#screw sloop-of-war

[berenices-commas]

Osa - 1855-1867

Warship – 170 tons burden – 7-9 knots

The second Osa was also a Russian gunboat, this time built for the Baltic fleet. In 1854, following the entry of Britain and France into the Crimean War, their combined fleets raided Russian territory around the Baltic, prompting a rapid programme to construct small warships for coastal defence. In this plan the Russian government aimed to recreate the successes it had seen with oar-powered gunboats over Swedish ships in the previous century.

Their technology was updated, however, in the 1850s. Osa was ketch-rigged – a two-masted sail plan that made for ease of handling and reliability rather than speed. Her speed was provided instead by a screw propeller, with a steam engine capable of providing somewhere in the vicinity of 70 horsepower. On such a small vessel, this would have allowed her to outrun most traditional sailing ships, although screw sloops and frigates could still probably catch her. She was also heavily armed with three 68-pounder guns – notably, these fired not solid shot but explosive shells. These gave real advantages both in shore bombardment and in attacking wooden-hulled ships, as had been dramatically demonstrated in the Russian victory at Sinop the year before.

In the event the new gunboats proved a success, being able to manoeuvre easily in the shallow waters and inlets of the Baltic, and inflicting enough damage on British ships to warn them off coastal operations. The role of the Osa herself is unclear, but she certainly was not sunk. Nonetheless, the British blockade was essentially successful, and Russia was forced to make peace in 1856 before a newly-built fleet of British gunboats (the “Great Armament”) might have been deployed against their Russian counterparts. The Osa was perhaps mothballed, like many Russian vessels after the end of the war, and was finally broken up in 1867.

Again the name was given by the Imperial Russian Navy to a gunboat, suggesting an emphasis on firepower as a wasp’s sting. This second Osa, however, was also genuinely speedy and agile.

[mareislandfoundation]

Prejudice

The “Panic of 1873” was a global depression caused by American inflation, speculative investments (especially in railroads), demonetization of silver, and economic dislocation in Europe due to the Franco-Prussian War.  Our Nation descended into the deepest and longest economic depression in history. The economy of the time was dominated by a few major railroad companies that responded to a resulting excess labor pool by cutting wages thus precipitating massive unrest nationwide. That unrest soon morphed from protests into riots in nearly every major city and the National Guard and military were called out to restore order. Railroad facilities were burned, protesters and rioters shot, and strike breakers threatened and beaten.

Then, in the summer of 1877, racism reared its ugly head as riots broke out in San Francisco.  The situation quickly deteriorated, and military resources from Mare Island Naval Shipyard were called on to restore order. For years business had imported Chinese workers as a cheap source of labor to work in the mines, building the railroad, and in sweatshops throughout San Francisco. Those workers were subject to indentured servitude and controlled by Chinese Tongs. As the depression deepened in California protests took on a racist turn. Cheap Chinese labor was tolerated when they were employed in the dangerous jobs of hard rock mining and building the railroad, but by the time of the depression jobs in those industries had dwindled and the Chinese were in direct competition for wages with other California residents and immigrants of European descent. The Democratic and Republican political parties were united against the Chinese with the Democrats demanding legislation to prevent the “immigration of Mongolians” and the Republicans demanding investigation of the “Mongolian problem.” It was in that environment, that riots broke out in San Francisco in July of 1877. As mobs roamed San Francisco, Chinese workers were beaten or killed, and homes and businesses were destroyed and burned.

Responding to the disorder a “Committee for Public Safety” reminiscent of the “Vigilante Committees” of the 1850’s was formed as thousands armed themselves to put down the rioters who they referred to as hoodlums. The chair of that committee remembered the effect that the US warship John Adams had on the city when its commanding officer threatened to turn its guns on the city during another period of insurrection, and he telegraphed the President requesting federal support. Army troops were stationed on Angel Island and Alcatraz and the Secretary of the Navy ordered resources from Mare Island to the City. Included in the Mare Island response was the Monterey, the Corvette Pensacola and the screw sloop of war Lackawanna with a Marine contingent. The overwhelming show of force had the desired effect, and the violence and rioting were soon quelled. Several weeks later the Mare Island ships and forces were recalled and, other than providing a threatening presence, there is no record that they participated in any action.

One can imagine that those marines and sailors did not relish the duty they were assigned. Intervention in domestic civil disturbance is a complex, demanding, and controversial mission. Upholding lawful government when the threat to law and government comes from among our own citizens is a mission no one in the military would want to become involved in. As unappealing as the image of American soldiers and sailors confronting American citizens may be, the military responsibility to assist in securing domestic tranquility has deep constitutional roots, and for over two hundred years our military has often proved the instrument of last resort when such chaos seemed imminent. Fortunately, in this case it appears the military did not participate in active enforcement; however, the idea that the civilian head of a self-appointed committee could request and receive military support from the President seems dubious at best.

As for the racial bias against Chinese, it continued for decades with laws passed to stop Chinese immigration and openly discriminate against them. Boycotts of the Chinese were common as well as boycotts by the Chinese in retaliation. Nearly 30 years later little had changed, when in 1906 the San Francisco School Board voted to segregate Asian children from other students to protect those other students from undue influence “by association with pupils of the Mongolian race.” This open discrimination carried the force of Law until well into the 1940’s.

