A NOVEL SYSTEM OF TUG OR Tow BOAT
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Edward Gedge at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
25th November 1868.-A communication from abroad by Antoine
Faurie, of Ottange (Moselle), France, Gentleman.
I, WILLIAM EDWARD GEDGE, of the Firm of John Gedge and Son,
of No. 11, Wellington Street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex,
Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"A NOVEL SYSTEM OF TUG OR Tow BOAT," a communication to me from
abroad by Antoine Faurie, of Ottange (Moselle), France, Gentleman, to
be as follows:-
This tug having for motive power the stream itself is intended to
replace steam tugs and horses on rivers and all navigable water courses
having a current running at a speed of at least 21 yards (20 mètres) a
minute. The more rapid the current the greater the impulsive force it
gives to this improved tug and the better this latter will tow with power
and speed other vessels or loads of any kind, consequently it becomes
desirable to narrow and strengthen the currents rather than to reduce
them.

page_text: This improved tug may be used indifferently as a moveable or travelling
tng or as a fixed or stationary one. In the first case its establishment is
very simple and casy but it is only useful for going up stream. An
endless chain or iron wire cable thrown into the watercourse along the
whole line to be worked and fixed only at the up stream end serves as
fulcrum to the travelling tug, resisting the traction of this latter by its
weight alone; thus the most powerful tugs may be attached to it at a
distance from each other of less than 1094 yards (1 kilomètre) and mount
the stream without those up stream being in any way hindered by the
traction or pulling of those below; at the bends moveable guides keep
the fulcrum in the centre of the breadth of the stream. To go up stream
the chain or cable is nipped between two pulleys, one of which is a
driving pulley turning with the paddle wheel of the tug from down
stream up, and establishing the towing. In descending the tug freed
from the chain or cable follows the course of the stream and its mechanism
no longer works; moveable, the power absorbed by the towing of the
boat itself is one-sixth or one-eighth of that produced by its paddle
wheel; fixed, these improved tugs arc arranged in echelon from
distance to distance, being stationed at the parts of the stream where
the current is most rapid, and in connection by an endless chain
acting as a driving band on horizontal pulleys, the intermediary or
guiding ones having plane surfaces and a single check at the base to
support the chain, keeping it, however, on edge. The top side of the
chain carries, fixed at certain distances apart, rings, to which the boats
or loads to be towed are hooked on. Thus the speed may be changed at
will by working the chain with pulleys of more or less diameter. With
stationary tugs two lines may be established on the same stream, one
fast the other slow, both for going up and down stream, the one for
goods the other for passengers. The travelling tug is composed of two
boats. These two boats are of sheet iron tied by T-iron cross pieces
under which the chain passes before arriving on the pulleys. The boats
are, united at the base by cross pieces, one at the stern and the other a
little behind the paddle wheel, and the entire combination of the two
boats is strengthened by cross bars so that the tug may not be distorted
by any strain brought upon it. The paddle wheel is made in two parts
fixed on the same shaft, which also carries 4 cast-iron bosses, one at each
end and two in the middle, having between them the necessary space for
the driving pulley; these bosses carry the spokes of the wheel fitted with

