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Further Reading

HMS Captain

HMS Captain was the first sea-going turret warship, built to provide all-round fire power, but capsized and sank after four months service. The foundering of HMS Captain, off Cape Finisterre on the night of 6-7 September 1870, was one of those appalling calamities which would inevitably be felt as a national misfortune from the magnitude of the interests involved, the awful loss of life, and the sensational suddenness of the catastrophe, even if the Captain had been a passenger ship. Here, a great inventor, who had devoted the best years of his life to developing the maritime power of the seagirt isle; a gallant captain and crew zealous in their country's service; the finest fighting machine in the British Navy, - all go to the bottom together ; along with a sum in money of £400,000 sterling literally thrown into the sea.

The Captain sank in the midst of the fleet, yet there was none to save; and she was not missed until the next morning, when the ships, which had been somewhat scattered by the tempest, were counted, and instead of eleven sail only ten could be found. There was little alarm at first, but the ships were dispersed to look for the absent one, and before long pieces of her hurricane deck, of her boats, and other debris were picked up ; and then, alas! the true state of ths case became apparent. Although the night on which this unfortunate ship went down was squally, with rain, and a heavy sea running, the case was not that of an ordinary shipwreck in which a vessel is overwhelmed by a raging storm.

One of the survivors, Mr. James May, a gunner, related that, shortly after midnight he was roused from his sleep by a noise, and feeling the ship uneasy, he dressed, took a light, and went into the after turret, to see if the guns were all right. He found everything secure in the turret, but that moment he felt the ship heel steadily over, and a heavy sea having struck her on the weather side, the water flowed into the turret, and he got out through the hole in the top of the turret by which the guns were pointed, only to find himself in the water. He swam to the steam-pinnace, which he saw floating bottom upwards, and there he was joined by Captain Bnrgoyne and a few others. He saw the ship turn bottom up, and sink stern first, the whole time from her turning over to sinking not being more than a few minutes.

Captain Coles, the inventor of the turrets, was in the ill-fated vessel and perished with the rest, as did also Captain Burgoyne, the gallant commander, and the many other distinguished naval officers who had been appointed to the ship. Her complement was 500; and as the supposed 'ship of the future,' the greatest exertions had been made by officers to belong to this crack ship. The First Lord of the Admiralty and Lord Northbrook lost sons in her, the Marquis of Huntly lost a brother, and many other good families were represented among her officers. In all 480 souls were lost, 116 of whom have left widows, the mothers of 199 fatherless children. Besides these natural dependants, it has been ascertained that about 120 fathers, mothers, or relatives of the seamen drowned owed their subsistence to their exertions.

Captain was the result of a highly public dispute between Capt. Cowper Coles (inventor of the turret system used in Royal Navy ships) and Director of Naval Construction Edward Reed. A new system of mounting very heavy naval guns was proposed by Captain Coles about 1861. This plan consists in carrying one or two very heavy guns in a low circular tower or turret, which can be made to revolve horizontally by proper machinery. The turret itself is heavily armoured, so as to be proof against all shot, and is carried on the deck of the ship, which is so arranged that the guns in the turret can be fired at small angles with the keel. It was considered advisable to give Captain Coles's turret system a fair trial. T The British Admiralty having approved of Captain Coles' plans, two first-class vessels were ordered to be built on the turret system. These were the Monarch and the Captain.

The Captain was built, as the Court-Martial finding on the occasion of her loss truly stated, 'in deference to public opinion; ' but still the ship was of course ordered, and the design approved, by the Admiralty. The public mind had been a long time anxiously attending to the suggestions of Captain Coles with regard to this subject. He had invented what he thought a very great invention - a great improvement in the construction of war ships. He had pressed those views upon successive Boards of Admiralty, and Her Majesty's Government, through the Admiralty, presided over by the Duke of Somerset, had built the Monarch as a ship intended to meet the view of Captain Coles, and to solve the practical problem which had been pressed so much by him, namely, whether a turret-ship might be built as a cruiser. Nobody doubted the possibility of using turret-ships for coast defence, but the real problem was whether a turret-ship could be made a cruising man-of-war. The Monarch was built to solve that problem. But Captain Coles would not accept the Monarch as a satisfactory solution. He took great objection in several respects to the construction of the Monarch, and before the Duke of Somerset left office, he decided to call upon Captain Coles to submit his views to the Admiralty, with an understanding that he might select one of our great shipbuilding firms and build a ship according to his own views. Shortly after this the Duke of Somerset left office, and the question for the Conservative Admiralty was, as to whether the Duke's promise should be adhered to. They decided in the affirmative, and the Construction Department being in opposition, contracts were called for, and Messrs. Laird's accepted.

The state of antagonism between the inventor and the Edward James Reed, Chief of the Construction Department of the Admiralty, was such that they could not work together, the result being that this experimental ship was undertaken by contract. The construction of the sbip was committed to Messrs. Laird, of Birkenhead, the estimate - which was very slightly exceeded - being £335,000; and in their hands it was felt that everything relating to the workmanship and building would be honorably carried out. It appears that not only were Messrs. Laird to be responsible for the due performance of their contract, but that they were made to assume the principal weight of responsibility for the form and peculiar nature of the ship. Thus they were placed in a very unusual position, for the Construction Department, although in inveterate hostility, had to certify to all the specifications of the work. They disapproved of the low free-board ; they had but a very lukewarm appreciation of the turret system ; and in every instance in which they were technically requested to 'approve' of any details in her construction, they guarded themselves by writing the ambiguous phrase, 'not objected to.' It thus appears that the Construction Department, having been overruled, were determined to have no responsibility for the ship.

