Published Resources Details Journal Article
- Title
- Torpedo boats
- In
- The Engineer
- Imprint
- vol. 54, 29 September 1882, pp. 236-237
- Description
Accession No.78
- Abstract
The text of John Donaldson's paper 'Torpedo boats' presented at a meeting of the British Association at Southampton. In 1882 torpedo boats could be divided into two groups, viz., those attached to and carried by larger vessels, and those sufficiently large to act independently, and to a certain extent to keep the sea. These two groups had been named by the English Admiralty, the second and first-class groups respectively. The second-class boats were intended to be used as auxiliaries to the ships they were attached to, and the first-class for harbour and coastal defence. In 1882 the dimensions of the second-class torpedo boats used in the English Navy were: length overall 63 feet, beam 7 feet 6 inches; draught 3 feet 4 inches; displacement 12 and a half tons. The hulls were constructed of galvanised Bessemer steel, and divide into ten compartments by bulkheads and half-bulkheads. They were fitted with 8 and a quarter-inch by 13-inch by 8-inch stroke, 150 indicated horsepower inverted-vertical double-acting compound surface-condensing marine engines operating at 653 revolutions per minute with steam supplied at 130 pounds per square inch by a marine locomotive boiler. The area of the fire-grate was 6.6 square feet and the heating surface 268 square feet. The stokehole of these boats was entirely enclosed, and the air was supplied to the boiler by a fan 2 feet 3 inches in diameter, operating at a speed of 800 revolutions per minute which gave a pressure of two to three inches of water gauge when driven by an independent 3 and a quarter-inch by 2 and a half-inch engine. These boats were armed with two Whitehead torpedoes in bow troughs. In 1882 the dimensions of most Admiralty first-class torpedo boats were: length overall 87 feet; beam 10 feet 10 inches; draught 5 feet 2 inches; displacement 32.4 tons. The boats were fitted with 12 and three quarters of an inch by 20 and seven eighths of an inch by12-inch stroke; 469 indicated horsepower inverted-vertical double-acting compound surface-condensing marine engines operating at 443 revolutions per minute with steam supplied by a locomotive marine boiler.