Dennis Kelly

[lonestarbattleship]

State Ship Series: USS ILLINOIS

There have been two ships commissioned named after the state of Illinois in the US Navy. The state was admitted into the United States on December 3, 1818.

[no image or photo, painting is of a general type]

USS ILLINOIS (1864), Guerriere class, screw sloop-of-war, laid down in 1864. Cancelled and scrapped in 1867.

USS ILLINOIS (BB-7), Illinois Class, Predreadnought Battleship, in commission from 1901 to 1920. In 1919, she was lent to the state of New York for use as a training vessel for the New York Naval Militia, replacing USS Granite State.

In accordance with the Washington Naval Treaty, she was converted into a floating armory, barracks and school in 1924. She was renamed USS Prairie State (IX-15) to free the name for BB-65 in 1941. Then insold for scrap in 1956.

USS ILLINOIS (BB-65), Iowa Class, Battleship, initially laid down in 1942. The little bit of keel was cleared from the slipway to make room for higher priority vessels. There was thought to completing her as a aircraft carrier but it found the resulting carrier would less aircraft than an Essex Class and not be ready any faster than the Essexes under construction. It was decided it would be completed at later time.

Her construction was resumed in early 1945, with expected completion date of 1947. However, she cancelled later that year when she was 22% completed. Her incomplete hull and materials were kept on the slipway incase the funds became available to complete her. Numerous plans were drawn up to complete her as an AA platform, a fast armored resupply vessel, and guide missile battleship, but nothing came of them and the incomplete hull was scrapped in 1958.

USS ILLINOIS (SSN-786), Virginia Class Block III, in commission from 2016 to present.

NHHC: NH 105553

NYPL: b13668355

source, source

[ltwilliammowett]

You can run, by Tom Freeman (1952-2015)

The screw sloop-of-war Confederate States Ship Alabama chasing down the Yankee clipper Contest in November 1863.

[clove-pinks]

Midshipman Richard Phillips Leary of the U.S. Navy in uniform with sword, 1863. Midshipman Leary served aboard the screw sloop-of-war USS Canandaigua and ironclad monitor USS Sangamon during the American Civil War and eventually reached the rank of Rear Admiral.

[airmanisr]

HMS Gannet (1878) – Chatham Historic Dockyard by Alan Wilson Via Flickr: British Victorian-era Doterel-class sloop-of-war HMS Gannet was built at the Sheerness Royal Dockyard and launched on 31st August 1878. The Doterel-class were of composite construction, with wooden hulls built over an iron frame. Nine were built between 1877 and 1880. A screw composite sloop powered by both sail and steam, she has an impressive barque rig sail plan, while down below were three boilers providing steam to a two-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine driving a single 13ft screw. She had a top speed of 11 ½ knots. Her main roles were the protection of trade and Empire, the suppression of slavery & piracy, and surveying / charting the seas. She had a crew of roughly 140 men and was armed with two 7-inch muzzle-loading rifled guns, four 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns, four machine guns and one light gun. Her first Commission was in the Pacific from April 1879 to July 1883, while her second, third and forth commissions were all in the Mediterranean and were from September 1995 to November 1888, November 1988 to December 1891 and January 1892 to March 1895. During her second commission she saw action during the Battle of Suakin, part of the Mahdist War. Over 27 days from 11th September 1888, she fired over 200 shells and 1,200 machine gun rounds in defence of the Sudanese port of Suakin. She was relieved by HMS Starling on 15th October but without the support of HMS Gannet the port may well have fallen under rebel control. In March 1895 she was paid off for the last time and was stored at Chatham and Sheerness before being listed as non-effective in 1900. She was leased to the South Eastern & Chatham Railway Company from October 1900 to June 1902 and used as an accommodation hulk at Port Victoria on the Isle of Grain. She became HMS President in 1903 and was berthed in London’s West India Docks as a Royal Naval Reserve drill ship, for which she was heavily converted. She was renamed HMS President II in 1909 and was replaced in the drill ship role by HMS Buzzard in 1911. In 1913 she became an accommodation ship for Training School Mercury, on the river Hamble near Southampton. The school closed in 1968 and the ship was handed back to Royal Navy control, having been on loan to the school for nearly sixty years. She was transferred to the Maritime Trust in 1971 and a major restoration project began in 1987 to return her to her 1886 condition. The work was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Medway Council and European Regional Development Fund and she now appears as she did during the Battle of Suakin. In 1994 ownership passed to the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust, were she is preserved in all her glory. Chatham Historic Dockyard Chatham, Kent, UK 27th July 2021

[asundergrowth]

Do you just assume everyone is born a terf unless they prove otherwise?

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H. L. Hunley (submarine)

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"H. L. Hunley" redirects here. For the Confederate marine engineer, see Horace Lawson Hunley.

H. L. Hunley, often referred to as Hunley or as CSS Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship (USS Housatonic), although Hunley was not completely submerged and, following her successful attack, was lost along with her crew before she could return to base. The Confederacy lost 21 crewmen in three sinkings of Hunley during her short career. She was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly after she was taken into government service under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, South Carolina.



1864 painting of H. L. Hunley by Conrad Wise Chapman

HistoryConfederate States Name: H. L. HunleyNamesake: Horace Lawson HunleyBuilder: James McClintockLaid down: Early 1863Launched: July 1863Acquired: August 1863In service: 17 February 1864Out of service: 17 February 1864Status: Stored in H.L Hunley MuseumGeneral characteristics Displacement: 7.5 short tons (6.8 t)Length: 39.5 ft (12.0 m) (unconfirmed)Beam: 3.83 ft (1.17 m)Propulsion: Hand-cranked ducted propellerSpeed: 4 kn (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph) (surface)Complement: 2 officer, 6 enlistedArmament: 1 spar torpedo

H. L. HUNLEY (submarine)

U.S. National Register of Historic Places





Show map of South CarolinaShow map of the United StatesShow all

Nearest cityNorth Charleston, South CarolinaCoordinates32°44′0″N 79°46′0″WBuilt1864ArchitectPark & Lyons; Hunley, McClintock & WatsonNRHP reference No.78003412[1]Added to NRHPDecember 29, 1978

Hunley, nearly 40 ft (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on 12 August 1863, to Charleston. Hunley (then referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise") sank on 29 August 1863, during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She sank again on 15 October 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Lawson Hunley himself, who was aboard at the time, even though he was not a member of the Confederate military. Both times Hunley was raised and returned to service.

On 17 February 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240-displacement ton United States Navy[2] screw sloop-of-war Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charleston's outer harbor. Hunley did not survive the attack and also sank, taking with her all eight members of her third crew, and was lost.

Finally located in 1995, Hunley was raised in 2000, and is on display in North Charleston, South Carolina, at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center on the Cooper River. Examination in 2012 of recovered Hunley artifacts suggests that the submarine was as close as 20 ft (6.1 m) to her target, Housatonic, when her deployed torpedo exploded, which caused the submarine's own loss.[3]

Predecessors

Construction and testing

Armament

Attack on Housatonic

Disappearance

Recovery of wreckage

Crew

Tours

In popular culture

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[aiiaiiiyo]

Veteran of the American Civil War, barkentine–rigged screw sloop-of-war USS Monongahela in 1902.[2560 × 2075] Check this blog!

[sindbadthesailorhp]

Research Pirate ships 2

HMS Swallow was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford Dockyard and launched on 10 February 1703. Swallow was rebuilt according to the 1706 Establishment at Chatham Dockyard, and was relaunched on 25 March 1719

HMS Forward was a British Albacore-class wooden screw gunboat launched in 1855 and sold in 1869. After her sale, Mexican pirates captured her, and boats from the United States Navy sloop-of-war USS Mohican destroyed her in the Battle of Boca Teacapan in 1870.

HMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Australia and New Zealand on his first voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771

HMS Charles Galley was a 32–gun fifth rate of the Royal Navy built at Woolwich Dockyard and launched in 1676. She was rebuilt in 1693, and again at Deptford Dockyard in 1710. She was renamed HMS Torrington after a third rebuild in 1729, and was hulked in 1740. She was finally sold on 12 July 1744

The Neptune is a ship replica of a 17th-century Spanish galleon designed by Naval Architect David Cannell of www.dmcmarine.com. The ship was built in 1985 for Roman Polanski's film Pirates, where she portrayed the Spanish ship of the same name.

Sunny South, an extreme clipper, was the only full-sized sailing ship built by George Steers, and resembled his famous sailing yacht America, with long sharp entrance lines and a slightly concave bow. Initially, she sailed in the California and Brazil trades.

The third HMS Black Joke was probably built in Baltimore in 1824, becoming the Brazilian slave ship Henriquetta. The Royal Navy captured her in September 1827 and purchased her into the service. The Navy re-named her Black Joke, after an English song of the same name, and assigned her to the West Africa Squadron.

[adventures-of-the-blackgang]

Screw Sloop-of-War Kaiyō Maru 1867 / Japan

Built 1863 at the yard of Cornelis Gips and Sons in Dordrecht, The Netherlands; Wrecked 15 November 1868 more  

[maritimecyprus]

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(www.MaritimeCyprus.com) Starting from an oar-powered prototype to the original U.S. Navy submarine, here are ten “undersea vehicles” that were among the first in history to take the plunge.

1. Drebbel: 1620-1624

Illustration of a Drebbel.

British mathematician William Bourne made some of the earliest known plans for a submarine around 1578, but the world’s first working prototype was built in the 17th century by Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutch polymath and inventor in the employ of the British King James I. Drebbel’s sub was probably a modified rowboat coated in greased leather and manned by a team of oarsmen. Sometime around 1620, he used it to dive 15 feet beneath the River Thames during a demonstration witnessed by King James and thousands of astonished Londoners. Unfortunately, none of Drebbel’s plans or engineering drawings has survived to today, so historians can only guess about how his “diving boat” actually operated. Some accounts say it submerged via a collection of bladders or wooden ballast tanks, while others suggest that a sloping bow and a system of weights were used to propel the boat underwater when it was rowed at full speed.

2. Turtle: 1775

Diagram of man inside the Turtle.

During the American Revolution, inventor and Yale graduate David Bushnell provided the colonists with a secret weapon in the form of an experimental submarine called the “Turtle.” This one-man wooden craft relied on a human-powered hand crank and foot treadle for propulsion. A pedal-operated water tank allowed it to submerge and surface, and lead ballast kept it upright in the water. If operated properly, it could approach an enemy ship undetected and use a screw to plant a mine filled with 150 pounds of gunpowder. In the early morning hours of September 7, 1776, Continental Army soldier Ezra Lee launched history’s first submarine attack when he piloted the Turtle underneath the British warship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor. Lee had only received minimal training, however, and after failing to attach a time bomb to the ship’s hull, he aborted the mission and detonated his mine in the open water. Bushnell later abandoned the submarine project after several other missions also failed to sink an enemy ship, but his invention earned him the respect of his fellow Patriots. When later asked about the Turtle, George Washington replied, “I then thought, and still think, that it was an effort of genius…”

3. Nautilus: 1800

Cross-section of a Fulton-designed sub.

