IMPROVEMENTS IN SHIPS LIGHTS INTENDED TO INDICATE THE INTENDED COURSE OF VESSELS APPROACHING EACH OTHER.
Year: 1878

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Peter Kerslake Seddon, of Waltham Grove, near Great
Grimsby, in the County of Lincoln, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
SHIPS LIGHTS INTENDED TO INDICATE THE INTENDED COURSE OF VESSELS
APPROACHING EACH OTHER.'
"
Sealed the 21st March 1879, and dated the 15th October 1878.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Peter Kerslake Seddon at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 15th October 1878.
PETER KERSLAKE SEDDON, of Waltham Grove, near Great Grimsby, in the
County of Lincoln. "IMPROVEMENTS IN SHIPS' Lights Intended to IndICATE THE
INTENDED COURSE OF VESSELS APPROACHING EACH OTHER.
This Invention has for its object improvements in ships' lights intended to
indicate the intended course of ships meeting end on.
For this purpose there is mounted on the bridge or deck of the ship a hand lever
carrying a toothed arc, gearing with a pinion upon an horizontal shaft passing to
the foreinast of the vessel.
A vertical axis is carried by bearings fixed to the mast, and the horizontal shaft
transmits motion to the vertical axis by means of a pair of bevilled wheels. The
vertical axis at its upper end carries a disc, which on one side is red and the other
green, and it also carries a lamp immediately below the disc. The two opposite
sides of the lamp are glazed respectively with red and green glass and the remaining
sides of the lamp are opaque.
In
When the hand lever is upright the disc is fore and aft, and at night the lamp is
invisible except to passing vessels. The officer at the same time that he gives an
order to the helmsman moves the hand lever in a corresponding direction.
large vessels a wheel may be substituted for the hand lever. When the lever or
wheel is moved to port the red side of the disc and the red glass of the lamp is
presented to an approaching vessel, indicating thereby the order. which has been
given to the helmsman. A dial in front of the helmsman may be provided, indi-
cating to him the colour at the mast head.

page_text: The apparatus may also be arranged in the following manner :-
Two brass or iron levers are provided on the bridge, one for "port" and one for
"starboard." The levers each turn an iron rod passing under the deck to just
before the foremast, and terminating in a bevilled toothed wheel, which on the
lever being moved turns another bevilled wheel at the end of iron rods running up
the mast and terminating in two discs, one of sheet iron above and the other glass
below. The iron disc will indicate by day and the glass through which the
mast head light will shine by night. When not in use the levers will be uncoupled
and turned towards cach other, but when used must be coupled so that turning on
one disc or colour will shut off the other.
The officer or other in charge of a vessel approaching another couples his levers
and at the same time gives the order to alter the helm, and thus shows to the
approaching vessel what he is doing. The look-out man at the bows will see that
the light or disc and the order correspond.
If thought necessary the levers might when moved turn a hand on a dial opposite
the helmsman, indicating the light or colour of the disc used and with which the
helmsman must conform, the movement of the hand on the dial may cause a gong
to strike once to call the helmsman's attention. For square rigged steamers the
mast head light should be fixed in a strong box surmounted by a disc on an iron
rod resting on the round top and projecting one foot beyond the heel of the foretop
mast out of the way of all ropes. The foretop sail should be slightly cut up to
clear the light and disc when the sail is set. The box is turned by the iron rod
from the deck running up the after side of the mast.
The lamp has only one side opaque, the other three sides being white, red, and
green.
The box, open at three sides, is surmounted by the disc and moves on a pivot
fixed at a sufficient distance from the heel of the topmast to permit the disc to lie
fore and aft before the foremast. The box is provided with a bevilled rack to fit a
cogged wheel at the end of a horizontal bar working over the round top, the other
end of which bar is turned by the perpendicular rod rising up the back of the mast
and itself turned by the action of the lever or wheel at the bridge.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by·
the said Peter Kerslake Seddon in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 15th
April 1879.
cr
PETER KERSLAKE SEDDON, of Waltham Grove, near Great Grimsby, in the
County of Lincoln. IMPROVEMENTS IN SHIPS' LIGHTS INTENDED TO INDICATE
THE INTENDED COURSE OF VESSELS APPROACHING EACH OTHER."
This Invention has for its object improvements in ships' lights, intended to
indicate the intended course of vessels approaching each other.
For this purpose I employ a disc supported at or about the mast head where the
usual mast head light is carried, and having its port side coloured white, with a red
ball in the centre, and its starboard side green; below the disc a lamp is hoisted for
night signalling, having either a white bright light to the front exactly like an
ordinary steamer's mast head light, with a red and a green lense on the port and
starboard sides of the lamp behind the white light and shaded from the front and
rear by two projecting flanges; or, if preferred, a lamp with only a red and a green
lense on its port and starboard sides being opaque to the front and rear and
similarly shaded by projecting flanges.
The arrangement as for square rigged vessels is shown at Figure 1 of the annexed
Drawings, and Figure 2 shows the application to a pole mast.
From the signalling apparatus so supported wire ropes or rods pass round pulleys
and down either side of the mast and along the deck protected by tubes (or under
the gangway where there is one extending to the foremast) to the bridge, where
the ropes or rods are connected with the barrel of a small wheel supported by a
pedestal, the height of a man's hand. The signal is made by the officer in charge
of the ship, turning the wheel a quarter circle to port or starboard, and turning by
this means the red or green side of the disc or lamp to the front he shows the
course he intends to steer. I also in some cases provide a communication with the
man at the helm by means of wire ropes and rods connected to the barrel of
the same small wheel on the bridge and with a hand on a dial placed opposite
the man who is steering the ship, so that when the signal is used to commu-
nicate the intended course to an approaching vessel the same quarter turn of the
wheel moves the hand on the dial to port or starboard at the same time that a
small bell or gong is struck to call the helmsman's attention to the signal.
The rods and ropes are kept taut and in their places by simple adjusting screw
links.
Having thus described the nature of my said Invention, and the manner of per-
forming the same, I would have it understood that I claim the arrangement of ships'
lights, substantially as described, by which the officer in command is able to operato
from the bridge a disc and colored light at or near the mast head, and so to indicate
the intended course.
In witness whereof, I, the said Peter Kerslake Seddon, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Ninth day of April, in the year of our Lord Ono
thousand night bundead and seventy nine
P. K. SEDDON. (L.S.)