Shipbuilding and navigation began to develop at the dawn of human culture. But they developed extremely slowly. For thousands of years in different countries, exclusively wooden ships were built, the only movers of which were oars and sails. It is quite natural that the gradual evolution of the science of shipbuilding, by groping and long-term practice, improving wooden ships, could not contribute to the construction of ships, the design features of which would sharply differ from the established forms and proportions.
"Connector" at sea.
Ships - freaks, which are clearly a wrong step in the natural course of the development of naval technology, appeared, in fact, only in the 19th century. They appeared when the use of steam engines for the movement of ships and their replacement of sails, as well as the use of iron as the main shipbuilding material, led to a radical breakdown of old marine technology. The rapid progress of shipbuilding in the last century demanded new material forms and new principles from engineers. He opened up a wide field of activity for inventors. Great successes in shipbuilding over the past hundred years have been achieved only with the enormous expenditure of labor of many generations of inventors and talented engineers.
But not everything went smoothly in this accelerated development of marine technology. The search for more perfect forms of ships and better machines for their movement often misled inventors, forced them to make erroneous steps, to buy success at the price of bitter repeated failures. Who would have thought now, for example, that only seventy years ago a ship resembling a swan was built! That there were others - in the form of a plate, a cigar, a sea snake!
All these outlandish ships, no matter how ridiculous they were, still brought some benefit. The most ridiculous of them made its own, albeit small, contribution to the science of shipbuilding. The forgotten inventors of fantastic ships could now say with satisfaction that, in the end, their labors were not in vain.
In connection with the introduction of the steam engine on ships, some inventors were attracted by the idea of using one of the characteristic principles of the operation of freight railway trains in marine technology. Namely: the ability to maneuver the rolling stock in order to minimize the downtime of a traction unit - a steam locomotive. One of these inventors, an Englishman named Hippl, hastened to take out a patent in 1861, in which he wrote: “My steam vessel is able to leave one or two of its unloading parts in any port, to collect preloaded parts of the hull there (duplicates) and immediately go to another port. On the way back, the steamer can again change its component parts - just like it is done with the carriages of a railway train."
"Connector" - a diagram.
A shipowner was found who believed the energetic inventor, and in 1863, one by one, floating "carriages" of a fantastic sea train were launched from the stocks of the Blackwall shipyard. The composite steamer received the name "Connector", which means "Connector". The steamer consisted of three separate ships, of which the outer ones had the shape of the bow and stern. The middle section of the "Connector" was a rectangular insert. Two-cylinder steam engine of double expansion, with a capacity of 300 hp.with., and a cylindrical steam boiler were placed in the stern, which did not have a cargo hold. There was also a control post for the ship.
All connections between the individual parts of the "Connector" were hinged joints with large diameter bolts. These connections were supposed to give the steamer a certain flexibility on the wave. The figure shows how the inventor imagined the behavior of this ship - a sea snake in stormy weather. Now even a reader inexperienced in marine technology will say that such a ship cannot sail in the sea.
Indeed, the very first practical voyage of the "Connector" proved it. As soon as it left Dover, the ship was torn in half, and it was only with great difficulty that the separated parts could be pulled back into the harbor. Since then, the "Connector" sailed only along the Temza River. A few years later it had to be sold for scrap.
In the last century, many designers were interested in the idea of a ship with a double hull to ensure great stability on the wave. A certain captain Dicey, who served in India, was often amazed at the seaworthiness of such native vessels, made up of a pair of boats (boats with an outrigger).
Returning to England, he decided to build a sea steamer according to this principle. Dicey believed that the passengers would prefer his ship, as the least prone to rolling, and confidently spent all his savings on its construction.
In 1874, an extraordinary iron steamer "Kastalia", 88.4 m long, was built, consisting of two separate hulls with a total width of 18.3 m, sailing side by side. Each building had its own steam engine of 180 liters. with. and a cylindrical steam boiler, imparting movement to the ship by means of a special propeller. Four chimneys enhanced the original look of the Castalia and were installed in pairs in two rows.
In an advertisement calling for passengers, Captain Dicey wrote that his steamer, unlike ordinary ships making voyages to France, hardly sways, has spacious cabins instead of cramped closets and various saloons for entertainment. It would seem that the old captain's luck is guaranteed. But that was not the case at all. Although "Castile" and was distinguished by extraordinary stability on the wave, however, it was completely unsuccessful in terms of speed. Due to the slowness of the sailing, passengers avoided riding it. People valued time more than comforts.
Steamer "Kastalia" at the pier.
Kastalia could not recoup the operating costs and, as a result, soon found itself an end in the scrap iron market.
The Castalia was not the only twin steamer. Even 24 years before her appearance, the steamer Gemini (Gemini) began sailing on the Clyde River, which also had two hulls connected by a single deck.
However, it was not built to combat pitching. It was a river steamer with the greatest length of 47.5 m. Its inventor, Peter Borie, only wanted to simplify the rowing propeller and protect it from external damage. He hid the only paddle wheel between the hulls.
If the steamer was “safe for passengers, goods and carriages” and worked for quite a long time, nevertheless it was a real freak because of the excessively low efficiency of the propulsion unit, and not a single designer dared to further imitate Peter Bory.
The famous English metallurgist and versatile inventor Henry Bessemer paid attention to the fight against seasickness of passengers. Being the chairman of the steamship company, which supported the communication across the English Channel, Bessemer drew up a project for "a ship's saloon with a device that would keep the saloon unchanged even in rough seas, which was supposed to eliminate seasickness." In other words, Bessemer invented a pendulum saloon, in which passengers were not supposed to feel rolling when the ship's hull vibrated on a wave.