While working for the French government in 1800, American inventor Robert Fulton designed the “Nautilus,” an-all metal craft often called the first modern submarine. The 21-foot ship featured several revolutionary innovations including a cigar-shaped hull and a copper conning tower. It used a hand-powered, four-bladed propeller to move underwater, but also sported a collapsible mast and fan sail for surface travel. Diving planes were used to assist in submerging, and Fulton also experimented with storing compressed air in copper bottles to provide oxygen for his crew. The Nautilus made several successful test dives in the early 19th century, but it was dismantled and sold for scrap after it failed to win over both the French and English navies. Fulton, meanwhile, later returned to America and won fame for developing the world’s first commercially viable steamboat.

4. Sea Devil: 1855

Drawing of the Sea Devil on the ocean floor.

Wilhelm Bauer built his first submarine in 1850, but only narrowly escaped with his life after it sank in 50 feet of water during a demonstration. Undeterred, the Bavarian inventor continued experimenting and eventually received funding from the Russian government for a new vessel. After traveling to St. Petersburg in 1855, he constructed the “Sea Devil,” a 52-foot submersible capable of carrying a crew of a dozen men. The ship boasted several technological breakthroughs including multiple ballast tanks for added buoyancy, a crude airlock and a propeller that was powered by crewmen operating an internal treadmill. The “Sea Devil” would eventually make more than 130 successful dives before being lost at sea. Its most unusual feat came during the coronation of Czar Alexander II, when it submerged with a four-member brass band aboard. Witnesses later reported that they could hear a rendition of the Russian national anthem coming from beneath the waves.

5. CSS H.L. Hunley: 1863

Drawing of Hunley on a pier.

The primitive attack sub H.L. Hunley was designed to help the Confederacy escape the stranglehold of Union naval blockades during the Civil War. Built privately in Mobile, Alabama, in 1863, it was fashioned from a recycled iron steam boiler and included space for eight crewmen—one to steer, and seven to turn the hand cranks that powered its propeller. Its bow bristled with a 17-foot spar mounted with a torpedo, which would detonate when rammed against an enemy ship. Early tests earned the Hunley the nickname the “peripatetic coffin”—and for good reason. It sank on two occasions during its trial runs, killing a total of 13 crewmen including its namesake, marine engineer Horace Lawson Hunley. The sub was repeatedly salvaged, however, and on February 17, 1864, Lieutenant George Dixon and a crew of volunteers sailed it into Charleston Harbor and successfully drove its torpedo into the side of the sloop-of-war USS Housatonic. The Union vessel went down in minutes, but the Hunley also sank, possibly because of damage sustained during its attack. Despite becoming the first submariners in history to destroy an enemy ship, Dixon and his Confederates all perished.

6. Le Plongeur: 1864Model of the Plongeur.

One of the first submarines to use mechanical power, “Le Plongeur” (“The Diver”) was a French-made craft designed by naval officers Simeon Bourgeois and Charles Brun. Rather than relying on hand cranks, foot pedals or treadmills to move its propeller, this 140-foot behemoth used a piston engine powered by compressed air stored in tanks. The air also helped provide the crew with oxygen and served as a means for automatically emptying its ballast tanks. Le Plongeur made several successful dives, but its limited air supply and dangerously unstable structural design led to it being removed from active duty in 1872. Many of its problems were later rectified in 1888 with the construction of the French submarine “Gymnote,” a more nimble craft that ran on electric power.

7. Ictineo II: 1865

Drawing of Monturiol and his submarine.

After witnessing the drowning death of a coral diver in 1857, the Spanish political activist and inventor Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol was inspired to build an underwater vehicle to increase worker safety. The result was the Ictineo II, a pioneering craft that has since been called the world’s first engine-powered submarine. The successor to an earlier diving boat called Ictineo I, the 46-foot Ictineo II achieved remarkable stability thanks to a system of weights and four pump-operated ballast tanks positioned inside its double-hull. To turn its propeller, Monturiol developed an anaerobic steam engine that used a chemical reaction to create both heat and oxygen. The engine seems to have worked—Monturiol made a successful dive in late-1867—but the sub was later sold for scrap due to funding shortages. Its groundbreaking propulsion system would not be replicated until the 20th century.

8. Argonaut: 1897

Argonaut I drawing.

Submarine technology had improved by leaps and bounds by the late-19th century, but most undersea boats were still only capable of completing short runs close to shore. That changed in 1897, when American engineer Simon Lake built the Argonaut, a 36-foot craft powered by a 30-horsepower gasoline engine. The sub’s most unusual feature was a set of wheels that allowed it to “drive” on the seafloor. It also had a periscope, a diving chamber and a floating hose to provide air for the engine and crew. Lake initially used the Argonaut to salvage sunken shipwrecks in the Chesapeake Bay, but in 1898 he used it to sail from Norfolk, Virginia to Sandy Hook, New Jersey—a trip that has since been called the first open ocean voyage by a submarine. The journey earned Lake widespread acclaim and a congratulatory letter from “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” author Jules Verne. He went on to develop dozens of underwater vehicles for the U.S. Navy and produce more than 200 patents.

