Book - The Year Book of Facts in Science and the Arts 1874

The Year-Book Of Facts In Science And The Arts For 1874¹

Frameless Ship. - Nehemiah Gibson is building this vessel at Boston, United States. The vessel is 122 feet 6 inches long on the keel 138 feet on deck, has 32 feet 6 inches breadth of beam, and 12 feet 2 inches depth of hold, with 4 inches dead rise at half-floor. She has a long sharp bow, with raking stem, and upright sternpost and a full rounded body, indicating large capacity and buoyancy. Her keel is of hard pine, 12 by 14 inches; she has three depths of midship keelson, each 12 inches square, and assistant keelsons of 10 by 12 inches. From the keel to the deck she is built of single logs of spruce, each 12 inches square, placed one upon another, and bolted together every six inches the bolts one inch in diameter, and three feet long.

The garboards are bolted alternately through the keel and each other. On the flat of the floor she has timbers in her. She is 12 inches thick throughout, and her iron fastening is the only substitute for timbers. Her stem, apron, cutwater, stern-post, and rudder-post are of oak, 18 inches square, and at it the ends of her after-body terminate. They are not, as in other vessels, mortised into the stern-post. This gives her a very clean run. The dead-wood, which forms the centre of the run, is scarphed to the keelsons. The first piece extends 14 feet inboard, the second 8 feet, the third 5 feet, and the fourth 4 feet; thus the stern-post is backed by about 12 feet of solid timber, bolted in every direction. The rudder if of a novel construction, securely braced and hung. The ends have pointers backed by hooks. The beams are 14 inches square, the carlines 8 inches by 10 inches, and the deck plank is 3 3/4 inches. The beams are let into the hull, and are also strongly secured with hackmetack hanging, and lodging knees, bolted every 6 inches. The hanging knees are sided 7 inches have 4 1/2 feet bodies, and 2 1/2 feet arms; and the stanchions are 6 inches by 14 inches; clasped and bolted with iron above and below. Her bulwarks are about 3 feet high, built solid. She will have a trunk cabin, low enough above the deck to give scope for working the mizzen boom, and the accommodations for the crew will be forward. She will have three masts, fore-and-aft rigged, and 81 feet, 82 feet, and 83 feet long; the bowsprit will be 20 feet outboard, the jibboom 16 feet outside the cap, and the other spars in proportion. Mr. Gibson says that twenty-six tons of iron have been used in her construction, but forty per cent. less timber than in any other vessel of her capacity, with a corresponding reduction in labour, and that , having no frames, she cannot decay, and if springing a leak it can be stopped from the inside. As she is an experiment, he has built her of cheap materials, but notwithstanding this he considers her much stronger, and believes will prove more durable than if she had been built in the usual style, with frames, planking, and ceiling. She will be launched shortly, Mr. Gibson has also the timber in the yard to build a vessel of 140 tons in the same style for the Cape Ann Granite Company. She will be 12 inches thick, 05 feet long, 27 feet wide, and 6 feet deep.

References: