American inventor who created the first ship. History of Russia – federal portal History.RF

In the summer of 1815, the St. Petersburg audience, making ordinary walks along the granite embankments of the Neva, was much surprised to see a strange ship, briskly moving against the fast flow of the river without oars and sails. The ship was really quite wonderful – with two large wheels spinning in the water foam, and a tall chimney from which smoke poured out. Soon the wits came up with the nickname “ship with a stove.” Petersburg started talking about the first Russian ship built at the factory of then-famous industrialist Karl Nikolaevich Byrd (1766-1843). Steamboat Byrd walked along the Neva almost every day, causing keen interest among passers-by. In addition, Bird himself and his employees on the steamboat with the greatest favor satisfied the desire of the Rotozeys to consider the steam vessel.

Having well advertised the new enterprise, Byrd attracted the attention of the royal family. September 2, 1815 in a round pond near the Tauride Palace, a queen ride with a retinue was arranged on a steamboat. Senior passengers were shown the internal structure of the machine and the stoker. As the magazines wrote pompously at that time: “The news of this phenomenon, the location and the beautiful weather of that day attracted an extraordinary number of spectators.” There was nowhere, as they say, an apple to fall. Crowds of onlookers tried to break closer and to see in detail the extraordinary spectacle in more detail.

Soon the excitement subsided. In a more relaxed atmosphere, all the necessary tests continued. Byrd set a goal – to establish a shipping line Petersburg-Kronstadt, promising very large profits. The fact is that at that time 70% of the gross volume of Russian foreign trade was accounted for by Kronstadt, since before the construction of the Sea Canal (1874-1885) Petersburg remained a river port.

Early on the morning of November 3, 1815, the steamboat rolled off the berth of the Byrd factory on the river Pryazhka and went down the Neva. At 7 o’clock in the morning the ship was already “at the very place where the Petersburg fire watch was set up in the summer.” From here began to record time and speed. A quiet south wind blew at the seaside, by 8 o’clock in the morning it turned into a fresh south-east wind, which stayed the whole way along the steamer to Kronstadt.

At 12.15 a.m. the ship approached the corner of the Military Harbor. The whole route was covered in 5 hours 20 minutes with an average speed of about 9.3 km / h. The appearance of the steamboat at Kronstadt was a sensation of that day: “Many spectators were attracted to the Merchant Harbor, before which the steamer now made small trips, circling several times around the frigate frigate between Kronstadt and the harbor.”

Admiral A.V. Molsr, the chief commander of the Kronstadt port, immediately arrived on the ship, accompanied by naval officers and then-famous shipbuilder I.P. Amosov.

It should be noted that the term “steamboat” (with reference to a steam vessel) was first used in the article “The first trip from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt and back in 1815”, placed in No. 46 of the newspaper “Son of the Fatherland” for 1815. The author of this article , Peter Ivanovich Ricord (1776-1855), was one of the champions of the mechanization of water transport. Subsequently, Ricord became an admiral, an outstanding figure of the Russian fleet, a traveler and explorer. A quarter of a century after a trip on Byrd’s first steamboat, Ricord will head the Steamship Committee for the Baltic Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla.

What was the first Russian ship? Unfortunately, archival information has not yet been discovered. Therefore, one has to be content with rather detailed and technically competent descriptions from periodicals of those years. Judging by the description, Byrd used the steam engine not in the form in which it was designed by Watt to work on the shore, but modified it. The balance of a vertical steam engine with a capacity of 4 liters. with. located not above, but below. This lowered the center of gravity of the machine and increased stability. On board rowing wheels with a diameter of 2.4 m with six plates, the movement was transmitted through a gear transmission. At 40 revolutions of the propeller shaft per minute, the ship developed a speed of about 10.13 km / h. Firewood was used as fuel. Fathoms of semi-arched birch firewood lasted for 12 hours. Water for feeding the boiler was supplied from behind by a special pump driven by a steam engine.

In 1816, Bird built at his factory a second steamer with a 16-liter steam engine. with. and began to transport passengers to Kronstadt. On June 9, 1817, he received the exclusive right to use steam ships in Russia for ten years. The fate of the first Russian ship is unknown. Apparently, soon after the start of the construction of the steamboats, his car was installed on one of them, and the hull began to be used as a barge.

It should be noted that the choice of Tikhvinka as the hull of the first Russian steamboat was not accidental. This type of vessel was widespread in the Volga and White Sea basins. In addition to the comparative simplicity of construction, cleanliness and durability of construction, the main advantage of Tikhvinoks was its unusual ease on the go, due to the rounded forms of the underwater surface and a significant selection of bow and stern parts. When towing tikhvinoks, no more than 30% of the power required under the same conditions for towing ships of the same carrying capacity was required.

Thus, St. Petersburg is the cradle of domestic shipbuilding. For the sake of historical justice, it should be noted that the Russian inventor Ivan Ivanovich Polzunov (1728-1766) proposed his steam engine as early as 1762, that is, much earlier than James Watt. In five years, starting in 1815, Russian craftsmen built ten ships and four were under construction.

Comparative data are interesting for countries that first started building steamboats (in five years). So, in the United States since 1807 five steamships were commissioned. England for the same period of time (since 1812) built 31 steamboats, and it delivered them to all countries of Europe, including France, which began to build steam ships in its own factories only in 1821. Thus, Russia became the third country in the world in terms of organizing its own shipbuilding industry.

Due to the low power of the Small Ship Machinery, and also due to the numerous stops for minor repairs and loading of firewood, the steamships moved very slowly. They were caught on the way by early freeze-up, and they were forced to winter on the Kama River, against the village of Silent Mountains (150 km below Sarapul). Their further fate turned out to be sad: a team of inexperience or oversight put the ships in an open reach, in a shallow place where they froze with their bottoms to the ground and were flooded in the spring of 1818. Huge work was worth getting and repairing rusted cars. The hull of a large ship due to severe destruction had to be sold for firewood. Small, more durable, was left in Sarapul in the care of the local city man.

Upon learning of the steamboats sailing along the Kama and the Volga, Byrd turned to the Department of Railways with a complaint that this could “plunge him into irreparable losses.” The lawsuit somewhat suspended the construction of steamboats in Pozhva, and only in the winter of 1819 the masters P.K. and I.G. Kazantsev began to manufacture ship engines for this purpose. In the fall of next year, they began to build a building.

This period is also insufficiently studied and has different interpretations. There is reason to believe that Vsevolozhsky built or planned to build two ships. So, the assessor of the Solikamsk lower Zemsky court Korovin, who on November 6, 1820 examined the built ship, compiling the description of the ship, did not mention it in the singular: “… one of the ships testified, built at the Pozhsvsky factory, according to which it turned out: the ship It is built of sawn and spruce sawn wood, with a length of eleven at the bottom, and fourteen sazhens of four tops along the surface, a width among the ship along the bottom of three sazhens, and three sazhens and one arshin along the surface. For the operation and operation of this steamboat, two steam engines were built at the Pozhevsky plant with all of the appliances belonging to the operation, each with a force of sixteen horses, with a boiler made of catalytic iron, a boiler measuring one thousand buckets, inside of which for heating, an oven made of the same iron having a height of six quarters and two heights, with a chimney brought from the middle of the boiler, made of the same iron. ” Draft without cargo – 0.4 m, with cargo – 1.3 m. “It can,” said an official source from 1821, “lead a subordinate vessel with cargo from 5 thousand to 12 thousand pounds or more” .

The quality of the design and construction of the steamers at the Pozhvinsky factory, apparently, did not satisfy its owner, and he invited the ship master Danila Afanasevich Vishnyakov. The contract of February 1821 was preserved, according to which the latter pledged to come to the Pozhvinsky plant “to build steam bots for swimming along the Kama and Volga rivers.”

Only in April 1821 did Vsevolozhsky reach an agreement with Byrd. Compensation for this was a gratuitous transfer to the privilege owner of 49 tons of sheet iron, which at the prices of the St. Petersburg Exchange amounted to 18 thousand rubles. It is interesting to note that Vsevolozhsky acquired the right to build and free sail not one, but two ships.

June 12, 1821 the ship “Pozhva” (according to other sources “Vsevolod”) in a solemn atmosphere, with an orchestra and a cannon salute went on a voyage to Rybinsk. Nikolai Osipovich Bespalov became the captain on the ship, and his builder P.K. Kazantsev became the mechanic. Assistant mechanics are four locksmiths: Ivan Gorbunov, Yakov Volkov, Andrei Lopatin and Aleksey Polkovnikov. In addition, the team included two pilots, a blacksmith, two joiners and six workers.

July 27, 1821 the ship arrived in Rybinsk, passing along the Kama and Volga about 2 thousand km. The voyage showed that the vessel was unsuitable for towing the baroque. The cars were removed from the ship and sent to St. Petersburg, and the hull was taken back to Pozhva, where it stood for several years on the shore, decayed and was pulled for firewood.

The design of Vsevolozhsky’s steamboats can be judged by the well-known drawing, which is stored in the Nizhny Novgorod River Fleet Museum. The drawing is made with ink with watercolor paint and is one of the most valuable exhibits of domestic museums relating to the history of technology. According to this drawing, the famous shipbuilding engineer N.K. Dormi-dontov established the following characteristics of one of the first Vsevolozhsky ships, built in 1817.

Steamboats of the Pozhvinsky Plant played an important role in the history of the Russian river fleet and laid the foundation for shipping in the Volga River Basin, this major Russian waterway. Experience was accumulated in the field of construction and driving of steam-powered vessels. Experienced, highly qualified masters of the new business appeared. One can name the names of such skilled shipbuilders as Pavel Chistyakov and Georgy Shestakov. It is interesting to note that, worrying about the strengthening of Russian sea power, P. Chistyakov in 1842 put forward the idea of building steamers-battleships.

This time, the Yaroslavl landowner Dmitry Petrovich Evreinov, known for his education, energy and perseverance, was the culprit of the commotion. Having become a companion of Byrd, Evreinov built the Volga steamboat, which can be considered the first Russian industrial steam vessel designed to tow non-self-propelled vessels between Nizhny Novgorod and Astrakhan.

Therefore, the cars from the two 16-strong steamers that walked here were put on one steamer, transferred to work in the lower reaches of the Volga. Soon the owner of the ships went bankrupt, his steamships changed hands, and their further fate is unknown. Volga worked until the beginning of the 50s. XIX century., Having undergone a number of improvements to the hull and machine, and two other ships sailed until 1836.

So the first steamboatman on the Volga ended sadly, having spent all his fortune on them fruitlessly. Other shipowners didn’t take a big risk, and over the next 18 years there were only seven ships on the Volga that appeared here and there and disappeared without a trace. Among them, the Vyksa steamer, built in 1834 by the Nizhny Novgorod landowner Somov entirely from domestic materials, should be noted, while for other steamers de-tapi and machine components were usually written out from abroad.

After the appearance of the first steamboats, capstans existed for some time in parallel with them – ships powered by a rope (“feed”) with an anchor pushed into it and wound around the gate (in French – capstan) by the power of a steam engine.

During the movement on the ship, something unimaginable happened: the knocking of a machine, a pulley, the cries of workers, constantly reaching swearing at high tones, energetic teams (such as “braids”, “ring the bell”, “peck”, “close milk “,” Lay out “,” grass “,” lower “”) – all this day and night continuously. It was the capstans who initially performed the most complex and laborious work – towing ships against the current.

The constant companion of the capstan is a small, brisk steamboat, which was originally called imported, and later a race. “It is extremely interesting to see the bustle of this tiny steam vessel around a huge monstrous capstan,” V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko noted in his travel essays “On the Volga”. – Just like a little dog, it either runs ahead or moves back again, warps a large ship near the borgs, almost hiding under the mass of anchors and a rope laid on it. A capstan with a towed caravan seems to be just some colossal monster on the Volga, wheezing across the entire expanse of this river and slowly moving along it, making about 30 versts a day, but transporting up to 500 thousand pounds at a time ”

The task of the race was to tow forward the delivery – a large boat with a rope and an anchor laid on it. Having dropped the anchor into the water, the run returned to the capstan with importation, which remained at the side of the steamer, and the rope passed to the capstan.

