Motionless among the Billows
“There is no doubt about it; it is the motion of a vessel which produces sea-sickness. If we could only have a perfectly steady platform on board ship, one-half of the landsman’s terrors would be removed: he might be drowned, but there would be no chance of his being sea-sick. In Mr. Bessemer’s new saloon steamer, constructed for service between Dover and Calais, it is believed that we have made a considerable advance in the direction of attaining this desirable end.
The idea of constructing a platform upon which passengers could be free from all the inconveniences of motion, occurred to Mr. Bessemer several years ago. He had not long considered the subject, when he saw that it was clearly impossible to prevent a whole ship from rolling and pitching. He, therefore, directed his attention solely to the development of plans by which a quiet haven of rest could be secured in the midst of the moving mass. The result of his ingenuity is the saloon of which we have here a representation. This saloon is suspended in the centre of the ship’s length, where the rising and falling motion produced by the pitching of the vessel is practically nil. In its construction there were many difficulties to be overcome. Freely suspended objects, for instance, as pendulums, begin to oscillate whenever their point of suspension is moved ; the transit of passengers to and fro, it was
also seen, would produce motion ; and the action of the wind on the exposed sides of the saloon would cause the same effect. Mr. Bessemer is of opinion that he has overcome these obstacles by the application of hydraulic power, which is so amenable to control that a child could move the large saloon, weighing a hundred and forty tons, as easily as he could handle a toy.
The saloon is only one-seventh part of the ship’s length, so under ordinary conditions the pitching will not be much to speak of among the short channel waves, in a vessel whose length is three hundred and fifty feet. But the movement will be still further diminished by the high speed and great momentum of the Bessemer, as she is called, and by the fact| that she has a low freeboard forty feet long at each end. This freeboard will cut the waves, ship part of them on the low deck, and so balance the vessel.”
Another fine idea which never quite worked. The ship was sold for scrap after 2 or 3 unsuccessful voyages..More excellent information here…
