IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HABLING VESTI OD OTHED HEAVE BODIES INTO DEEP WATER
Year: 1867

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Andrew Murray, of Her Majesty's Dockyard,
Portsmouth, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR
HABLING VESTI OD OTHED HEAVE BODIES INTO DEEP WATER."
Sealed the 28th January 1868, and dated the 30th July 1867.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Andrew Murray at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
30th July 1867.
I, ANDREW MURRAY, of Her Majesty's Dockyard, Portsmouth, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS
FOR HAULING VESSELS OR OTHER HEAVY BODIES INTO DEEP WATER," to be as
follows:-
This Invention has for its object the application of machinery to be worked
by steam on board steam tugs or other steam vessels, or on board of barges
built on purpose, so as to enable stranded vessels or heavy bodies of any kind
to be moved into deeper water with greater facility than by any arrangements
at present in use.
Hitherto when a ship is stranded any amount of steam-tug power when
brought to bear upon her by a towing cable with a view to haul her off
has proved of little avail, but by ready appliances for laying out one or

page_text: more powerful anchors and working the cable attached to the anchor, or the
towing cable,
or both cables, by means of powerful windlasses, capstans, or
crabs worked by steam on board the intervening vessel, many a stranded
vessel may be saved. For this purpose this Invention provides for anchors,
and cables, and steam capstans, steam windlasses or steam crabs of a more
powerful nature than are usually fitted in tugs or ordinary steam vessels,
being used on board in combination with each other in addition to the
ordinary means for the propulsion of the vessel. By these appliances and
arrangements as contemplated it will be possible to bring a much greater
strain upon stranded ships or heavy bodies to draw them into deeper water
than can be done by the ordinary propelling power of the vessel by shortening
the distance between them and the anchor or anchors. It may be necessary
to lay out more than one anchor or to repeat the operation, laying the anchor
further out each time. In the case of a stranded vessel, as soon as she is
drawn into deep water and is afloat the anchor will be slipped and left
buoyed, to be afterwards recovered, and the ordinary propelling power of the
tug or vessel will be brought into use to take her away.
It is preferred to work the capstans, or windlasses, or crabs by means of
steam engines other than those used in propelling the vessel. The steam may
be taken from the boilers for those engines or from other boilers; their gear
may have any multiplying power that may be desired with a fast and slow
purchase or only one purchase, and the slow purchase with a suitable engine
may be made so powerful as to give a strain equal to any anchor or cable,
however strong that it may be desired to use. Vessels as at present con-
structed are not suitable for use in this manner, for even if sufficiently
powerful winches were applied to them to serve for hauling off stranded ships
the vessel would be strained longitudinally by its use. Now in constructing
vessels to be used in this manner it is essential that the steam winch which
is to haul on the anchor cable should be firmly constructed with the towing
bollards or apparatus to which the rope or chain passing to the stranded
vessel is made fast, and I make this connection either by metal bars
or plates running along the deck of the vessel from the one to the other,
or it may be forming part of the deck; or the winch and the bollards
or other holding apparatus may be brought together on to the same base
plate.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Andrew Murray in the Great Seal Patent Office on tho
29th January 1868.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ANDREW
MURRAY, of Her Majesty's Dockyard, Portsmouth, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Thirtieth day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, in the thirty-first year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Andrew Murray, Her special licence that I, the said Andrew Murray,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Andrew Murray, my executors, administrators, and 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 "IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS POR HAULING VESSELS OR OTHER HEAVY BODIES INTO DEEP WATER,
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Andrew Murray, my
executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or
one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be per-
formed, and cause the same 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 Andrew Murray, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement thereof, that is to say:-
This Invention has for its object the application of machinery worked by
steam or other power on board steam tugs or other steam vessels, or on board
of barges, to the purpose of hauling off vessels that may have been cast on
shore, or of moving heavy bodies of any kind into deeper water, the machinery
being so constructed as to be more efficient than any hitherto in use for this
purpose.
Heretofore when a ship has been cast on shore or stranded the amount of
power to haul her off by a steam tug or any steam vessel acting by its
own propelling power in the same manner as any vessel uses this
the purpose of towing has been small and of little avail, and if an anchor has
power for