In Russia, the first attempts to use capstans are associated with the name of the famous engineer, Colonel of the Ministry of Railways Petr Petrovich Bazen (1783-1838). In 1810, Emperor Alexander I turned to Napoleon I with a request to help organize the Institute of Railway Engineers. Bazin, along with three other young mathematicians – the best students of the Paris Polytechnic School – arrived in St. Petersburg, where he joined the Russian service with the rank of lieutenant colonel. From 1815 to 1824 he served as a professor of mathematics, and from 1824 to 1834 he headed the Institute of Railway Engineers. After graduating from the rank of lieutenant general, in 1834 he left for his homeland. Bazin was an outstanding technician: according to his projects and under the direct supervision of many wonderful structures, for example: the St. Petersburg Obvodny Canal, Schlisssburg stone gateways, several bridges.

The first voyages of the Berd and Vsevolozhsky steamers attracted the attention of wide circles of the Russian public. The Corps of Railway Engineers began to deal with the construction and operation of ships.

In June 1815, General de Volan recommended that the engineers of the Department of Railways study the problem of improving shipping methods. Supporter of the use of ships for the movement of ships on the Volga was Lieutenant General Betancourt. He suggested that Bazin engage in a detailed elaboration of this issue.

The introduction of steam shipping promised the government great benefits, as it exempted from the costs of maintaining the shorelines on the Mariinsky system and the Volga. Therefore, Bazin was provided with fairly extensive and detailed statistical information on the carrying capacity of various vessels and on the average (highest and lowest) speed of navigable rivers in Russia. In addition, Bazin was aware of the power of the platoon machines of the Poadebar and Sutyrin systems, as well as the number of huts and horses needed to platoon the ships, depending on the time of year and the state of the shoreline.

Since Russia has long been using the “feed” method of shipping, from the very beginning Bazen was tasked with “calculating what kind of ships what steam engines are needed for a platoon with imported anchors and wheels with blades or combs.”

Having received all the necessary data, Bazin took up theoretical studies of the problems of steam navigation with two different propulsors: a capstan, or collar, and paddle wheels. To a modern researcher, many of the points and conclusions from his work will seem naive or taken for granted. So, Bazin convinced his opponents that the force moving the vessel does not depend on the speed of the water. Let’s not forget that all this happened at the dawn of steam shipping, and there was no question of any theory of the design and use of propulsors. And what we now consider obvious, then had to be proved seriously. Bazin formulated the main relationships between the speed of the ship, the number and main dimensions of the plates of the propeller wheels and their immersion depth. Based on his theory, Bazin argued that if Bird on his first steamboat doubled the number of tiles, then the speed could increase by 0.47 km / h.

On April 27, 1816, the committee under the chief director of communications considered a note by engineer Bazin on the results of his theoretical research, the purpose of which was to determine all the circumstances of the movement of a ship of a known shape and power of a steam engine. The committee praised Bazin’s research. This was the first and therefore especially important attempt to theoretically substantiate the conditions for using a steam engine in shipping. The Committee recommended that the Main Directorate of Communications “ask for a gift from Bazin from the bounty of the Emperor, encouraging any feat for the benefit of science.” To print his work at the expense of the treasury and to provide all or part of the publication in favor of it. ”

As an important result of the research, it was noted that “the steamer, driven by a rope attached to a fixed anchor and wound around a pulley, is much more successful and with a lot of load than that of a steamer on strokes.” It was also recommended to test in practice the theoretical calculations of Bazin. February 8, 1817 his work was printed in a circulation of 200 copies. On February 14, the king authorized the release of the necessary amount for the construction of the capstan and ordered the immediate preparation of design drawings. The capstan was supposed to be tested in Petersburg in the presence of the tsar.

On March 20 of the same year, Bazin made an estimate for the construction of two ships: one with a pulley for platooning cargo ships, and the other with strokes for transporting and lifting anchors. It was assumed that by the spring of 1818 ships could be ready. The total amount of expenses is 105 thousand rubles.

“Such a steamboat will lead the heaviest barges. But for the convenience of changing the rope, you need to use a boat to carry anchors that would be three times the speed of a steamer with a pulley. But as the action of the force of the rowers is not able to tell her such a speed, then it is necessary to use a steam engine to do this, which would set the wheels in motion. Therefore, it is necessary to build two ships of the same size, one with a pulley for platooning cargo ships and the other with strokes for carrying and removing the anchors transferred. ”

The work on the delivery of anchors on horse-drawn machines was really characterized by low productivity. One of his contemporaries wrote: “Sometimes rowers, in inclement weather, covered with matting, row strenuously against the wind for almost the whole day, and at that time the car leaves for three miles. It happens that at night the exhausted importees go ashore and fall asleep, and the car remains in place until the clerk, waking up, wakes up the workers and forces him to move the ship further. “

On May 25, 1817, Bazin drafted a running race, or “passing ship,” with a 16-liter Byrd plant machine. with. Both ships were supposed to be built on Okhta “by ship carpenters, under the supervision of a skilled naval builder and under the supervision of Colonel Bazen.” After testing on the Neva, it was supposed to overtake the ships along the Polish rapids and along the Volkhov River to work on the Mariinsky system. However, the appropriations were suspended and the money went to the urgent needs of the Ministry of Railways.

In 1821, two ships with two steam engines each, equipped with capstans, were built at the Byrd plant in St. Petersburg. They passed tests on the Volga, between Rybinsk and Nizhny Novgorod, and were compared with wheeled steamers. The conclusion of the engineer Pavlovsky on the results of the tests was reduced to the fact that the wheel steamer is 60 liters. with. still better and more effective than a pair of capstans. This conclusion reflected objective reality, but was somewhat premature. Capstans and races existed for a rather long time.

The races were relatively large steam fleet ships. The number of employees on them reached 12 people, i.e., a pilot, sailors, engineer, assistant, oilmen and stokers, and in addition, three people were brought in.

The feed was delivered ahead of the capstan on 1707-1920 m, and in shallow water less, sometimes only 106.6-213.3 m, depending on the specific conditions on the river. In a straight stretch, the feed was brought further, and in curves, winding places and rifts – closer. At night, a boat with a lantern was held over an anchor thrown from importation.