page_text: sheet-iron paddles or floats. The paddles have projecting heads or crowns
which, uniting them by their ends, form circumference on cach side
interior and exterior of the right and left parts of the paddle wheel.
The two parallel spokes of each paddle have tie rods to prevent their
being forced closer to each other under the pressure of the water upon the
paddles. Two boats constituting together a tug of 2-horse power would
expose to the current a surface of, say, 400 square inches (1000°. q.
"French"), supposing them to be immersed to within 4 inches (010).
of the edge; the pressure exercised by the water against this surface as also
against the paddles of the wheel is for cach inch (centimètre) in breadth
and 4 inches (010) in height (starting from the surface of the water);
about 2 ounces (555) and 3½ ozs. (100) in addition for the next
4 inches (010) in height, that is to say, 4 inches to 8. (0m 10 to 0m 20)
5 ozs. (1555), from 8 to 12 inches 9 ozs. (255), and so on pro-
gressively up to 39 inches (100 centimètres), which gives for 393 inches
(1 metre) in height and an inch (1 cent.) in breadth 11 lbs. 2 ozs.
(5 050). The second 39 inches (1 mètre) gives alone 33 lbs. 2 ozs.
(15 050), making for the two together 44 lbs. 4 ozs. (20* 100%).
Multiply by 100 to have the pressure exercised over a surface of 39/
inches (1 mètre) in height and of equal breadth, which gives 1113 lbs.
(505) for a submerged surface of 39 inches (1 mètre) in breadth and
78 inches (2 mètres) in height, 2226 lbs (2010 kilos). This is
the pressure exercised by water upon any surface plunged perpen-
dicularly into it, of no value in a basin of water without motion,
the pressure being equal on both sides, but in a current of water
running at the rate of 196 feet (60 mètres) a minute this pressure is a
motive power of one horse for or by cach submerged surface of 39
inches (1 mètre) in breadth and height and 4 horses for a surface,.
and a current of 39 inches in breadth and 78 inches (2 mètres in
height), for then the pressure is only exercised upon the up stream surface.
The wheel may have twelve paddles or floats, six for the right part, six for
the left, and crossed, that is to say, that when one of the two parts has.
two of its blades vertical the other has two horizontal. For travelling tugs.
with a wheel of from 783 inches to 98 inches (2 to 2 50) six paddles:
are necessary and suffice; four leave too much space between them,.
eight give an extra weight of 2 paddles which absorbs more than
the power obtained by 8 paddles over six. The paddles of the wheel.
should present to the current surfaces. hollow in their breadth and straight.

page_text: and plane in their length or height, and on leaving the water should
present a point or angle. The sides of the wheels may advantageously
be closed with thin sheet iron, when the spokes and the side fastenings
will form but one continuous line immersed without shock, and there
will only remain the ends of the paddles to be put into and to leave
the water. The wheels of fixed tugs may have a breadth of 78 inches
(2 mètres) without interruption or break or centre support, the driving
pulleys or gearing being no longer placed in the centre of the wheel,
this arrangement being required by the travelling tug only in order that
the traction be exercised in the middle of its breadth, and like ordinary
boats this tug must have a rudder. It is not even indispensable that
the wheel of a travelling tug should be in two parts separated by the
driving pulley as this latter may be placed in front and receive its
impulsion from the shaft of the wheel by toothed gearing or driving
bands, but the weight of an additional shaft, its bearings, toothed
gearing, or pulleys, and the frictions of the whole absorb more than
double the power produced by the non-interruption of the paddles of a
single wheel, which is not, however, a consideration in powerful tugs
carrying wheels of 16 feet 4 inches to 32 feet 9 inches (5 to 10 mètres)
in breadth and in number, limited only by requirement and the possible
length of the tug, which may carry from 1 to 50 wheels placed imme-
diately behind each other with an interval of 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20
centimètres) requisite for the passage of the cross pieces tying the boats
composing the tug, these wheels having paddles interrupted or broken
only by longitudinal bars of iron carrying bearings in front of each shaft
to support it as often as its length may require. In these tugs a single
band or endless chain may place the whole of the wheels in communi-
cation however numerous they may be; this band gives impulsion to
the driving or working pulley here independent of and placed in front of
the wheels, and fixed on a shaft of a certain regulated diameter because
by means of the endless chain the work of all the wheels is concentrated
on this shaft. The travelling tugs, their machinery inclusive, should not
weigh more than from 220 to 242 lbs. (100 to 110 kilos.) for every 39
inches (1 mètre) running breadth of paddle wheel with 39 inches
immersion. The tugs whether moveable or fixed should be furnished with
gratings forming a point in front (in two parts for moveable or travelling
tugs) cach fixed to each boat by hinges or pivots, opening at the point
like sluice gates to give passage to the chain at the moment of placing

page_text: it upon the pulleys or of releasing the tug from it; these gratings are
also intended to arrest and fend off all floating objects descending with
the current, and which passing between the two boats would otherwise
entangle in the wheels.