9. USS Holland: 1898

Photo of the Holland at sea.

During a ceremony at Newport, Rhode Island, on October 12, 1900, USS Holland became the first submarine officially commissioned by the U.S. Navy. Built in 1898, the 54-footer took its name from its inventor, John Philip Holland, an Irish-born engineer who was one of the most prolific submarine pioneers of the late-19th and early 20th centuries. The ship’s armaments consisted of a single torpedo tube and a pneumatic cannon known as a “dynamite gun.” It was powered by a 4-cylinder gasoline engine for surface travel, but also included a 160-horsepower electric motor to move underwater. While Holland never saw combat, it did serve as a training vessel and experimental craft for the United States’ first crop of submariners. By the time it was decommissioned in 1905, the Navy had brought a half dozen other attack subs into service.

10. HMS M2: 1919

HMS M2 was a Royal Navy submarine monitor completed in 1919, converted in 1927 into a submarine aircraft carrier. She was shipwrecked in Lyme Bay, Dorset, Britain, on 26 January 1932. She was one of three M-class boats completed.

Watch the interesting video documentary below:

      10 Groundbreaking Early Submarines (www.MaritimeCyprus.com) Starting from an oar-powered prototype to the original U.S. Navy submarine, here are ten "undersea vehicles" that were among the first in history to take the plunge.

[berenices-commas]

HMS Wasp - 1850-1869

Warship – 970 tons burden – 8 knots – 170 crew

Superficially similar to the other sloops discussed so far, the sixth HMS Wasp in fact boasted significant technological improvements that made her a far more capable ship. Her construction was part of a flurry of British shipbuilding spurred by a naval arms race with France during the 1840s, one which continued even after the February Revolution of 1848 effectively put a halt to French naval expansion. Originally intended as gun-vessels, Wasp (named after the sloop retired in 1846) and her sister ship Archer were ultimately designed as sloops, far-ranging weapons with which Britain might project force across its vast maritime empire.

The Wasp was a large ship for her rating, capable of acting at need as a fast supply ship or even a troop transport (she could carry 400 men over and above her crew). Capacious and ship-rigged with three masts, she was a far cry from the brig-sloops of the early 19th century and well suited to extended deployments – with one caveat. That relates to her alternative propulsion system, a screw propeller powered by a coal-fuelled steam engine. This was still novel technology at the time. Capable of providing 100 horsepower of thrust, the propeller allowed the Wasp to sail directly into the wind – providing exceptional agility – and to outrun just about any ship reliant solely on sail power. Early “screw” ships were made somewhat ungainly by this addition, but the Wasp saw little or no reduction in her performance. The only real drawback of the propeller system was that coal was at this point hard to come by outside Britain itself, limiting the use of the screw to critical moments. Unlike steam-powered paddles, a propeller also allowed the ship to employ traditional broadside firepower. The sting of this Wasp reflected a British move away from carronades and towards a smaller number of heavier guns: she carried ten (soon increased to twelve) 32-pounder cannon and two 64-pounders – guns with considerable range. With the screw, the Wasp could outrun anything she could not outfight, allowing her to operate independently in relative security.

The Wasp had a varied career, being stationed in the Mediterranean upon the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853 and thus becoming part of the fleet which landed British forces in the Crimea and blockaded Sevastopol. It is unclear whether she directly took part in the bombardment of that city, but evidently it was decided that she was too light a ship to withstand the fire of Russian shore batteries. Her captain and some of her men disembarked to join the British army, while the Wasp herself returned to base at Malta. Most of her postings, however, were to join the naval campaign against the slave trade. Initially this meant service in the Atlantic, but in the 1860s she mostly patrolled the east coast of Africa. Here her screw was of great value in allowing her to run down nimble dhows in coastal waters, and the Wasp was able to liberate large numbers of people through capturing slavers. More generally she was used as a coercive tool of imperial rule, intimidating populations in the Nicobar Islands and Penang in 1867. She was finally retired in 1869.

[randomtimes-com]

#March 15, 1889: the power of nature blows gunboat diplomacy out of the water in Apia Harbour, Western Samoa

#TodayInHistory 👀 March 15, 1889: gunboat diplomacy was at its height in 1889 and on this day, tension was high with an act of war seemingly imminent. But, eventually, nature intervened. -Robin👨🏼‍💻.......#randomtimes_com 👇🏼

Gunboat diplomacy was at its height in 1889 and on this day, March 15, tension was high with an act of war seemingly imminent. Three American warships (the sloop-of-war USS Vandalia, the screw steamer USS Trenton, and the gunboat USS Nipsic) and three from Germany (the gunboats SMS Adler and SMS Eber and the corvette SMS Olga) were jostling for position in a small harbour in the South Pacific,…

[lonestarbattleship]

USS Lancaster, a screw sloop of war, cruises under steam in waters off New York following a deployment to the Mediterranean, circa 1889.

She a participated in the Civil war and the Spanish-American War. She was decommissioned and recommissioned three times. Years of service: 1859-1867; 1869-1889; 1891-1897; 1898-1915.

"Her gold eagle figurehead is now displayed at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia.”