The heyday of capstans and races became the 50-60s. XIX century, but thanks to the development of towing shipping, they gradually disappeared by the mid 70-ies.

The development of commodity circulation in the country caused an increasingly urgent need to improve river shipping, which was then the main form of freight transport. Since the late 30s. XIX century increased grain exports from the Volga region through the port of St. Petersburg abroad.

The capstans carried large and heavy rigging weapons that exceeded similar weapons even for large naval vessels. In total, there were five anchors on the capstan. Of these, a dead anchor weighing about 2 tons and four less heavy undercarriage (imported). Sheima (anchor rope) of the anchor reached a length of 130 m and a thickness of 35 cm around the circumference. The ten ends of the hemp rope had a length of 230 m and a thickness of 35 cm – for imported anchors. There were another spare and various small ropes for the teacher’s. The total mass of rigging reached 60-70 tons.

The boilers of the captain’s steamboats were heated with wood, which was always on a special small ship, called a woodcutter, subordinated to the capstan from the starboard side. There were dozens of such logs of the shipping company. They were placed at certain distances on wood piers. When firewood ran out on the woodcutting boat under the capstan, it was set off and put to the wood pier, and another wood chopper was brought in instead of it and also pushed to the starboard side of the capstan.

The entire fleet of non-self-propelled vessels that followed the captain’s steamer landed very closely with him and with each other, and this single compact mass moved, as they say, in an avalanche. Such a movement was possible only along the Volga and Kama. Therefore capstans existed only here and served primarily for the transport of bread, iron, and bast.

The capstans usually traveled day and night, passing 30 km per day, at best no more than 64 km, and made for navigation, as a rule, one flight from Samara to Nizhny Novgorod and Rybinsk, or two flights from the Kama mouth to Rybinsk . They moved with great noise due to the knock and hum of a heavy machine, which, as a rule, was a Watt balancing system with one cylinder and a flywheel. The pulley creaked, screams and abuse of the workers, loud pilot commands were heard. When the capstan returned, without a cart and with the flow, then everything looked much calmer. In this case, paddle wheels were used.

The “carts” of capstans were sometimes very large. Such mass transportation and comparative low cost of building the capstans themselves was their main advantage. Capstan ship in 60 liters. with. led 8,200-9840 tons of cargo, while the tug, even the most powerful, with its 460 liters. with. – only 4100 tons, however, twice or three times faster.

Capstans existed as long as there were high freight rates and the towing shipping company did not strengthen. Already in the 60s. the role of capstans began to fall and they began to be replaced by steamboats from the lower reaches of the Volga, more and more lowering freight in the fight against their strong competitors. The captain’s steamboats completely finished off the particularly lean year of 1870, when freight rates fell almost three times. This year on the Volga was remembered for a very long time. Many shipping companies went bankrupt. Survived by those who had more advanced technology.

Capstans should be considered as an intermediate stage in the development of ships. They did not last long and were not particularly widespread. There were no more than 25-26 of all captain ships on the Volga with 30 races with them.

With all the technical imperfections of capstans, their appearance meant the victory of the steam engine in river navigation and marked a certain stage of the “mechanization” of navigation.

The idea of creating a self-propelled ship, which could sail against the wind and currents, came to people a very long time. After all, sailing along a winding channel with a complex fairway under sails is often impossible, and it’s always difficult to move oars against the current.

A real opportunity to build such a high-speed self-propelled vessel appeared only after the invention of the steam engine. A steam engine converts the energy of heated steam into the mechanical operation of a piston, which reciprocates and drives the shaft. Steam forms in the steam boiler. The first attempts to construct such a machine were made at the end of the XVII century.

One of the inventors who worked on the problem of turning heat energy into work was the French physicist Denis Papin (1647 – 1712). He was the first to invent a steam boiler, but could not offer a design of a working steam engine. But he designed the first boat with a steam engine and paddle wheels (1707). The world’s first steam-powered vessel was launched in the German Kassel and quite confidently sailed along the Fulda River. However, the joy of the inventor was short-lived. Local fishermen considered the boat, which was moving without oars and sail, a fiendish invention and hastened to give the first steamer to the fire. Papen later moved to England and presented his designs to the Royal Scientific Society. He asked for money to continue the experiments and recreate the steam ship. But Papen never got any money and died in poverty.

After 30 years, in 1736, the Englishman Jonathan Halls, a watchmaker by profession, invented the steam tug. He received a patent for a ship driven by steam. However, during the tests it turned out that the steam engine mounted on the ship is too weak to move it. The disgraced watchmaker did not find the strength to continue work on improving the invention and died in desperate poverty, like Papen.

Closer to the goal was the Frenchman Claude-Francois-Dorothe, Marquis de Jouffroy. In 1771, the 20-year-old Marquis received the rank of officer, but showed a violent disposition and a year later ended up in prison for gross violation of discipline. The prison was located near the city of Cannes, and the marquise’s cell was overlooking the sea, so that de Jouffroy could watch from the barred window for galleys set in motion by the convicts’ muscular strength. Filled with sympathy for them, the Marquis came to the conclusion that it would be nice to put a steam engine on the ship – such, he heard, set in motion pumps that pumped water from the English mines. After leaving prison, de Jouffroy sat down at the books and soon had his own opinion on the best way to build a ship.

When he arrived in Paris in 1775, the idea of a steam ship was already in the air. In 1776, the Marquis built his own steam vessel at his own expense, but the tests, according to a contemporary, ended “not quite happily.” However, the inventor did not give up. Upon his submission, the French government promised a 15-year monopoly on the construction and operation of steam ships to the first to build a steamer suitable for constant use, and de Jouffroy knew that winning a steam race would mean wealth and prosperity for the rest of the days.