The device of Bessemer's ship.
Possessing large funds, Bessemer immediately began to implement his project. In the middle of the hull of the steamer, named after the chairman of the Bessemer company, a room was arranged, suspended on a swinging frame. While the hull of the steamer was tilted, the pendulum saloon had to maintain a horizontal position by means of automatically acting hydraulic pistons. In order for passengers to suffer less from pitching, which the outlandish interior could not moderate, the Bessemer was made unusually long.
In 1875, the steamer set off on its maiden voyage. It was the voyage that determined the ill-fated fate of the Bessemer. The great steelmaker suffered a complete setback at sea. The steamer turned out to be very slow on the move and expensive to operate. But the main flaw of this ship was that it did not obey the rudder due to the excessive length of the hull. Completing its maiden voyage, the Bessemer, in calm weather, could not immediately enter the French port of Calais. He completely refused to obey the will of the captain and twice suffered an accident, bumping into a stone pier before he came to the pier. The infamy ensured a quick end to Bessemer.
"The Arrival of" Cleopatra "in London".
Probably never before has such an amazing ship sailed on the seas as the famous "Cleopatra". This ship was built specifically for the transportation from Egypt to England of a two-hundred-ton obelisk named "Cleopatra's Needle".
It must be said that the British, who systematically took everything that was possible from Egypt to their museums, had dreamed of delivering Cleopatra's Needle to London for 75 years, and only the lack of a suitable ship slowed the business down.
"Cleopatra" in section.
The engineers of that time thought for a long time how to build a ship that could accept and transport a historical monument thousands of miles away, which could not fit in any ship. In the end, they settled on the proposal of a certain James Glover. As a result, a long cylindrical iron hull was built, 30 m long and 5.5 m wide, which, when loaded with its ancient load, had to be half submerged in water. The strange hull from above had a removable superstructure - a bridge and a cabin for four people, and one mast. The latter was intended for setting oblique sails. Since the entire hold of “Cleopatra” was to be occupied by a huge “needle” and there was no room left for the steam power plant, it was decided to tow it by steamer across the entire Mediterranean Sea and part of the Atlantic Ocean.
The location of the obelisk inside the ship.
In 1877, "Cleopatra" was brought to Egypt on the Nile River. Caution and convenience of loading the monolith stone onto the ship were ensured by the cylindrical shape of the Cleopatra's hull. The latter was pumped ashore as a pipe and was dismantled here to the extent necessary to place the obelisk in the hold. Then the hull was reassembled, riveted, rolled back into the water and a superstructure with a mast was installed. The stability of the strange ship was ensured by an equally strange keel in the form of a suspension of a bundle of railway rails.
The seamen felt the absurdity of the construction of the underwater part of the Cleopatra's hull only in the open sea. Its blunt ends and rail bundles provided tremendous resistance during towing. The tug "Olga" was exhausted, towing such an inconvenient ship.
The voyage proceeded safely to the Bay of Biscay. But here a misfortune happened: a storm arose, and a tugboat connected to such a bulky wagon was forced to cut off the ropes to save people and leave the Cleopatra with its cargo to fend for itself. At the same time, five people drowned from the steamer Olga. Due to the loss of the "keel" "Cleopatra" went on board. But she did not drown, but was nailed by the waves to the Spanish town of Ferral. From England the tugboat “England” was sent for “Cleopatra”, which brought her to London.
The experience of operating the ship excluded the possibility of using it in the future for the transportation of bulky piece cargo, and therefore "Cleopatra" was dismantled for metal.
Russia also had its own innovator shipbuilders, and some of them. The most famous is Admiral Popov, famous for his round ships. But if his battleships "Novgorod" and "Vice-Admiral Popov" brought at least some benefit, then the unusual project of the royal yacht "Livadia" in the end did not give anything.
Popov himself personally presented his project to Alexander II and obtained permission to build such a yacht. The best factory in England at that time was chosen as the place of construction. The launching of the yacht in 1880 took place with an incredible crowd of people attracted by newspaper reports that an unprecedented vessel was being built at Elder's plant, in the shape of a "saw-fish that saddled a flounder."
English newspapers reported that Livadia had been ordered by a boastful Russian tsar, who wished to amaze the whole world with his quaint, supposedly non-swinging yacht and its luxury. Livadia's hull was an oval pontoon 72 m long and 47 m wide inside. Inside, in the engine room, three steam engines were installed, with a capacity of 10 ½ thousand hp, which could inform the yacht at full speed up to 14 knots. Three high chimneys were placed in a row across the hull, which made a very strange impression even on old sailors who had seen all kinds of views.
Model of the imperial yacht "Livadia" from the Museum of Transport in Glasgow.
While sailing from England to the Black Sea, Livadia met a fresh wave in the Bay of Biscay, and although the weather was far from stormy, the yacht nevertheless suffered a serious accident. It turned out that it was completely unseaworthy: the Livadia did not really rock, but the flat bottom of the hull hit the wave very hard. The iron sheathing sheets were crumpled, pressed between the frames and even torn. In the bow rooms, the water rose a full meter.
The yacht was wide (11 m wider than the transatlantic steamer Queen Mary), so not only the nearest Ferrol dock, but also any other, even the largest in the world, dry dock could not accept it. Livadia had to be repaired afloat in the Spanish port of Ferrol for six months. Only in 1881, taking advantage of the cloudless summer weather in the Mediterranean Sea, it was possible to ferry the Livadia to Sevastopol. After three years of useless anchorage (Livadia made only one voyage to the Caucasian coast), the yacht was disarmed, and the hull was turned into a coal lighter.