Colorized by Alex Color Studio: link

[ltwilliammowett]

Model of CSS Alabama 1862- 64, by Dominique Banton

The Alabama was a square-rigged screw sloop with a steam engine. She was built in 1862, during the American Civil War, on behalf of the Confederate States of America ("Southern States") and served as a privateer for two years. On 19 June 1864, she was sunk by the sloop USS Kearsarge off the coast of France near Cherbourg.

[albinohare]

Donald Crowhurst: The fake round-the-world sailing story behind The Mercy

The mysterious and tragic disappearance of the single-handed sailor Donald Crowhurst more than 50 years ago continues to fascinate. Nic Compton explains why…

Hailed as a round the world single-handed hero, Donald Crowhurst in fact never left the Atlantic during his 243 days at sea. Photo: Alamy

It was while I was researching my book about madness at sea in 2015 that I first heard a movie about Donald Crowhurst was in the works. Several websites published reports of a high-profile British feature starring Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz, and a few surreptitious photos of the cast filming off Teignmouth had been posted online. It seemed a lucky coincidence, given that my book would inevitably feature the Crowhurst story, but I assumed the movie would come out long before my book was ready.

Over the next couple of years, however, the release date for the film was repeatedly postponed – so much so that it became a running topic among Hollywood gossipmongers, who speculated that Crowhurst’s widow Clare had delayed progress, or that it was being held back to tie with the 50th anniversary of the events, or indeed that it might never be released in cinemas and go straight to DVD instead.

Meanwhile, I carried on writing my book, Off the Deep End, which was published in 2017, and the movie, The Mercy, was released in February 2018. There was never any doubt the tragic story of Donald Crowhurst would have to be included in any book about madness at sea.

Colin Firth stars as Donald Crowhurst in the 2018 film The Mercy. Photo: Studio Canal

Of all the stories I researched, it’s the one that has caught the public imagination most. Long before the latest Hollywood offering it inspired movies, books, plays, art installations, an epic poem and even an opera. Whereas many stories of adventures at sea seem to leave the general public cold, the Crowhurst tale continues to fascinate more than 50 years after Teignmouth’s most famous sailor vanished without trace. And yet, despite the thousands of words written about him, we really know very little more about him than we did 50 years ago.

It all started when Francis Chichester made his historic single-handed circumnavigation in 1966-67 – not the first to do so, by any means, but certainly the fastest up to that point, completing the loop in 226 days with just one stop, in Sydney, to repair his self-steering. Even before he’d docked at Plymouth there was a general realisation, which spread like osmosis throughout the sailing world, that the next step would be to sail around solo without stopping.

The challenge was turned into a contest by the Sunday Times which, in March 1968, announced two prizes: a Golden Globe trophy for the first person to sail round the world via the Three Capes single-handed and non-stop, and a £5,000 cash prize for the person to do it in the fastest time. The only stipulation was that competitors had to leave from a British port between 1 June and 31 October 1968, and had to return to the same place.

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Nine skippers eventually signed up for the race: the famous transatlantic rowing duo Chay Blyth and John Ridgway, who had by then fallen out but were sailing near-identical 30ft glassfibre production boats; Bernard Moitessier, already something of a legend in France for breaking the long-distance sailing record on his steel ketch Joshua; Moitessier’s friend Loïc Fougeron; Robin Knox-Johnston, an unknown British merchant navy officer sailing a heavy wooden boat called Suhaili; two former British naval officers, Bill King and Nigel Tetley; the experienced Italian single-handed sailor Alex Carozzo; and Donald Crowhurst.

Out of the group, Crowhurst was by far the least experienced, the odd one out. Born in India in 1932, he went to Loughborough College after the war, until family nances and the death of his father forced him to cut his education short. He joined the RAF in 1948 but was chucked out after six years because of some high jinks with a vehicle; the same thing happened when he joined the army and he was forced to resign after he was caught trying to hotwire a car during a drunken escapade.

Persuasive character

Crowhurst with his wife Clare and their children Rachel, Simon, Roger and James, circa October 1968. Photo: Getty Images

Next he got as job as a travelling salesman for an electrics company, but was again dismissed after crashing the company car.

Ever-persuasive, he talked himself into a job as chief design engineer for an electronics company in Somerset, and in 1962 set up his own company, Electron Utilisation, to manufacture electronic devices for yachts.

The company got off to a good start, selling a simple but well-designed radio direction finder which Crowhurst dubbed the Navicator. Pye Radio invested £8,500 in the project, before getting cold feet and pulling out.

It quickly became clear that while Crowhurst was a charismatic personality and brilliant innovator he didn’t have the business acumen to run a successful company, and Electron Utilisation was soon in financial trouble.

Crowhurst managed to persuade local businessman Stanley Best to invest £1,000 to carry the company over what he assured him was a temporary lean period.

It must have been obvious to Crowhurst that he was heading for another failure. By now 35 years old, he could see the same pattern repeating itself, of high ambition thwarted by petty practicalities. Only, by now married to Clare with four children and living in a comfortable house outside Bridgwater in Somerset, the stakes were higher than ever.

His response to failure was to reinvent himself yet again. This time he would become a record-breaking sailor, a seafaring hero in the vein of Chichester: he would sail around the world single-handed – even though he had until then only dabbled in sailing, mainly on board a 20ft sloop called Pot of Gold. First, however, he needed a boat.