In 1783, in Lyon, the Marquis finally tested his second steam model. On June 15, on the banks of the Sona River, viewers watched the Marquise de Jouffroy’s boat move against the current. True, at the end of the demonstration voyage, the engine became unusable, but no one noticed it, and de Jouffroy hoped to make the car more reliable. Now the Marquis was confident that the monopoly was in his pocket, and sent a report on his success to Paris. But the Paris Academy was not inclined to trust messages from the province, no matter who they came from. Academics asked to give a conclusion on the invention of the chief specialist in steam engines – the manufacturer Jacques Perrier, who himself sought a steamship monopoly, and therefore did everything to quickly forget about the invention of the Marquis. De Jouffroy did not receive financial support from the academics, and he no longer had the money to build the next boat.

Soon, a revolution began in the country, and the French did not care about steamboats. In addition, the Marquis de Jouffroy was on the side of the counter-revolution, and the royalists in France were not waiting for patents, but the guillotine. De Jouffroy was able to return to invention only after the restoration of the Bourbons, and in 1816 he finally received a patent. But the money for the deployment of the shipping business was not given to him. De Jouffroy died in 1832 in a veteran house, forgotten and abandoned by everyone.

In 1774, the outstanding English inventor James Watt created the first universal heat engine (steam engine). This invention contributed to the creation of steam locomotives, steamboats and first (steam) vehicles.

In 1787, in America, John Fitch built the Experiment steam boat, which for a long time made regular flights along the Delaware River between Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) and Burlington (New York). He lifted 30 passengers aboard and walked at a speed of 7-8 miles per hour. The steamboat J. Fitch was not commercially successful, since a good land road competed with its route.

In 1802, mining engineer William Symington of England built a Charlotte Dundas towboat with a 10-horsepower Watt machine that rotated a paddle wheel located in the stern. The tests were successful. In 6 hours with a strong headwind, Charlotte Dundas towed two barges along the canal for 18 miles. Charlotte Dundas was the first usable steam bot. However, authorities began to fear that waves from the paddle wheel would wash the banks of the canal. The ship was dragged ashore and doomed to be scrapped. Thus, this experience did not interest the British.

Robert Fulton

Among the spectators who watched the tests of an unusual vessel, there was an American Robert Fulton. He was fond of steam engines from 12 years old and already a teenager (at 14 years old) made his first boat with a wheel engine. After school, Robert moved to Philadelphia and got a job as an assistant jeweler, and then a draftsman. At the age of 21 (1786), Fulton went to England to study architecture there. However, here Fulton abandoned drawing and focused on invention. He designed canals, locks, waterways and various machines – for sawing marble, spinning flax, twisting ropes … And then he returned to the old hobby – the use of steam in shipping. However, the British government did not want to give money for his project, and in 1797 Fulton moved to France. But here, his inventions were also not appreciated. Fulton thought and put forward the idea of a submarine, with which you can mine the bottoms of enemy ships. At first, the French government rejected the project, considering this way of warfare too brutal. But the inventor, at his own expense, built and tested the wooden Nautilus submarine. In 1800, Fulton introduced a practical model of his submarine to Napoleon. Having finally appreciated the invention, the French government finally allocated money for the construction of a sheet metal boat and even promised to pay Fulton for every sunken enemy ship. However, the English ships deftly dodged the slow Nautilus. Therefore, the Nautilus did not swim for long. Fulton’s attempt to sell the submarine to an adversary of France at sea – England, too, failed. The true meaning of this invention became apparent only closer to the outbreak of World War I.

Offended by the whole world, Fulton returned to his homeland and began to seek funds for the shipping project. Here he was much luckier. The North River Steamboat of Clermont steamer (Northern River Steamboat) with a displacement of 79 tons and a 20 horsepower steam engine rotating five-meter paddle wheels was tested in August 1807. Many of those gathered on the shores of the Hudson Bay did not believe in success . On the first voyage on September 4, 1807, Fulton set off without cargo and without passengers: there were no people willing to try their luck aboard the fire-breathing vessel. But on the way back, a daredevil showed up – a farmer who bought a ticket for six dollars. This was the first passenger in the history of shipping. The moved inventor granted him a lifetime right of free passage on his ships. In the same year, Fulton’s first steamboat began to run between New York and Albany, making a profit. This steamboat went down in history as “Clermont,” although Clermont simply referred to the estate of Fulton’s partner Livingstone on the Hudson River, 177 km from New York, which the steamer visited during its first voyage.

From that time on, the constant movement of the steamship opened on the Hudson. Newspapers wrote that many boaters turned a blind eye in horror as the “Fulton Monster,” spewing fire and smoke, moved along the Hudson against wind and currents.

“Steamboat of the Northern River”

Robert Fulton

In 1809, Fulton patented the Clermont design and went down in history as the inventor of the ship.

In Russia, the first ship was built at the Charles Beard factory in 1815. It was called “Elizabeth” and made flights between St. Petersburg and Kronstadt. A report on one of such flights was published by the magazine “Son of the Fatherland”. In this article, a Russian naval officer, later Admiral Peter Ricord, first used the term “steamboat” in print. Prior to this, such vessels were called, in the English manner, “steamboats” or “pyroscopes”.
By the way…

In 1813, Fulton turned to the Russian government with a request to grant him the privilege to build the steamboat he had invented and use it on the rivers of the Russian Empire. Emperor Alexander I granted the inventor a monopoly on the operation of steamboats on the St. Petersburg-Kronstadt line, as well as on other Russian rivers for 15 years. However, in Russia, Fulton did not create steamboats and could not use the contract, since he did not fulfill the main conditions of the contract – for three years he did not put into operation any ships. In 1815, Fulton died, and in 1816 the privilege granted to him was canceled, and Byrd got this contract.

FIRST RUSSIAN STEAM PASS

In 1815, the first ship was built in Russia. This significant event for domestic shipping took place in St. Petersburg at the Byrd factory. The Scot Charles Bird arrived in Russia in 1786. At first he worked as an assistant to Karl Gascoigne, also a visiting specialist in Petrozavodsk at the Alexander Cannon Foundry. Later in 1792, together with his father-in-law, Morgan organized another partnership. One of the companies of the partnership was the foundry-mechanical plant, later called the Byrd plant.

At that time, the monopoly on the production of steamboats was given by Alexander I to Robert Fulton, who was the inventor of the steam engine. But since for 3 years Fulton had not built a single steamboat on the rivers of Russia, the privilege to build passed to Charles Bird.

