IMPROVEMENTS IN RUDDERS AND STEERING APPARATUS
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Adolphus Henry Linnington at.
the. Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 16th
February 1866.-A communication from abroad by Peter Dinzey,
residing at St. Bartholomew, West Indies.
I, ADOLPHUS HENRY LINNINGTON, of 58, Fenchurch Street, in the City of
London, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN RUDDERS AND STEERING APPARATUS," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in rudders and steering
apparatus. A hole is bored through the entire length of the rudder reaching
through from the after part of the bottom of the rudder in a straight line
barely clear of the rudder head on deck. Immediately under the rudder
close up
and fixed firmly on the stern post is an open iron framework in the
form of part of the are of a circle and two radii, the radi project out from the
stern post on either side as for as the rudder is intended to turn and the arc
joins them at the point of the inner part of the hole above described in
the bottom of the rudder. On the outer or after part of this arc are
succession of correctly formed circular cogs reaching along the whole are.
A rod perfectly round passes through the hole in the rudder fitting it
very exactly but not so closely as to prevent its easy turning, extending from
a little above the rudder head on deck to the arc or frame under the rudder.

page_text: Around the lower end of this rod there are three or more cogs cut which t
exactly into the cogs on the arc, and the shoulder formed by the cogs so cut
into the rod acts as a support for the rod on the arc, the arc itself being
further supported by a bracket fixed on the stern post underneath. The rod
passes through a hole in the stern near to the hole through which the rudder
head goes, which takes an elliptical sweep equal to the sweep of the rudder
from side to side. The tiller on the rudder head runs abaft and the upper
end of the rod passes through a hole in the tiller and going just clear of the
rudder head, has a wheel on the top around which a rope is passed two or
three times and being carried to the sides of the ship and passed through
blocks is brought back and passed over a vertical wheel of larger dimensions
on the same axis with the steering wheel. The steersman then when he turns
the wheel turns the vertical wheel which turns the rod, the cogs in the end of
which fitting closely into those on the arc cause the rudder to move along at
the same time. The rudder so moved by the turning of the rod by means of
the wheel on its upper end on deck cannot in the slightest degree be moved
by the action of the waves, no matter how great their force, for the cogs on the
frame or arc fit in towards the centre of the rod, and moreover the pressure
of the rudder against the rod has the effect of holding it more firmly in its
place. Again, lest in the event of accident to the ship, such as getting ashore,
the frame or arc might be bent upwards and thereby prevent the easy working
of the rudder. The rudder is hung as follows:-There are gudgeons on the
rudder in lieu of pintles, the rudder gudgeons are made the same as those
on the stern post except that their shoulders are acute instead of square,
each pair of gudgeons is as far from the next pair as the length of the radius
of the arc; a rod fitting the gudgeons exactly passes through the whole length
of the rudder head and down through the gudgeans to the last gudgeon on
the stern post into which it screws. The after part of the stern post, and the
fore part of the rudder are both grooved so as to allow the rudder to be
drawn upward until the last gudgeon on the rudder touches the next gudgeon
on the stern post, the head of the rudder being sufficiently long between the
shoulder and the counter to allow its being thus drawn up. The rod which
turns the rudder along the arc may readily be drawn out from on deck, and
the rudder be worked independently of it by means of the ordinary tiller rope
and barrel, and furthermore the tiller rope may be used in conjunction with
the rod and the arc. The rudder is also made in two separate halves from
the rudder head inclusive to the bottom, the two grooves, the one for the rod
through the rudder head, and the one for the cog rod, being first made and
adjusted, and then the two halves screwed together. Furthermore the are or

page_text: frame though stronger and having more control over the rudder when under
the rudder need not necessarily be there, but may be fixed on the stern post
just above water and just clear of the shoulder of the rudder so that the rod
descending obliquely from the rudder head on deck would be made to play
along the arc by means of the cogs and would then descend into the hole of
the rudder. Or the arc may be fixed on the stern post at any point between
the shoulder and the bottom of the rudder; in that case the rudder will
work within the radii of the arc, the part of the rudder above the arc being
made to project out abaft of the arc sufficiently to allow the rod to, work on
the after part of the arc as in the other cases. In this case also the
lower part of the rudder may be made of an uniform size so as to allow the
rudder to be drawn up, or it may reach out abaft the arc below as well as
above.
The advantage of a rudder on this plan is as follows:-First, the rudder
may be worked in two ways by means of the ordinary tiller ropes and barrell,
or by means of the cog rod and cog frame, or by both together, so that should
any accident happen to the rod and are the rod may be drawn out and the
tiller used alone; secondly, to whatever point of the arc the rudder is turned
by the steersman there it will remain without even a tremor, so that the
steersman is never in danger of having the wheel jerked out of his hand,
and the ship of being thrown out of course in consequence; thirdly, by using
the cog rod the rudder is rendered infinitely stronger, the strain on the rudder
head being altogether removed and spread over the whole extent of the rudder;
fourthly by hanging the rudder with gudgeons instead of pintles, and a rod
descending from the rudder head through them, the rudder is more readily
Lung and unhung and more readily drawn out of danger. The cog rod and
cog segment may also be adapted to and combined with another description of
rudder, namely, the double rudder, or rudder divided into two parts, the one
part binged on the other so as to present an angular surface to the water
when turned on one side or the other.
The adaptation is as follows:-The framework under the rudder has two
ares or segments, one within the other. The one within describes the course
of the first division of the rudder and is without cogs, but at a certain angle
with the stern post, say thirty-five degrees, has blocks or shoulders rising a
few inches high which stop the first half of the rudder at that point on either
side. Just on the after part of the first segment the second half of the
rudder is hinged on the first half. The second segment which has the cogs,
describes the course of the whole rudder (when the two halves are in a
straight line with one another) until the first half is stopped by the blocks on

page_text: the first segment. The outer segment from that point on either side has
its centre at the block where the first half is stopped and continues with a
shorter curve until the second half is brought around to an angle of fifty-five
degrees with the first half, or to an angle of ninety degrees with the stern
post, the whole being worked by the turning of the cog rod as in the other
cases.