THE NEW ROCKET FOR SHIPWRECK

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 16, 22 April 1867, Page 91

THE NEW ROCKET FOR SHIPWRECK

SERVICE. (From'the Tall Hall Gazette, December 31.)

Some time about the dose of the last century an artillery officer who had risen from the ranks, Lieutenant Bell, conceived the idea of establishing a communication between a stranded vessel and the shore by projecting from a mortar a shell filled with lead and having a “ deep sea line ” attached. Experiments were made with the apparatus in 1791, before a committee 01 the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. An ac count of these experiments, which were perfectly successful, is given in the “Repository of. Arts ” for 1808. But in spite of this Biiecess Lieutenant Bell failed, from sqhfe'' ca^reH>t : 'anotheiv to give practical effect to his invention, or even to obtain for it any. general notoriety. In 1811 a committee cf artillery officers was assemb ed at Woolwich to report on a similar though independent proposal of Captain Manby, and by this committee Lieutenant Bell’s claim to priority in the matter was distinctly and fully recognised. But the merit of having been the first usefully to apply the invention and to press it into the public service is undoubtedly due to Captain Manby, with whose name, indeed, the scheme is generally too exclusively associited. In the year that we have named—lßll—-the invention was formally adopted, and an address was moved in the House" of * Commons, praying that the Prince Regent would be graciously pleased to order the apparatus to be stationed on different parts of the coast. This is the origin of our present system of communication with stranded vessels, which is now established at some 350 coastguard stations, and by means of which a very large number of lives are annually saved. What that system is, and how it has attained its present perfection, may have some interest now that the season of stormy winter niguts and wrecks has once again fairly set in.

During the half century or more which has elapsed, since the subject was first mooted, the attention of a number of inventors has been anxiously directed towards the possible improvement of the means of effecting a communication of the kind in question, and all sorts of ingenious contrivances have been proposed. Colonel Delvigue employed for the purpose a nowitzer instead of a mortar, thereby reducing the angle of fire, and in consequence the length of line to be carried, and he enclosed a portion of the line within the projectile. Captain Jerningham proposed an anchor of a peculiar form, as a means of hauling a lifeboat through a surf. Mr Greener and Mr Trengrouse each used a rocket to carry the line, the former discharging his rocket from a light harpoon gun; the latter making use of a small, and therefore comparatively- feejble, “ signal” rocket; Lieutenant Nares suggested the cmploymeutof a kite, and kites are manufactured for the purpose by the Ship-: wrecked Mariners’ Society, at Loudon Bridge; A kite is open to the obvious objection that it can only be useful for conveying a line from a ship on alee shore to the land, and as in the confusion and sudden excitement of a wreck the kite would not often be forthcqtning in working order, the proposition practicable. Other plans *ha?e j'befen suggested, such' as an arrow, and a:-l : id and line. But the advantages presented''’ by rockete over other ;ineans of establishing 1 a commanicatipn^wbre’so. conspicuous as tq'induce Mr Carte' aad ,Mr. prosecute experiments with a view the , employment of very iniich .moreipVwerfui , rockets than those 'which , had - been*, used by Trengrouss."<- Kie '.'Oarte ' ahd Dennet rockets - were congrave or w ar : fookete with lines