The Scot took up the matter seriously, and already in 1815 in St. Petersburg at the Berda plant the first Russian steamer, called the “Elizabeth”, was built. The ship, called in the English manner “pyroskaf” or “steamboat”, became the ancestor of Russian ships. As the engine on the “Elizabeth” used Watt balancing steam engine, whose power amounted to 4 horsepower, and the shaft speed – forty revolutions per minute. On the steamboat, 6-blade side wheels were installed with a width of 120 cm and a diameter of 240 cm. The length of Elizabeth was 183 cm, the width was 457, and the draft was 61 cm. The steam boiler worked on wood for one firebox and a chimney came from it from brick, which was later replaced by metal. Such a pipe could serve as the basis for the sail, its height was 7.62 m. Elizabeth could reach a speed of 5.8 knots (almost 11 km / h).

The first time the ship “Elizabeth” was tested on the pond of the Tauride Garden and showed good speed there. Subsequently, Charles Bird continued to promote his invention. For example, he invited Petersburg officials to take a boat trip. During a trip along the Neva, guests were entertained and treated, but, in addition, the route included a visit to the plant.

The first regular flight of the Elizabeth steam boat from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt departed on November 3, 1815. The trip there took 3 hours 15 minutes, back due to bad weather – just over 5 hours. On board were thirteen passengers. In the future, “Elizabeth” began to regularly walk along the Neva and the Gulf of Finland, and with a light hand P.I. Rikorda the English name “steamboat” was replaced by the Russian “steamboat”. Ricord was one of the first to compile a detailed description of the first Russian steamer Elizabeth. Thanks to the success of his invention, Charles Bird received several large government orders and created his own shipping company. New steamboats transported both cargo and passengers.

FIRST STEAMS

The beginning of the use of steam engines “on the water” was in 1707, when the French physicist Denis Papin designed the first boat with a steam engine and paddle wheels. Presumably after a successful test, it was broken by boaters, frightened of competition. After 30 years, the Englishman Jonathan Halls invented the steam tug. The experiment ended unsuccessfully: the engine was heavy and the tug sank.

In 1802, the Scottish man William Symington demonstrated the steamer Charlotte Dundas. The widespread use of steam engines on ships began in 1807 with the voyages of the Clermont passenger steamer, built by the American Robert Fulton. Since the 1790s, Fulton has tackled the problem of using steam to propel ships. In 1809, Fulton patented the Clermont design and went down in history as the inventor of the ship. Newspapers wrote that many boaters turned a blind eye in horror as the “Fulton Monster,” spewing fire and smoke, moved along the Hudson against wind and currents.

Ten to fifteen years after the invention of R. Fulton, the steamships seriously pressed sailing ships. In 1813, two steam engine plants were launched in Pittsburgh, USA. A year later, 20 steamships were assigned to the New Orleans port, and in 1835 already 1,200 steamships operated on the Mississippi and its tributaries.

By 1815 in England on the river. Clyde (Glasgow) has already worked 10 ships and seven or eight on the river. Thames. In the same year, the first Argyle steamer was built, which made the transition from Glasgow to London. In 1816, the Majestic steamer completed the first Brighton – Le Havre and Dover – Calais voyages, after which regular sea steam lines began to open between Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Holland.

In 1813, Fulton turned to the Russian government with a request to grant him the privilege to build the steamboat he had invented and use it on the rivers of the Russian Empire. However, Fulton did not create steamboats in Russia. In 1815 he died, and in 1816 the privilege granted to him was canceled.

The beginning of the 19th century was marked in Russia by the construction of the first ships with steam engines. In 1815, the owner of a mechanical foundry in St. Petersburg, Karl Byrd, built the first wheeled steamer Elizabeth. A 4-liter Watt steam engine manufactured at the factory was installed on a wooden “Tikhvinka” plant. with. and a steam boiler driving the side wheels. The machine made 40 revolutions per minute. After successful trials on the Neva and the transition from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt, the ship made voyages on the Petersburg – Kronstadt line. The steamer traveled this route in 5 hours and 20 minutes at an average speed of about 9.3 km / h.

The construction of steamboats also began on other rivers of Russia. The first steamboat in the Volga basin appeared on the Kama River in June 1816. It was built by Pozhvinsky iron foundry and ironworks V. A. Vsevolozhsky. Having a capacity of 24 liters. with., the ship made several pilot voyages along the Kama. By the 20s of the 19th century, there was only one steamer in the Black Sea basin – the Vesuvius, apart from the primitive steamer Pchelka with a capacity of 25 hp, built by Kiev serf peasants, which two years later was led through the rapids to Kherson, from where he made flights to Nikolaev.

THE BEGINNING OF DOMESTIC SHIPBUILDING

Despite all the unfavorable conditions that hinder the possibility of the implementation and distribution of Russian inventions, the works of Russian innovators as early as the XVIII century. in the field of construction of steam engines and metallurgy contributed to the introduction of steam and iron shipbuilding in Russia. Already in 1815, the first Russian steamer Elizabeth, a car, made voyages between St. Petersburg and Kronstadt; whose capacity is 16 liters. with. was made in St. Petersburg at the Byrd factory. In 1817, the first Volga-Kama ships and vehicles for them were built in the Urals. In 1817, the Skory steamer, 18 m long with a 30-liter machine, was built at the Izhora Admiralty Plant. with. and in 1825 the steamer “Agile” with a machine with a capacity of 80 liters. with. On the Black Sea, the first steamboats were the Vesuvius (1820) and the 14-gun steamer Meteor (1825).

On the experience of the construction of small steamers that served for port needs and the transport of goods, in 1832 the military steamboat Hercules was built. It installed the world’s first advanced steamer machine without a balancer, built by Russian innovative technicians. Such machines appeared in England only in the late thirties of the XIX century. In 1836, the first wheeled 28-gun steamboat and frigate Bogatyr was built with a displacement of 1340 tons, with a machine with a capacity of 240 liters. p., manufactured at the Izhora plant.

In the course ended in the XIX century. During the industrial revolution, the main types of metalworking machines were created, methods for converting cast iron into iron and steel production techniques were developed, a steam turbine and an internal combustion engine were invented, as well as a propeller and electric welding was opened.

