AN IMPROVED METHOD OF PROPELLING AND STEERING VESSELS
Year: 1839

page_text: HUNT, of Greenwich, in the County of Kent, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-third day of November,
in the third year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said John Hunt, my exors, adiiors, and assigns, Ier
especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said John
Hunt, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, and such others as I, the said John
Hunt, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times during the term of years therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
that part of Her said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called
England, Her Dominion of Wales, Town of Berwick upon Tweed, and also
in all Her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "AN
IMPROVED METHOD OF PROPELLING AND STEERING VESSELS;" in which said Letters
Patent is contained a proviso, that I, the said John Hunt, shall cause a
particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and the manner
in which the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in Her said Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same,
reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Hunt, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention consists
in employing one and the same apparatus to steer as well as to propel ships,
boats, and other vessels. And I further declare that the manner in which the
said Invention is performed is fully shewn and set forth in the Drawings
hereunto annexed, and in the following description thereof, that is to say:-
Figure 1 is a side view of my steering and propelling apparatus applied to
the stern of a vessel; and Figure 2, a view in section of the lower part of the
apparatus below the water line. A is a driving shaft, connected in the usual
way, with a steam engine or other first mover; B, an upright bearer, in which
the shaft A works; C, a bevilled cog wheel attached to the end of the driving
shaft; D, a hollow vertical shaft, (made hollow, for the purpose of receiving
occasionally a supply of oil to lubricate its different bearing points,) which
passes down right through the stern of the vessel close to the water line, and
reaches outside to near the keel, where it rests in a projecting heel-piece Z,
bolted firmly to the keel or kelson, carrying at top a second cog wheel E, which
takes into the first cog wheel C, and at bottom a third cog wheel M, (sec
Figure 2,) which takes into a fourth, N, which acts immediately on the pro-
pellers, herein-after mentioned. E is a case, which encloses the vertical shaft
D, and is connected with it at top and bottom by gun-metal bearings; G, a
trunk, (formed by an enlargement at the bottom of the case F.) which encloses
and protects the third and fourth cog wheels M and N, and is made of brass
or some other metal not readily oxidizable; I is a short horizontal shaft, on
which the fourth cog wheel N is fixed, one end of which shaft rests in the
bearing K, inside of the trunk G, and the other passes through the trunk G
into a coupling box O; P is a nave or boss at the end of the coupling box O,
into which are fixed at right angles, the one to the other, the four blades or
propellers P, p, by which progressive motion is given to the vessel. So much
of the apparatus as I have herein-before described is employed solely for pro-
pelling purposes, and its mode of operation is as follows:-The driving shaft,
on being set in motion by the steam engine or other first mover, turns the first
cog wheel C, which turns the second cog wheel E, which (through the medium
of the shaft D) turns the third cog wheel M, which turns the fourth or last cog
wheel N, which turns the shaft I, which (through the medium of the coupling
box O and boss P) causes the blades or propellers P, p, to rotate, and thereby
propel the vessel.
The steering part of the apparatus I shall now proceed to describe. W, W.
are the arms of a steering wheel, fixed on the top of a vertical shaft Q, which

page_text: passes through the vessel's deck, turning freely on its centre in the bearing R,
and resting at bottom in a socket S. On this shaft a bevilled cog wheel T is
fixed, the cogs of which work into a corresponding set of cogs at the end of a
horizontal screw shaft V, which takes into a quadrant X, separately shown in
the plan. Figure 3, which is attached to the top of the case F, which encloses
the vertical shaft E. It follows, from the series of combinations last described,
that according as the steersman turns the wheel to the one side or the other,
he must turn to one side or the other the quadrant X, which is attached to the
top of the case F, which governs (through the medium of the shafts D and I,
and the gear work in connection with them,) the position of the propellers P, P,
and so cause the propellers always to act in a line exactly coincident with that
desired to be given to the vessel. Figure 4 is a back view of my said steering
and propelling apparatus, and is given merely for the sake of better illustrating
the relative position and dimensions of the different parts. I have tried blades
or propellers of various forms, and do not limit myself to any particular form;
but the form shewn in the different Figures 1, 2, and 4, namely, a rounded
triangular form, is that which I have found to answer best in practice, and
therefore recommend. The parts marked a, a, in Figures 1 and 4, indicate an
iron plate.or plates, which serve as a foundation and support for all the upper
parts of the apparatus (inside of the vessel), and which plate or plates must be
firmly bolted to the timbers.
And having now described the nature of my said Invention of an improved
steerer and propeller, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, I
declare that I do not claim as of my Invention any of the parts of which the
said apparatus consists as, in itself separately, new; but that I claim the general
combination thereof as new, and as producing a new and highly useful effect,
inasmuch as by the said combination the axes of any number of propellers
(meaning thereby what are commonly called paddle boards, or any equivalent
substitute for them,) may be moved to any required angle with the keel of the
vessel without interruption to the rotation thereof, and the said paddle boards
or their substitutes may be made to serve at the same time all the purposes of
an ordinary rudder; and such my said Invention being, to the best of my know-
ledge and belief, entirely new, and never before used within that part of Her
said Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England,
Her Dominion of Wales, Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, or in any of Her said
Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, I do hereby declare this to be my
Specification of the same, and that I do verily believe this my said Specification
loth comply in all respects, fully and without reserve or disguise, with the

page_text: Inrolled the Twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and forty.