page_text: been laid out from the stranded vessel the power capable of being brought to
bear upon the capstan or windlass already fitted on board has also been small,
because this is always fitted of such size and power only as may be suitable
for the tonnage of the vessels with their ordinary anchors. Now my
improvement provides for the use of one or more powerful capstans, windlasses,
or crabs worked by steam or other power on board of a vessel other than the
stranded vessel, and which other vessel is to be placed between the stranded
vessel or heavy weight to be moved and one or more heavy anchors laid out
in the direction in which it may be desired that these should be moved; and
it consists in placing the capstans, windlasses, or crabs on the same base plate
with the bollards or bolts or apparatus to which the towing ropes or cables
from the stranded vessel or heavy weight are attached, or in connecting these
parts together by plates or bars so that when the strain in opposite directions
is brought upon them it will not pass through the framework or component
parts forming the structure of the vessel in which they are placed. The
capstan, or windlass, or crab may be applied to the towing rope or cable from
the stranded' vessel or heavy weight, and the cable from the anchors may be
made fast to the bollard, or bolt, or fastening, instead of the tow rope or cable;
or when two capstans, or windlasses, or crabs are used one may haul upon the
anchors and the other upon the stranded vessel or weight direct.
It is preferred to work the capstans, or windlasses, or crabs by means of
steam engines other than those used in propelling the vessel, and the steam
may be taken from the boilers for these engines or from other boilers. The
gear used may have any multiplying power that may be desired with a fast
and slow purchase or with one purchase only. The purchase with a suitable
engine may be made so powerful as to give a strain equal to the holding
power of any anchors or cables, however strong they may be made. For the
multiplying gear it is preferred to use a worm wheel and worn as this gear
pawls itself, and with one or more pairs of wheels to regulate the amount of
purchase or mechanical advantage between the steam engine and the worm
shaft. The side strain or thrust on the worm shaft may be taken by collars
on the bearings, or the thrust may be neutralized by working two capstans
simultaneously and working the worms and worm wheels right and left-
handed so as to act against each other, and the capstans, winches, or crabs
may be portable.
To illustrate the use of this Invention more thoroughly, and show its
application, a steam engine may be used on board of a vessel to drive one
capstan with the slow purchase so as to bring in the chain cable from the
anchor with great power at any slow rate of speed, the links being of the

page_text: proper strength to pull against the large anchor previously laid out in deep
water, the hawsers from a stranded vessel being at the same time made fast
to eye bolts or other sufficient holding part on the same base plate as the
capstan; the vessel with the steam capstan would then be drawn towards the
anchor at the same rate of speed at which the stranded vessel would follow, and
whenever the latter floated the cable attached to the anchor would be slipped
or let go, the anchor having been previously buoyed so that it might be after-
wards recovered, and the ordinary propelling and towing power of the steam
vessel with the machinery, or of any other steam vessel, if the machinery was
on board of a barge, would be brought into use to tow the vessel that had been
stranded into harbour.
Having thus stated the nature of my Invention I will proceed to describe
more fully the mode of carrying it out.
In Drawing No. 1, Figure 1 is a deck plan of a steam tug with two
capstans on the base plate A and two chains from the same base plate leading
to a stranded vessel and with two anchors shown stowed on the sponsons
prepared to be laid out a-head and the cables brought to the capstans;
Figure 2 is a sectional elevation of the same vessel; Figure 3 is a deck plan
of a steam tug with the chains or hawsers leading to the stranded vessel
made fast to eye bolts in another base plate attached to or connected with the
base plate on which the capstans are placed by the strong bars b, b, b, b;
Figures 4 and 5 represent the stranded vessel, the vessel with the steam
capstans on board and the heavy anchors as laid out ready for use; Figure 6
represents a tug vessel with two capstans, the hawser from the stranded vessel
leading to one capstan and the cable from the anchors leading to the other,
the arrangements in this case being well adapted for making the strains
neutralize each other on the two worms and relieve the bearings of the worm
shaft, as before explained.,
In Drawing No. 2 the details of the construction of two capstans on one
base plate and the eye bolts or fastenings for the hawsers to the stranded vessel
are shown. A is the base plate constructed of wrought-iron plates in the
manner of a hollow iron plate girder laid on its side with the capstans B, B,
and the chain cables C, C, coming from the anchors, and the eye bolts E, E,
on the same base plate for the chains which are to be attached to the stranded
vessel. The spindles of the capstans are shown extended down to the lower
deck of the vessel, to be there worked by the worm F working into the worm
wheel G, the worm F being driven by a horizontal double cylinder steam
engine on that deck.
In Drawing No. 3 two capstans are shown on one base plate with the

page_text: steam engine on the same base plate prepared to be used, as in Figure No. 6,
Drawing No. 1, the chain from one capstan being taken to the stranded.
vessel, and from the other to the heavy anchor or anchors laid out, and the
strain on the bearings of the worm shaft being neutralized. This arrange-
ment is convenient from its being self-contained and portable, and it is
particularly suitable for being placed on the deck of a barge with a portable
boiler to supply the steam, or on the deck of any vessel. The arrangements
of the apparatus when separate base plates are employed are sufficiently
illustrated by Figures on Sheet 1 of the Drawings.
In witness whereof I, the said Andrew Murray, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord.
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.
ANDREW MURRAY. (L.s.)