All this, of course, could not but affect the development of world shipbuilding. We can say that it was in the 19th century that the foundations were laid for the creation of modern ships and giant ships in particular. This revolution in shipbuilding was a consequence of the industrial revolution that took place in all areas of industry in the XVIII century.

The beginning of this revolution, as noted above, was laid by the replacement of the “wind engine” on ships with steam. It is the use of steam power for the movement of the vessel – one of the most important factors that subsequently led to the creation of super-large vessels.

From the point of view of shipbuilders, the most important factor in the growth of ship sizes was undoubtedly the use of iron. Indeed, the use of iron instead of wood in the construction of ship hulls allowed not only to increase their size (the record for the length of the super-ship of shipbuilders of the Middle Ages was surpassed), but also to reduce their weight.

Of course, the appearance of a propeller, the most reliable and simple mover, whose work is almost independent of excitement, should be considered an equally important factor in the growth of ship sizes.

The use of steel and electric welding in the construction of ship hulls led to a further decrease in the mass of their hull due to the almost 100% and rational use of the strength of the main ties of the hull set, which, in fact, allowed us to build ships of almost unlimited size.

The further development of shipbuilding was influenced by the creation of a steam turbine – the most powerful of the man-made engines for converting thermal energy into mechanical work. Indeed, in terms of power, modern ship steam turbines (up to 60 thousand kW) are more than 4.5 times higher than the most powerful steam piston machines ever installed on a ship (13 thousand kW) and 1.5 times more than modern ship diesel (37 thousand kW).

APPEARANCE OF STEAM PASS

When and where were the first attempts to use the energy contained in the steam for the movement of ships that made them more independent from weather conditions and put maritime communications on a regular basis?

Friedrich Engels wrote: “Probably many millennia have passed since the opening of fire production by friction before Heron of Alexandria (about 120 BC) invented a machine that was driven into rotational motion by the steam that flows from it. And almost two thousand years passed again until the first steam engine was built, the first device for turning heat into a really useful mechanical movement. ”

The first in the history of technology for practical purposes, the power of steam was used by Archimedes. In the years 215-212. BC e. Roman ships during the siege of Syracuse were fired from an unknown weapon – an architectonito steam gun created by a scientist. The main merit of the famous inventor of the universal steam engine engine, the Englishman James Watt, was the use of a separate condenser [in the machines of the British Thomas Severi (1705) and Thomas Newcomen (1698) the steam turned into condensate in the working cylinder itself], which allowed to increase the efficiency cars 2.7 times!

One of the earliest recorded successful attempts to use mechanical force to move ships took place in 1783 in Lyon in France. A barge-like vessel of 45 meters in length, equipped with a horizontal steam engine that propelled onboard rowing wheels, was able to move, and, importantly, against the Rhone. This vessel was successfully named “Piroskaf” (from the Greek “piros” – fire and “skaphos” – vessel), the inventor and designer of this vessel, Claude Geoffroy d “Abban, was recognized as the initiator of the use of steam force for the movement of ships.

Quite numerous attempts to use mechanical force on ships were made in the United States. In 1784, James Ramsey tested on the river. The Potomac is a 24.4-meter long steam boat with a water-jet propulsion, in which the force driving the boat was created by the water jet pushed out of it. Ramsey’s experiments were not very successful.

American Steamboat “Experiment”, which opened in 1787. world’s first regular shipping service

Greater success fell to John Fitch. In 1787, his third steam boat, the Experiment, was already moving at a speed of 6.5 knots, but it was installed … a rowing propulsion. A single-cylinder machine with a cylinder diameter of 55 cm and a fire tube steam boiler set in motion three oars in the stern, made in the form of a “duck leg”, which provided the ship with a length of 18 m at a reasonable speed. The boat for a long time made regular flights along the river. Delaware from Philadelphia downstream to Wilmington and up to Trenton, but few dared to travel on it.

The fact that the boat used a “proven” paddle propulsion is not unusual. A mover of this type has been used for many thousands of years. In England, which then called itself “the nation of seafarers,” the first steamboat appeared in 1788. This two-hulled ship with two propeller wheels between them was the brainchild of Patrick Miller and William Symington. The ship sailed on the Scottish lake. Dallvington at a speed of 5 knots. His steam engine has been preserved and is located in the London Museum of Science.

Having not succeeded in his homeland, J. Ramsey moved to England, where in 1792 he built the Columbia Maid steam boat. As a mover on it again used a water cannon. The boat could reach a speed of 4 knots.

To finish the story of creating a reliable steamer, the “heart” of which is a steam engine, you have to wag a little at the beginning of the XIX century.

In 1802, the ship “Charlotte Dundas” was built in England with a length of 17 m, a capacity of 12 liters. S. – the first tug and the first vessel with a stern propeller wheel. A novelty was a direct-acting steam engine installed on it, that is, with direct transmission from the rod to the crankshaft without an intermediate balancer. This tugboat, sailing along the Fertof Clyde Canal, was built by the Englishman William Saymington. It is known that it was subsequently visited by the famous American Robert Fulton, who did a lot for the official recognition of steam shipping.

Thanks to significant financial assistance from friends, Fulton managed to build the North River Steamboat of Clermont, often called the Clermont, which found practical use, with the James Watt steam engine. September 4, 1807 this ship began regular flights on the river. The Hudson River between New York and Albany is the main city of New York State. The steam engine of the ship with a capacity of only 18 liters. with. I rotated two side rowing wheels with a diameter of 4.7 m with eight blades 1.2 m wide. The displacement of the vessel was 79 tons, the length was 43.3 m, the hull width was 4.3 m, the side height was 2.1 m, and the draft was about 0.6 m (data before reconstruction). Speed reached 4.6 knots.

Note that the world’s first regular rail service opened in England 18 years after the start of regular flights of the Fulton steamboat.,

But Fulton’s merits are much higher than the creation of the first commercially profitable steamer in the history of shipbuilding. After all, as it is now known, he was the first to find a way to interlink the hull, car and propeller wheels, that is, he made an invention that industrial development urgently required and which in turn required the ability to accurately calculate the drag force of a future, non-existing ship. So before Fulton, no one raised the question of the practical calculation of hydrodynamic drag!