attached, aricLTdiffered from one another mainly;or.only in the position of the stick. Some.'.ten, or. eleven years ago Dennett’s rocket was formally adopted, and 9-po'under rockets of his construction, having'a,' mean.range of about 250 or 260 yardd, were 'issued to various coastguard stations, ahd a code of rules for their em» ployment was officially established. During this period the gradual supercession of the Manby shot has proceeded, though some are still to be found at .a few stations, and they are even occasionally manufactured. During this period, too, the great superiority, of rockets to shot, or indeed any other, projectile, has been practically established. They are more portable, as also is the apparatus from which they are fired, a point of great importance when the uncertainty as to. the exact spot on which a wreck;may 'occur is considered; they carry their own illuminating agent, and are thus independent of the fuses which are necessary to indicate the path of a shot fired on a dark night; they do not require so long a. line as a shot projected at a high angle of elevation from a mortar; the nature and duration of the propelling force renders the line carried out by a rocket less liable to be broken than a line carried out by a shot: and finally, line rockets are more accurate than line shot, owing principally to. the fact that the deflection caused by the action of the wind upon the line is in a great measure corrected by the well-known tendency of the rocket to fly up in the “ wind’s eye.” The range attained by the Dennett rockets was, however, inconsiderable as compared with what was desired, and Mr Dennett designed a “double rocket”— two rockets side by side, like a pair of horses in a carriage— by which the line would be borneto a greater distance. In 1862 some experiments took place at Woolwich witn Manby’s and Delvigne’s shot against Dennett’s rockets, single and double. “The result,” as we learn from the official report, “ was a general conviction on the mind of everybody present, and shared by M. Delvigne, of the great superiority of the rockets over either of the other plans.” The Manby and Delvigne shot fired troth mortars gave ranges of 200 and 185 yards respectively j the single rockets ranged 240 yards, and the double rockets 370 yards, “ with great steadiness of flight, and with less leng h and weight of line in proportion carried out than the mortars fired at 45 degrees.” A range of nearly 300 yards was obtained with M. Delvigue’s shot from a howitzer, but the line broke three times.

Mr Dennett’s-double rockets were open to the objections that simultaneous ignition of both rockets could not always be depended upon, and a per-centage of failures was the result; secondly, t‘ie strain thrown upon the. line by the combined force of a pair of rockets was sometimes greater than it was calculated to stand, and fractures of the line not unfrequently took place. With regard to this last objection, it might be supposed that a simple remedy could be found in the employment of a thicker line; but as any increase in the thickness of line entails a corresponding loss of range, its strength is necessarily limited. The satisfaction of these two antagonistic conditions —the extension of the range and the employment- at the same time of a sufficiently strong line—is indeed oue of the chief difficulties with which the inventor of a “ life-saving apparatus ” has to contend. The problem appears to have been solved, and tlie objections to the Dennett double rocket system to have been overcome, in the rocket which has recently -been ■ definitely adopted by the Board of Trade. This rocket has been designed by Colonel Boxer; and its chief feature consists in the placing of one rocket in the front of the other,. the two being contained in the same case, and forming, to all appearance, a single rocket. By this arrangement when the first or hinder rocket is exhausted the front one becomes ignited, and, by bringing a fresh force to bear, extends the range to nearly double the distance obtainable by a single rocket. At the same time the strain upon the line is at no time greater tnau what would be due to the employment of a single rocket. In fact, the advantages of the double and single rocket systems are retaiued without the disadvantages of either; and the problem of a long range with little chance of fracture of the line is satisfactorily solved. The range obtained with these rockets is from 370 to 400 yards. Their cost is little more, tnan one-half- that of the Dennett double rocket. The reports made by the different coastguard officers to whom the rockets were supplied, in the first instance, for experiment, were so favorable that they were last year formally adopted in supercession of Dennett's rocket, and are juuw being supplied at the . iate of about 3000 annually. This rocket is undergoing trial in France,"and.a "rocket of similar construction, designed by Major-General Konstantinoff, is employed tor the same purpose in Russia. ~ ■ . ■ The mam oojecfc of line shot and rockets is to establish a coniuiuuioauu)n Oetwoou the- shore and a stranded vessel, but ,tU© principle is evidently applicable to variety of other as throwing ratts or bridges across rivers in the absence bL boats j' throwing"-suspensiom/bridges aerbss ravines or mountain torrents for the passage‘of troops aniL tkatenel i, .in naval matters, it might be useful in landing through .a eurf, laying. but' anchors, or taking a vessel in tqw. by castings grapnel over*) a: buoy- lust, tdvaime in twwvy wea* their.'.- xJ