IMPROVED MOORINGS FOR BUOYS, SPECIALLY APPLICABLE TO BUOYS USED FOR MARKING POSITIONS IN CONNECTION WITH THE LAYING OF TELEGRAPH CABLES AND WITH MARINE SURVEYING
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Walter Claude Johnson and Samuel
Edmund Phillips at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 25th
February 1880.
WALTER CLAUDE JOHNSON and SAMUEL EDMUND PHILLIPS, both of Victoria
Works, Victoria Road, Charlton, in the County of Kent, Engineers and Electricians.
"IMPROVED MOORINGS FOR BUOYS, SPECIALLY APPLICABLE TO BUOYS USED FOR
MARKING POSITIONS IN CONNECTION WITH THE LAYING OF TELEGRAPH CABLES AND
WITH MARINE SURVEYING."
This Invention relates to buoys and their moorings, particularly in relation to
buoys used for marking positions in connection with the laying of telegraph cables
and marine surveying, whereby a quicker, more reliable, and cheaper means of
mooring mark buoys is attained, than the usual slow, tedious, and expensive systern
of paying out.
This is principally effected by means of a steel or iron wire, or strand of several
wires, having a suitable anchor attached, the wire being wound on a drum or
bobbin which is carried by the buoy itself.
Pianoforte steel wire is preferably employed.
The buoy, which may be of any convenient shape, is provided with a frame
which may be rigidly attached, or it may hang loosely. Within the frame is pivotted
a drum or bobbin, on which is coiled any required length of the mooring wire or
strand.
The inner end of the wire or strand is strongly attached to the drum, and to the
outer end is attached the mooring anchor, which may be of any convenient form,
such as the grapnel or mushroom anchor.
The anchor must be of such form and weight as will enable it to sink rapidly,
and effectually moor the buoy when the anchor lies on the bottom.
The buoy having its drum of wire with auchor attached is kept ready for immediate
use by being suspended over the water from any convenient part of the ship by
means of a slip hook or a light line, which may readily bo severed. Whilst the
buoy is thus suspended the anchor hanging by the end of the wire tends to unwind
the coil on the drum, but the unwinding is prevented by means of a catch on the
side or edge of the drum, which is in connection with a copper ball float.
When the line is cut and the buoy drops into the sea the ball float acting through
a short lover lifts the catch and liberates the drum, which then immediately

page_text: commences rapidly paying out its coil of wire by reason of the heavy anchor
which is attached to it.
A small brake is in connection with the drum, and adjusted so that when the
anchor reaches the bottom the drum ceases to pay out; or it may be arranged so
that a certain length is payed out after the anchor reaches the bottom, or it may be
advisable to allow the drum to pay out all the wire coiled on it.
When the brake is adjusted so as to stop the unwinding of the drum on the
anchor reaching the bottom, then an anchor or sinker may be employed, which will
itself carry a length of wire, preferably coiled on a small bobbin, and so arranged
that when the sinker or anchor reaches the bottom the wire will be free to unwind
from the small bobbin attached to the anchor, and in this way the length played
out from the buoy will be supplemented by the extra length required as
or "drift."
"slack"
The bobbin carried by the anchor can be readily fitted with some simple
appliance, such as will not permit its wire to be unwound until the anchor assumes
the horizontal position, which it will do on reaching the bottom; or a small button
placed at the base of the anchor may be pressed so as to liberate the bobbin when
the button is pressed by striking the bottom of the sea.
This Invention will be of great value to ships employed in the laying and
repairing of telegraph cables, when it frequently happens that it is of vital
importance to mark with a moored buoy the exact "position" should a "fault" in
tho cable be payed out, or suspected to have been payed out.
The position of shoal patches or bad bottom may be quickly marked by the
surveying ship or other vessel accompanying a cable laying steamer, as the whole
operation of buoying a position is effected by severing the line by which the buoy
is suspended over the water; the ship need not be stopped, nor the speed
slackened.