The first sea passage was made by the steamboat American John Stevens “Phoenix” with a length of 31.4 m with side wheels. In June 1809, he passed from New York to Philadelphia and then sailed for a long time along the river. Delaware between Philadelphia and Trenton.

In the early years, shipping flights were essentially experienced. And only in 1838, almost half a century after Fitch created his ship, an English wheeled steamer called Sirius 63.4 m long, 320 l. with. with 40 passengers crossed the Atlantic Ocean with continuous (mind you, continuous) steam engine operation. This became possible after the invention in 1834 of a surface condenser (in which the seawater cooling the exhaust steam was not mixed with it, as it was before), which eliminated the need for periodic (every three to four days) quenching of the furnaces for descaling boilers, of course, with a stop of cars. On the same day, the Great Western wheeled steamer, which arrived from England a few days later, arrived from the same port and under the same flag, the first steam ship to sail regularly across the Atlantic.

American Steamboat Nora River Steamboat of Clermont

These flights showed the benefits of steam power. The displacement of sailboats even from distant lines began in 1881 after a 42-day voyage of the Aberdeen steamboat from England to Australia with only one stop for receiving coal. A high-performance triple expansion steam engine and high-pressure boilers were installed on it. Five years after this voyage, the total tonnage of the ships existing in the world equaled the tonnage of sailing ships. And soon the whole globe was encircled by shipping lines.

I would like to mention the surviving steam vessels. A wheeled “Skiblander” is considered to be a veteran among the first-born ships of the steamship industry, which has been making regular flights on Norwegian Lake since 1856 (!) Mjösa, which is 50 miles north of Oslo. This ship (he is already 129 years old) has undergone only two major repairs.

So, steamers came to replace the oar and sailing ships. “Pillars of fire at night and pillars of smoke during the day,” as G. Longfellow called them, now led wanderers through the seas.

The beginning of the use of steam engines “on the water” was in 1707, when the French physicist Denis Papin designed the first boat with a steam engine and paddle wheels. Presumably after a successful test, it was broken by boaters, frightened of competition.

After 30 years, the Englishman Jonathan Halls invented the steam tug. The experiment ended unsuccessfully: the engine was heavy and the tug sank.

In 1802, the Scottish man William Symington demonstrated the steamer Charlotte Dundas.

The widespread use of steam engines on ships began in 1807 with the voyages of the Clermont passenger steamer, built by the American Robert Fulton. Since the 1790s, Fulton has tackled the problem of using steam to propel ships. In 1809, Fulton patented the Clermont design and went down in history as the inventor of the ship. Newspapers wrote that many boaters turned a blind eye in horror as the “Fulton Monster,” spewing fire and smoke, moved along the Hudson against wind and currents.

Clermont

Ten to fifteen years after the invention of R. Fulton, the steamships seriously pressed sailing ships. In 1813, two steam engine plants were launched in Pittsburgh, USA. A year later, 20 steamships were assigned to the New Orleans port, and in 1835 already 1,200 steamships operated on the Mississippi and its tributaries.

By 1815 in England on the river. Clyde (Glasgow) has already worked 10 ships and seven or eight on the river. Thames. In the same year, the first Argyle steamer was built, which made the transition from Glasgow to London. In 1816, the Majestic steamer completed the first Brighton – Le Havre and Dover – Calais voyages, after which regular sea steam lines began to open between Great Britain, Ireland, France and the Netherlands.

The first steam ship of Europe “Comet” 1812

In 1813, Fulton turned to the Russian government with a request to grant him the privilege to build the steamboat he had invented and use it on the rivers of the Russian Empire. However, Fulton did not create steamboats in Russia. In 1815 he died, and in 1816 the privilege granted to him was canceled.

The beginning of the 19th century was marked in Russia by the construction of the first ships with steam engines. In 1815, the owner of a mechanical foundry in St. Petersburg, Karl Byrd, built the first wheeled steamer Elizabeth. A 4-liter Watt steam engine manufactured at the factory was installed on a wooden “Tikhvinka” plant. with. and a steam boiler driving the side wheels. The machine made 40 revolutions per minute. After successful trials on the Neva and the transition from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt, the ship made voyages on the St. Petersburg-Kronstadt line. The steamer traveled this route in 5 hours and 20 minutes at an average speed of about 9.3 km / h.

Russian ship factory Byrd.

The construction of steamboats also began on other rivers of Russia.

The first steamboat in the Volga basin appeared on the Kama River in June 1816. It was built by Pozhvinsky iron foundry and ironworks V. A. Vsevolozhsky. Having a capacity of 24 liters. with., the ship made several pilot voyages along the Kama.

By the 20s of the 19th century, there was only one steamer in the Black Sea basin – Vesuvius, apart from the primitive steamer Pchelka with a capacity of 25 hp, built by Kiev serf peasants, which two years later was led through the rapids to Kherson, from where he made flights to Nikolaev.

Large Siberian gold miner Myasnikov ,. received the privilege to organize shipping on the lake. Baikal and the rivers Ob, Tobol, Irtysh, Yenisei, Lena and their tributaries, in March 1843. launched the ship “Emperor Nicholas I” with a capacity of 32 liters. S., which in 1844 was withdrawn to Lake Baikal. After it was laid and in 1844 the second ship with a capacity of 50 liters was completed. p., dubbed the “Heir to the Cesarevich”, which was also transferred to Lake. Baikal, where both ships were used in transportation.

In the 40-50s of the 19th century, steamships began to regularly sail along the Neva, Volga, Dnieper and other rivers. By 1850, there were about 100 ships in Russia.

In 1819, the American sailing ship Savannah, equipped with a steam engine and removable on-board wheels, left the US Savannah on Liverpool and crossed the Atlantic in 24 days. As the engine on the Savannah, a single-cylinder low-pressure, single-acting steam engine was used. The power of the machine was 72 hp, the speed during engine operation was 6 knots (9 km / h). The steamer used the engine for no more than 85 hours and only within the coastal zone.

Source; Maxim01