At the recent meeting of the British Association, Don Arturo de
Marcoartu read a paper on the above subject.
He stated that he wished to draw special attention to increasing the
safety of navigation against storms, fogs, fire, and collisions with
wrecks, icebergs, or vessels, and recommending the development of
maritime telegraphy. He urged that vessels should be supplied with
apparatus to communicate with and telegraph to each other and to the
nearest coast the weather and sea passed over by them, and that reports
given by vessels should be used as "warnings" more extensively. He
wished the mid-Atlantic stations connected by telegraph for the same
purpose.
In regard to the use of oil on rough seas, he said that Dr. Badeley in
1857, Mr. John Shields five years ago at Peterhead and last year at
Folkestone, the Board of Trade in 1883, and a committee on life saving
appliances of the United States had made experiments. The conclusions of
the committee were that in deep water oil had a calming effect upon a
rough sea, but there was nothing in either source of information which
yet answered the question whether or not there is in the force exerted
by the wind a point beyond which oil cannot counteract its influence in
causing the sea to break. He thought it appeared that oil had some
utility on tidal bars; on wrecks, to facilitate the operations of
rescue; on lifeboats and on lifebuoys. In regard to icebergs, he thought
the possibility of obtaining an echo from an iceberg when in dangerous
proximity to a ship should be tried. He advocated the use of automatic
sprinklers in the case of fire, the establishment of parabolic
reflectors for concentration of sound, and the further prosecution of
experiments by Professor Bell in establishing communication between
vessels some distance apart by means of interrupted electrical currents.
The improvement of navigation, he said, meant an international code of
police to improve police rules of navigation; an international code of
universal telegraphy for navigation; an international office of
meteorology and navigation to collect the studies; experiments on the
weather, on the sea, on the casualties; and the discovery by experiment
of new apparatus and appliances to diminish maritime disaster.
He had called the attention of two governments to this matter, and he
hoped that before long there would be proposed an international
congress--such as the postal, telegraph, and sanitary congresses, and
the international convention to fix the common meridian--by one of the
maritime powers, by which would be founded an international institution
to diminish casualties at sea. He recommended a universal system of
buoys. The great losses of life and property every year were worthy the
devotion of £300,000 by an international institution, which would be
much less than the monthly average loss in navigation.
Admiral Pim said that ships were improperly built--some were ten times
longer than their beam. There was nothing in the world so ticklish as a
ship; touch her in the waist, and down she goes. He believed sailing
ships ought not to exceed four times their beam, and steamers certainly
not more than six times. He pointed out that a fruitful cause of
accidents was the stopping of steaming all at once in the case of
impending collision, by which the rudder lost control of the vessel. If
constructors looked more to the form of the ships, and got them to steer
better, collisions would be avoided.
The Lord Advocate said it had always occurred to him that one great
secret of collisions at sea was the present system of lights, which made
it impossible for the vessel at once to inform another vessel what it
was about. The method of signaling was very crude, and he ventured to
say that it was quite out of date when vessels met each other at a rate
of speed of 24 to 25 knots. He had, as an amateur, tried a method which
he would attempt to explain. His idea was to fit up a lantern on deck,
showing an electric light. The instrument would be controlled by the
rudder, and the commanding officer of the vessel would be able so to
turn it when the helm was put up or down that the light would flash at
some distance in front of either bow of the vessel, and thus be a signal
to a vessel coming in an opposite direction. When the helm was
amidships, the light was shown straight ahead, and could not be moved
until the helm was shifted. The direction in which the vessel was going
could not by any possibility be mistaken, and it was plain that if the
lights from two ships crossed each other, then there was danger. If the
lights were clear of each other, then the ships would pass safely.
Sir James Douglass asked if his Lordship had made any experiments.
The Lord Advocate said he had not. The Board of Trade had such a number
of inventions on this subject on hand that he supposed they were already
disgusted. Besides, he was only an amateur, and left the carrying out of
the suggestion to others.
Sir James Douglass said this idea of a lantern did very well for a short
distance, but for a long distance it utterly failed. It was very
difficult to realize a movement from a distance of over a mile out to
sea, and signals were required to be visible for from two to three
miles.
The Lord Advocate said his idea depended not upon the object light, but
upon the sweep of the light on the water.
Sir James Douglass said all those questions were of the utmost
importance to a maritime country. In regard to experiments with oil on
troubled water, he had witnessed them, and he had carefully studied all
the reports, and had come to the conclusion that they were all very well
in a tub of water or a pond, but on the ocean they were utterly
hopeless. He would stake his reputation on that. They had been tried in
the neighborhood of Aberdeen, and he had prophesied the results before
they were commenced. It was utterly hopeless to think that a quantity of
oil had the power of laying a storm--all the world could not produce oil
enough to bring about that result.
There might be something in maritime telegraphy, and he hoped the
experiments of Mr. Graham Bell, in transmitting through two or three
mile distances, would come to something. He did not believe in powerful
lights. Increase the lights to any very great extent, and a dazzling
effect was the result. In regard to sound, he wondered that no more
effective alarm was used than the whistle. It was well known that, as
the whistle instrument was enlarged, the sound became more and more a
roar. He would have ships use all their boiler power in sounding a
siren, so that the sound could be heard at a distance of not less than
two or three miles in any weather. With such a signal as that there
ought to be, not absolute safety, but collisions would be more easily
prevented. He was glad to say that a universal system of buoys had been
practically arranged, thanks to the Duke of Edinburgh and his committee,
so that, as soon as an old system can be changed to a new one, all the
buoys would bear one universal language.
Admiral Pim pointed out that a red light would show four miles, while a
green light was only visible for two miles and a half, so that, if a
green light were seen, it indicated that the two vessels were within two
miles and a half of each other.
Sir James Douglass said there was undoubtedly a weakness in regard to
these lights; and he held that in the manufacture of lights effect
should be given to the difference that existed in the various lights, so
that, by making the green light more powerful, it could penetrate as far
as the red, and in the same way making the red and green lights
proportionately more powerful, so that they would penetrate as far as
the white light.
Sir James Douglass said he had seen a parabolic reflector for sound
tried, but, unfortunately, the reflector so intensified and focused all
the sounds about the vessel and the noise of the sea that the operator
could hear nothing but a chaos of sound.
* * * * *