An experiment recently took place in the East India Dock Basin,
Blackwall, London, by permission of Mr. J. L. du Plat Taylor, the
secretary of the Dock Company, for the purpose of testing and
illustrating the mode of raising sunken ships by means of the apparatus
patented by Mr. William Atkinson, naval engineer, of Sheffield. The
machinery employed consists of the necessary number and size, according
to the power required, of oval or egg-shaped buoys constructed of sheet
iron, having an internal valve of a simple and effective character.
Captain Hales Dutton, the dock master, who assisted during the
operations, had placed his small yacht at the inventor's service for the
occasion. The vessel was moored in the basin, and a set of four buoys
were attached to it, one on each side near the bow and the stern. Air
was supplied from a pump on the quay by a pipe communicating with a
small copper globe resting on the deck of the vessel, and from which
place proceeded four other flexible tubes, one to each buoy, thus
distributing the air to each one equally. The vessel being flooded and
in a sinking condition, the buoys were attached and the valves opened;
they rapidly filled with water, and the vessel immediately sank in about
30 feet. Upon the first attempt an air chamber in the stern had been
lost sight of, causing the vessel to come up to the surface stern
uppermost; this being rectified, the vessel was again sent to the
bottom, and allowed to remain a short time to allow her to settle down.
When the order was given to work the pump, the vessel was brought to the
surface, perfectly level, in about three minutes. The apparatus used,
although only models, and on a comparatively diminutive scale (the buoys
measuring 3 feet 4 inches in height and 2 feet 6 inches in diameter),
was estimated to be capable of lifting a weight of nearly 20 tons, and
that it needed, as represented by the patentee, only a corresponding
increase in the lifting power to deal successfully with vessels of any
tonnage.
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