IMPROVEMENTS IN PROPELLING SHIPS AND BARGES
Year: 1863

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Joshua Appleby, of the City of Manchester, Tea
Merchant, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN PROPELLING SHIPS AND
BARGES,"
Sealed the 23rd October 1868, and dated the 30th April 1863.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Joshua Appleby at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 30th
April 1863.
I, Josnua Appleby, of the City of Manchester, Tea Merchant, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN PROPELLING SHIPS
AND BARGES," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to a peculiar arrangement of propellers for ships and
barges, and consists in the application and use for that purpose of two or
more screw propellers or helices having their respective blades placed at
opposite or reversed angles, such propellers being carried on two or more
separate shafts, one or more for each side of the vessel, and at right angles to.
the keel; or two or more may be placed on each side of the stern post or mid-
ship. A sufficient spaco or opening is left between each set of helices or
screws to allow the dead water to escape, the propellers acting not as screws
but as paddles:
By this arrangement the loss of power from back water is obviated, and the
speed of the vessel will much depend upon the rapidity with which the screws
are worked, thus overcoming a difficulty always met with in the ordinary
paddle wheels now in use.

page_text: According to another arrangement it is proposed to employ screw propellers
with their blades inclined either in one direction or in opposite directions as
berein-before stated and fitted on to a shaft or shafts at right angles to the
keel, the outer sides or edges of the blades having either one or two broad
rings of metal applied thereto, so as to check the outward current or flow
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Joshua Appleby in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
30th October 1869.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOSHUA
APPLEBY, of the City of Manchester, Tea Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, in the twenty-sixth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Joshua Appleby, Her special license that I, the said Joshua
Appleby, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I,
the said Joshua Appleby, my executors, administrators, or assigns, should
at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "In-
PROVEMENTS IN PROPELLING SHIPS AND BARGES," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Joshua Appleby, my executors or administrators
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, or under the hand
and seal of one of them, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed,
and cause the samo to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters
Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Joshua Appleby, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to bo
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement, reference being had to the accompanying Drawings and
to the letters and figures marked thereon, that is to say :-
My said Invention relates to a peculiar arrangement of propellers for ships

page_text: and barges, and consists in the application and use for that purpose of two or
more screw propellers or helices having their respective blades placed at
opposite or reversed angles, such propellers being carried on two or more
separate shafts, one or more for each side of the vessel, and at right angles to
the keel; or two or more may be placed on each side of the stern post or mid-
ship. A sufficient space or opening is left between each set of helices or
screws to allow the dead water to escape, the propellers acting not as screws
but as paddles.
By this arrangement the loss of power from back water is obviated, and
the speed of the vessel will much depend upon the rapidity with which the
screws are worked, thus overcoming a difficulty always met with in the ordinary
paddle wheels now in use.
According to another arrangement intended chiefly for inland navigation, it
is proposed to employ screw propellers with their blades inclined either in one
direction or in opposite directions as herein-before stated, and fitted on to a
shaft or shafts at right angles to the keel, the outer sides or edges, or both the
outer and inner sides or edges of the blades having either one or two broad
rings of metal applied thereto so as to check the outward current or flow
of the water and thus leave the vessel in comparative dead water.
And in order that my said Invention may be fully understood, I shall now
proceed more particularly to describe the same, and for that purpose I shall
refer to the several Figures on the Sheet of Drawings hereunto annexed, the
same letters of reference indicating corresponding parts in all the
Figures.
Figuro represents a side elevation of the hull of a ship provided with one
form of my improved propellers, and Figure 2 is a plan of the same. In this
example I have shown two sets of propellers, the one near the midship and the
other near the bows.
A is the hull of the ship, and B, B, are the two propeller shafts, situate like
the ordinary paddle shafts at right angles to the keel and driven or actuated
by any of the well-known arrangements of paddle wheel cugines hitherto
adopted; the fittings or supports for the propeller shafts being in all cases the
same as for ordinary paddle shafts.
The propellers themselves consist each of two screws or helices, the blades a,
a, and a', a', of which are inclined in reverse angles or directions, and the four
belices constituting one set or pair of propellers, may be mounted upon one
and the same single shaft or upon separate shafts. A clear and open space
is left at. b, b, between the two helices of each propeller to allow the dead
water to escape freely, the propellers acting in a similar manner to paddle

page_text: wheels with inclined floats and not as scrows, since the latter action is
neutralized by the fact of the floats in the two helices being placed at opposite
anglos.
Figures 3 and 4 represent respectively in elevation and plan the hull of a
ship provided with a modified arrangement of propellers. In this last-men-
tioned arrangement the blades of the two or more helices forming each wheel
or propeller are all inclined in one direction so as to tend to throw the water
outwards from the sides of the ship when going ahead, but in order to check
this outward current,.I propose to attach one or more broad rings c, c, to the
outer edges of the blades whereby the ship will be left in comparatively dead
water. Or the blades may be inclined in opposite directions, as in the first
arrangement, and the broad ring or rings may bo applied to one or both sides
of the propeller, as shewn at Z, Figure 2, which arrangement will be applicable
both to ocean and inland navigation.
Having now described and particularly ascertained the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is or may be used or carried
into effect, I would observe, in conclusion, that what I consider to be novel and
original, and therefore claim as the Invention secured to me by the herein-
before in part recited Letters Patent, is,-
First, the general constructions and arrangements of propellers substantially
as berein-before described and illustrated by my Drawings.
Second, the system or mode of propelling ships and vessels of all kinds by
means of reversed helices or screws rotating on axes at right angles to the
keel and having a clear space between them for the escape of dead water, in
combination or not with a broad ring or rings on one or both sides of the
propeller as berein-before described.
Third, the application and use to and in propelling ships and vessels of all
kinds of helices with blades inclined in the same direction rotating on axes at
right angles to the keel and provided with a ring or rings on their outer sides
or edges for the purpose of checking the outward current or flow of water as
herein-before described.
In witness whercof, I, the said Joshua Appleby, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-fourth day of October One thousand eight
hundred and sixty-three.
JOSHUA APPLEBY. (L.S.)