After failing to persuade the Cutty Sark Committee to lend him Gipsy Moth IV for the voyage, he decided a trimaran would be the ideal craft – despite having never sailed on one. To get the funding to build his dream boat he achieved perhaps the greatest coup of his life.

With Electron Utilisation going down the pan, his backer Stanley Best wanted his loan repaid, but Crowhurst managed to persuade him the best way to get his money back would be to fund the construction of the new boat.

A replica of the 41ft Teignmouth Electron used in the filming of The Mercy. Photo: WENN Ltd/Alamy

The crux of his argument was that he would use the trimaran as a test bed for his new inventions, and the publicity gained from entering the race would catapult the company to success. The sting in the tail was that the loan was guaranteed by Electron Utilisation, which meant that, if the venture failed, the company would go bankrupt.

To understand how he managed this turnaround you have to go back in time. Photos of Crowhurst make him look geekish and uncool to the modern eye. With his sticky-out ears, high forehead, curly hair, tie and V-neck jumper, he appears the epitome of the eccentric inventor.

But all the contemporary accounts describe him as a charismatic, vibrant personality, the sort of person who lights up a room when they walk in – as well as being extremely clever. In fact, his cleverness was his problem. He had the gift of the gab and, once persuaded of something, could talk anyone into believing him.

“This is important,” said his wife Clare. “Donald had this definite talent. He would say the most amazing things, but then no matter how crazy they seemed, he’d be clever and ingenious enough to make them come true. Always. This is a most important point about his character.”

Crowhurst’s widow, Clare, holds the last photograph taken of Donald with his family. Photo: Guy Newman / Alamy

Slow off the mark

So Crowhurst got the money for Teignmouth Electron, which was built by Cox Marine in Essex and fitted out by JL Eastwood in Norfolk. It’s a measure of how far behind he was that by the time the Cox yard started building the hulls towards the end of June, Ridgway, Blyth and Knox-Johnston had already set off on their round-the-world attempts. In the event, complications meant the launch date was delayed and even when Crowhurst finally set off on 31 October – just a few hours before the Sunday Times deadline expired – his boat was barely complete.

None of the clever inventions he had devised for the boat were connected, including the all-important buoyancy bag at the top of the mast, which was supposed to inflate if the trimaran capsized. His revolutionary ‘computer’, which was supposed to monitor the performance of the boat and set off various safety devices, was no more than a bunch of unconnected wires.

Worse still, he had had to borrow yet more money from Best to finish the boat, and had mortgaged his home to guarantee the loan. Crowhurst made a desultory figure scrambling about the deck of his trimaran as he set off on his great adventure – only to turn around within a few minutes to untangle his jib and staysail halyards, which were snagged at the top of the mast.

It was just the start of his troubles. After two days at sea, while still within sight of Cornwall, the screws started falling off his self-steering and, not having any spares on board, he had to cannibalise other parts of the machine to replace them.

A leaky boat

A few days later, halfway across the Bay of Biscay, he discovered the forward compartment of one of the hulls had filled up with water from a leaking hatch.

Soon, other compartments began to leak and, as he’d been unable to get the correct piping for the bilge pumps, his only option was to bail them out with a bucket. Then, two weeks after leaving Teignmouth, his generator broke down after being soaked with water from another leaking hatch.

“This bloody boat is just falling to pieces due to lack of attention to engineering detail!!!” he wrote in his log. A few days later he made a long list of jobs that needed doing and concluded his chances of survival if he carried on were at best 50/50. He began to think about abandoning the race.

But Crowhurst was in a triple bind. If he dropped out at this stage, not only would his reputation be destroyed but his business would go bankrupt and, perhaps worse of all, he and his family would lose their home. For all these reasons, giving up was not an option.

It soon became clear his estimates for the boat’s speed had been wildly optimistic: he had estimated an average of 220 miles per day, whereas the reality was about half that, on a good day. There was no way he was going to catch up with the other competitors or win either of the prizes, unless something extraordinary happened.

And so, just five weeks after setting off from Teignmouth, Crowhurst started one of the most audacious frauds in sailing history: he began falsifying his position. From 5 December, he created a fake log book, with accurately plotted sun sights, working back from imaginary positions.

To make it look convincing, he listened to forecasts for the relevant areas and wrote a fictional commentary as if he was experiencing those conditions. It was quite a feat of seamanship, and only someone of Crowhurst’s brilliance could have carried it off convincingly.

The great deception

After a few days’ practice he felt sufficiently confident to send his first ‘fake’ press release, claiming he’d sailed 243 miles in 24 hours, a new world record for a single-handed sailor. In fact, he’d actually sailed 160 miles, a personal best perhaps, but certainly no world record.

And so the great deception began. As Crowhurst slowly worked his way down the Atlantic, his imaginary avatar was already rounding the Cape of Good Hope and heading into the Indian Ocean. Gradually, partly through misunderstandings and partly due to the spin added by his agent back in the UK, Crowhurst’s positions became ever more exaggerated, until it looked like he might win the race after all.

Meanwhile, the real Crowhurst was pottering around the Atlantic – ‘hiding’ in exactly the same area he had, only a few weeks earlier, jokingly suggested a sailor might hide to falsify a round-the-world voyage. To make sure his radio signals weren’t picked up by the wrong land stations, he maintained radio silence for nearly three months, from the middle of January until the beginning of April, which he blamed on his generator breaking down again.

