[BITList] IMarEST Lecture

[Michael Feltham]

Thanks Hugh, the lecturer mentioned another guy around your way that had also invented a kind of propellor.  He didn't have anything favourable to say about the pods and disliked Rolls Royce.  His lecture was quite funny in places, to the extent that I am going to contact him to give a talk to the Club I'm the hon.sec. of, to give a slightly shorter, say 45 mins. talk.

Mike
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On 6 Dec 2011, at 17:14, HUGH wrote:

Mike,

On my shelves I've The Screw Propeller (and other competing instruments for
marine propulsion), by C.E. Seaton (1909).  Some patents were taken out, and
suggestions made, for various designs of the early screw, from 1815 onwards.
Jacob Perkins' patent No 4988 of 1824 had a two-bladed propeller mounted on
a hollow shaft with another and similar propeller on a shaft going through
the other, "but set to the opposite hand of the former, so that when
revolving in different directions they acted together in projecting a stream
of water". Perkins also proposed the varying pitch blade, ie, a fixed blade
with pitch varying along its length, as per the modern fashion.

Seaton mentions the farmer (Frances Pettit Smith) cited by Dr Patience, but
he says nothing about a blade breaking off.  His long screw was fitted on a
vessel, the Archimedes, and she was used for experimental purposes until
1840, partly to satisfy the Admiralty, and to demonstrate that the screw was
applicable to sea-going vessels.

Hugh.