendix to this volume.
Robert Fulton, whose soul animated the enterprise, was appointed the
engineer; and on the twentieth day of June, eighteen hundred and
fourteen, the keel of this novel steamer was laid at the ship-yard of
Adam and Noah Brown, her able and active constructors, in the city of
New York, and on the twenty-ninth of the following October, or in little
more than four months, she was safely launched, in the presence of
multitudes of spectators who thronged the surrounding shores, and were
seen upon the hills which limited the beautiful prospect around the bay
of New York.
The river and bay were filled with steamers and vessels of war, in
compliment to the occasion. In the midst of these was the enormous
floating mass, whose bulk and unwieldy form seemed to render her as
unfit for motion, as the land batteries which were saluting her.
In a communication from Captain David Porter, U. S. Navy, to the Hon.
Secretary of the Navy, dated New York, October 29, 1814, he states,--"I
have the pleasure to inform you that the "FULTON THE FIRST," was this
morning safely launched. No one has yet ventured to suggest any
improvement that could be made in the vessel, and to use the words of
the projector, '_I would not alter her if it were in my power to do
so._'
"She promises fair to meet our most sanguine expectations, and I do not
despair in being able to navigate in her from one extreme of our coast
to the other. Her buoyancy astonishes every one, she now draws _only
eight feet three inches water_, and her draft will only be _ten_ feet
with all her guns, machinery, stores, and crew, on board. The ease with
which she can now be towed with a single steamboat, renders it certain
that her velocity will be sufficiently great to answer every purpose,
and the manner it is intended to secure her machinery from the gunner's
shot, leaves no apprehension for its safety. I shall use every exertion
to prepare her for immediate service; her guns will soon be mounted, and
I am assured by Mr. Fulton, that her machinery will be in operation in
about six weeks."
On the twenty-first of November, the Steam Frigate was moved from the
wharf of Messrs. Browns, in the East River, to the works of Robert
Fulton, on the North River, to receive her machinery, which operation
was performed by fastening the steamboat "Car of Neptune," to her
larboard, and the steamboat "Fulton," to her starboard side; they towed
her through the water from three and a-half to four miles per hour.
The dimensions of the "Fulton the First" were:--
Length, one hundred and fifty-six feet.
Breadth, fifty-six feet.
Depth, twenty feet.
Water-wheel, sixteen feet diameter.
Length of bucket, fourteen feet.
Dip, four feet.
Engine, forty-eight inch cylinder, and five feet stroke.
Boiler, length, twenty-two feet; breath, twelve feet; and depth,
eight feet.
Tonnage, two thousand four hundred and seventy-five.
By June, eighteen hundred and fifteen, her engine was put on board, and
she was so far completed as to afford an opportunity of trying her
machinery. On the first of June, at ten o'clock in the morning, the
"Fulton the First," propelled by her own steam and machinery, left the
wharf near the Brooklyn ferry, and proceeded majestically into the
river; though a stiff breeze from the south blew directly ahead, she
stemmed the current with perfect ease, as the tide was a strong ebb. She
sailed by the forts and saluted them with her thirty-two pound guns. Her
speed was equal to the most sanguine expectations; she exhibited a novel
and sublime spectacle to an admiring people. The intention of the
Commissioners being solely to try her enginery, no use was made of her
sails. After navigating the bay, and receiving a visit from the officers
of the French ship of war lying at her anchors, the Steam Frigate came
to at Powles' Hook ferry, about two o'clock in the afternoon, without
having experienced a single unpleasant occurrence.
On the fourth of July, of the same year, she made a passage to the ocean
and back, and went the distance, which, in going and returning, is
fifty-three miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes, without the aid of
sails; the wind and tide were partly in her favor and partly against
her, the balance rather in her favor.