The first idea of the Captain approved by the Conservative Board of Admiralty was a low free-board ship, without poop or forecastle, and with only jury rig. In process of time, as the ship advanced, it was decided to give her a poop and forecastle, and the jury rig was exchanged for a spread of canvas which would have done credit to a Yankee clipper. The Construction Department took no active part in reporting on these changes, and weight after weight was added to the ship, to the improvement of her fighting character at the expense of her sea-going qualities. Larger masts, bigger turrets to contain heavier guns, a stronger hurricane deck to resist their concussion, and a broader one to enable the greater spread of canvas to be worked, were among a few of the additions made to the burden which the ship was originally intended to carry. At length she was launched ; and it was not astonishing that the estimated displacement of the Captain was exceeded by more than 800 tons, and that in consequence her free-board, or the height of her side above the water, was with all heist ores on board little more than six feet, instead of eight feet as it should have been. This was a serious miscalculation, materially compromising the stability of the ship.

The Captain, as is well known, was Captain Cowper Coles's model sea-going turret ship, the mature product of his genius ; named after Nelson's flag-ship at St. Vincent. She was, like her prototype, a ship-rigged ocean cruiser, with large sail power; of 4,272 tons burden, 320 feet long and 53 feet broad, with engines of 900 horse-power, and a complement of 500 men. Her armament consisted of four 25 ton guns, two in each turret, and two 6£ ton guns unprotected by armor. It will thus be seen that she was a most formidable vessel, carrying four of the heaviest guns ever put into a ship.

Her tonnage was more than double that of Nelson's flag-ship the Vicfory; she was 1,200 tons larger than the biggest sailing three-deckers, and 500 tons more than the heaviest screw liners. This enormous increase in tonnage was the natural result of the necessity for enabling modern men-of-war to carry iron plates, and among iron-plated ships the Captain was considered comparatively a small vessel, the largest British ships, Northumberland, Minotaur, and Agincourt, being 6,621 tons: still, although almost a pigmy amongst these monsters, the fact remains that she was what would have been thought an enormous size twenty or even ten years earlier. She was built of iron, with a double bottom, water-tight compartments, and all the most recent improvements ; her armor plating was 7 inches thick, 8 inches in the wake of the turrets, with a side of 20 inches, including wood-backing and skin-plating. As a fighting machine she was supposed to be the most perfect specimen of what has been called the 'British type,' 'able to destroy all our broadside ships in detail,' according to Admiral Sir Thomas Symonds, and, in the opinion of most naval officers, unequalled in the Britih or in any foreign navy.

She was covered with armor plates down to 5 ft. below the water-line, as repre- sented by the dark shading in the diagram. The outer plating was 8 in. thick opposite the turrets, and 7 in. thick in other parts. It was backed up by 12 in. of teak ; there were two inner skins of iron each £ in. thick, then a framework with longitudinal girders 10 in. deep. The deck was plated in the spaces opposite the turrets with iron IJ in. thick.

The Captain was fitted with twin screws-that is, instead of having a single screw, one was placed on each side, their shafts being, of course, parallel with the vessel's length. The object of having two screws was not greater power, for it is probable that a single screw would be more effectual in propelling the ship ; but this arrangement was adopted because it was considered that, had only one screw been fixed, the ship might easily be disabled by the breaking of a blade or shaft; whereas in the case of such an accident to one of the twin screws, the other would still be available. The twin screws could also be used for steering, and the vessel could be controlled without the rudder, as the engines were quite independent of each other, each screw having a separate pair. The diameter of the screws was 17 ft.

The erections which are shown on the deck between the turrets afforded spacious quarters for the officers and men. These structures were about half the width of the deck, and tapered off to a point towards the turrets, so as leave an unimpeded space for training the guns, which could be fired at so small an angle as 6° with the length of the vessel. Above these erections, and quite over the turrets, was another deck, 26 ft. wide, called the "hurricane deck." The ship was fully rigged and carried a large spread of canvas.

But the special features were the revolving turrets. Each turret had an outside diameter of 27 ft., but inside the diameter was only 22 ft. 6 in., the walls being, therefore, 2 ft. 3 in. thick-nearly half this thickness consisting of iron plating. Separate engines were provided for turning the turrets, and they could also be turned by men working at the handles shown in the figures. Each turret carried two 25-ton Armstrong guns, capable of receiving a charge of 70 Ibs. of gunpowder, and of throwing a 600 Ib. shot.

After some preliminary trials the Captain was sent to sea, and behaved so well, that Captain Coles and Messrs. Laird, her designer and contractors, were perfectly satisfied with her qualities as a sea-going ship. She was then sent in the autumn of 1870 on a cruise with the fleet. The occasion of her capsizing was the want of stability owing chiefly to the low free-board. Reed had written a paper On the Stability of Monitors under Canvas, pointing this out. This paper is now famous: it was read by Royal Navy Chief Constructor Edward James Reed at the Institution for Naval Architects on April 4, 1868, and the theory therein promulgated was the want of stability in a monitor with a free-board of three feet six inches, at angles of heel of more than eight or ten degrees. Although the instability of the Captain would logically follow from the theory adduced, it does not seem that Mr. Reed intended it to apply to her.

The turret was now admitted to be the most formidable engine for coast defence. In these vessels, not built for sea-going purposes, the all- round fire can be united with the small mark which a low ship offers to an enemy's shot. The question as between the Captain and Monarch had been narrowed to that of low v. high free-board ; and it would seem as if Coles was mistaken, and that the fourteen feet side of the Monarch was not unnecessarily high.