IMPROVEMENTS IN BUOYS FOR SIGNALLING AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Jaques at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 29th March 1882.
JAMES JAQUES of Grundy Street, Poplar, in the County of Middlesex,
"IMPROVEMENTS IN BUOYS FOR SIGNALLING AND OTHER PURPOSES
"
Buoys used for indicating the safe course for vessels, marking dangerous places,
giving warning of their position by sound or other signalling means, as also
mooring buoys, are sometimes struck by vessels, and buoys as heretofore usually
constructed if so struck are very liable to receive such injury as to render them no
longer efficient. Also some buoys are provided with means for shewing a light or
lights by the use of gas or otherwise to indicate their positions, and with such
buoys as heretofore usually constructed there is risk of the light of a buoy being
mistaken for the light of a ship or navigable vessel.
Now my invention relates to a construction and arrangement of buoy whereby
the liability to serious injury in the event of collision as above referred to is
greatly reduced, and whereby also in the case of a light buoy a distinctive character
is imparted to the light so that it may be readily distinguished from the lights of
ships or navigable vessels.
According to my Invention the body of the buoy which may be of any suitable
form and construction is so connected to a bar or frame below it and which I will
for distinction call the mooring bar that the buoy can rotate about its vertical axis
without turning the said bar, which near one of its extremities has attached to it
a mooring chain or cable, whilst by another chain or cable secured to the mooring
bar below and in the axial line of the buoy body there is attached a weight or
sinker.
The mooring bar can be constructed in various forms, so long as its arrangement
relative to the buoy body and the connection between them be such that the
mooring bar extends below the buoy body in a radial direction and the body is
free to rotate about its own vertical axis. A convenient mode of connexion is by
a kind of swivel joint whereof in one arrangement the pin is secured to the buoy
body and the mooring bar is formed or provided with a socket to receive the said
pin which is secured by a nut,-this socket in some cases is lined with a bush of
material such as lignum vitæ.

page_text: When the buoy is to shew a light or lights I provide the buoy body with vanes
or projections (they may be in the form of buckets or pockets) so formed and
arranged that if when the buoy is secured by its mooring bar the said vanes or
projections be acted upon by currents of water the buoy body will be caused to
rotate and the arrangement for lighting being such as not to shew a light all round
simultaneously it will result that as seen from any given point at a distance the
light displayed will be an intermittent or flashing light readily distinguishable
from the masthead or anchor light of a navigable vessel.
A buoy provided with mooring arrangements according to my invention being
thereby kept in a position with its axis more nearly vertical will be more
prominently exposed to view than ordinary buoys anchored as at present usual.
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