Teignmouth Electron was found drifting in mid-Atlantic, 700 miles west of the Azores, on 10 July 1969

Unbelievably, he even put ashore in a remote bay near Buenos Aires in Argentina to buy materials to repair one of the hulls, which had started to fall apart. Despite being greeted and logged by local officials, this rule-breaking stop remained undetected.

On 29 March he reached his most southerly point, hovering a few miles off the Falklands, 8,000 miles from home, before starting his ascent up the Atlantic.

Finally, on 9 April, he broke radio silence and exploded back into the race with a telegram containing the infamous line: “HEADING DIGGER RAMREZ” – suggesting he was approaching Diego Ramirez, a small island southwest of Cape Horn (in reality, he was just off Buenos Aires).

By this time Moitessier had had his ‘moment of madness’ and had dropped out of the race and was sailing to Tahiti ‘to save his soul’. The only other competitors left were Knox-Johnston, who was plodding slowly up the Atlantic and on track to be the first one home, and Tetley, racing in his wake to pick up the prize for the fastest voyage.

Rachel Weisz plays Clare Crowhurst in The Mercy

It seems likely that Crowhurst was planning to finish a close second to Tetley, which would save him from financial ruin without drawing too much attention to his fraudulent log books.

But his reappearance in the race had a dramatic effect on the course of events. Already nursing a broken boat up the homeward leg of the Atlantic, Tetley worried he might lose the speed record to the resurgent Crowhurst, and started pushing his trimaran faster towards the finish line. Some 1,100 miles from home, the inevitable happened: Tetley’s boat broke up and sank, and he had to be rescued by a passing ship.

Suddenly, the spotlight shifted to Crowhurst, the unlikely amateur who’d apparently come out of nowhere to beat the professionals. The BBC had a crew on standby to record his homecoming and hundreds of thousands of people were expected to throng the seafront at Teignmouth to welcome him home.

It was everything Crowhurst dreaded. As one of the winners, his books would come under much closer scrutiny – and indeed there were already some, including race chairman Francis Chichester, who suspected something wasn’t quite right.

In the middle of June, Crowhurst reached the Sargasso Sea and, as the tradewinds died and his boat slowed down, he descended into a mental quagmire of his own. It was as if all his previous failures had caught up with him in this one grand, final failure.

Teignmouth Electron on Cayman Brac in 1991. The wreck has deteriorated considerably since. Photo: Geophotos / Alamy

And this time there was no way out, no way of reinventing himself. Instead, he gave up ‘sailorising’ and resorted to philosophising instead. Over the course of a week, he wrote a 25,000-word manifesto that described how mankind had achieved such an advanced evolutionary state that it could now merge with the cosmos. All that was needed was ‘an effort of free will’.

He ended his journal on 1 July with this desperate appeal: ‘I will only resign this game / if you agree that / the next occasion that this / game is played / it will be played / according to the / rules that are devised by / my great god who has / revealed at last to his son / not only the exact nature / of the reason for games but / has also revealed the truth of / the way of the ending of the / next game that / It is finished / It is finished / IT IS THE MERCY’

There then followed a countdown, ending at 11:20:40 precisely. It’s not known what happened next, but it’s generally assumed Crowhurst jumped over the side of the boat to his death. His empty yacht was found by a passing ship on 10 July with two sets of log books on board: the real and the fake.

It was left to Sunday Times journalists Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall to piece together what had happened and to reveal to the world Crowhurst’s elaborate hoax. With Crowhurst and Tetley both out of the race, Knox-Johnston, on his slow wooden tortoise of a boat, was the only person to finish the race and was duly award both prizes – though he subsequently donated the £5,000 cash prize to Crowhurst’s widow.

Huge public interest

The Golden Globe race generated enormous public interest at the time, and the discovery of Crowhurst’s boat was front page news. It’s a fascination that has continued almost unabated to this day. The French film Les Quarantièmes Rugissants, based on the Crowhurst story, was released in 1982, while at least five plays have picked up the theme, as well as the 1998 opera Ravenshead.

There have been several books published about Crowhurst and the race more generally, although none of them add anything substantial to the story told by Tomalin and Hall in their 1970 book The Strange Story of Donald Crowhurst.

In 2006, the acclaimed documentary Deep Water incorporated contemporary footage of the race, including some shot by Crowhurst during his voyage, and in 2017 director Simon Rumley released his own stylised take on the story, called simply Crowhurst.

The Mercy, then, is only the latest take on the Crowhurst saga – although with Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz on board, it is the most high-profile. So how does it compare to previous efforts?

As you’d expect of such a mainstream movie, the focus is firmly on the psychological drama rather than on the sailing – which is probably just as well considering how often films get the details of sailing wrong. There are some minor errors – Chichester wasn’t the first person to sail around the world single-handed, and the prize for the first competitor to finish the race was a trophy, not £5,000 – but the sailing scenes are generally quite convincing.

More importantly though, The Mercy is a captivating psychological drama, which shows how, through a series of small steps, a person can box themselves into a corner from which there is no escape. It’s this humbling of a deluded but essentially well-meaning man that gives the story such resonance and has inspired artists and writers for more than five decades. For, as anyone who has sailed out of sight of land knows, the sea has a knack of bringing out our inner demons. There is a Crowhurst in us all.

First published in the March 2018 edition of Yachting World.

The post Donald Crowhurst: The fake round-the-world sailing story behind The Mercy appeared first on Yachting World.

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