![Naphta-boot Mignon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Naphta-boot_Mignon.gif)
A naphtha launch, sometimes called a "vapor launch", was a small motor
launch, powered by a
naphtha engine
A naphtha launch, sometimes called a "vapor launch", was a small motor launch, powered by a naphtha engine. They were a particularly American design, brought into being by a local law that made it impractical to use a steam launch for private u ...
. They were a particularly American design, brought into being by a local law that made it impractical to use a
steam launch
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizatio ...
for private use.
Naphtha launches
By the 1880s, the small
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
was well established as a power unit for small
steam launch
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizatio ...
es, as well as for large boats. However US law, prompted by some past
boiler explosion
A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler. There are two types of boiler explosions. One type is a failure of the pressure parts of the steam and water sides. There can be many different causes, such as failure of the safety valve ...
s, required that ''all'' steam boats carry a licensed engineer at all times. Although this was no difficulty for a commercial craft, it prevented small steam launches from being used for personal and recreational purposes. Becoming such an engineer required an apprenticeship of two years beforehand. One of the few amateurs to achieve this and to become their own engineer was Rosamund Burgess, wife of boat designer
Starling Burgess
William Starling Burgess (December 25, 1878 – March 19, 1947) was an American yacht designer, aviation pioneer, and naval architect. He was awarded the highest prize in aviation, the Collier Trophy in 1915, just two years after Orville Wright ...
.
A more popular alternative to the steam launch was the naphtha launch, which used an alternative power source.
Advertisements of the period used the deliberate phrase, "Every Man His own Engineer!"
to highlight this legal restriction.
Origins
The first naphtha launch appears to have been British, reported in the French journal ''
La Nature
''La Nature'' (English: ''Nature'') was a French language magazine aimed at the popularization of science established in 1873 by French scientist and adventurer Gaston Tissandier. The magazine also received an enormous amount of time, effort, a ...
'' in 1888. This launch, ''Zephyr'', was the invention of
Alfred Yarrow
Sir Alfred Fernandez Yarrow, 1st Baronet, (13 January 1842 – 24 January 1932) was a British shipbuilder who started a shipbuilding dynasty, Yarrow Shipbuilders.
Origins
Yarrow was born of humble origins in East London, the son of Esther ...
, a well-known builder of steam launches for some years previously. Similar launches were produced in the same year by the Swiss company
Escher Wyss AG.
One of these was
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( , ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedes, Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and Philanthropy, philanthropist. He is best known for having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel ...
's graceful
aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
-hulled
sloop
A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...
''Mignon'', of 1892. Another, also of aluminium, was the ''Aluminia'' of 1894.
![Aluminia 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Aluminia_1.jpg)
The first American naphtha launches recorded were those of the Ofeldt company of New York, who would later become well known as makers of naphtha engines.
They described this as the 'Essh' system, and may have been licensees of the Escher Wyss patents. As well as Ofeldt, complete launches were also offered by the
Gas Engine and Power Co. of New York. By 1890 they claimed to have sold over 500.
Typical launches
The typical naphtha launch was an open launch of around in length. These were pleasure craft intended for use on fine-weather excursions.
After all, a commercial boat with a professional crew would not suffer from the regulatory problem that led to their invention. Naphtha launches appeared in the finest circles, in the best
yacht club
A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to yachting.
Description
Yacht clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations. Yacht or sailing clubs have either a mari ...
s
and under the ownership of some celebrated names.
Surviving examples
Few examples survive today. Some sources claim one,
Antique Boat Museum
The Antique Boat Museum is a located in the 1000 Islands on the St. Lawrence River, in Clayton, New York, United States. The Antique Boat Museum is the premier freshwater boating museum in North America. The ABM's collections hold over 320 uniqu ...
others four.
[ Minnesota Lakes Maritime Museum]
*
*
Naphtha engine
![Naptha Engine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Naptha_Engine.JPG)
The naphtha engine is an
external combustion engine
An external combustion engine (EC engine) is a reciprocating heat engine where a working fluid, contained internally, is heated by combustion in an external source, through the engine wall or a heat exchanger. The fluid then, by expanding and ...
, generally similar to the type of small
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
already in use for
steam launch
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizatio ...
es. The
working fluid
For fluid power, a working fluid is a gas or liquid that primarily transfers force, motion, or mechanical energy. In hydraulics, water or hydraulic fluid transfers force between hydraulic components such as hydraulic pumps, hydraulic cylinders, a ...
is
naphtha
Naphtha ( or ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.
Mixtures labelled ''naphtha'' have been produced from natural gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the distillation of coal tar and peat. In different industries and regions ''n ...
, which unusually is also used as a liquid fuel to power the boiler. Appearance is similar to a steam launch, having a small vertical boiler and vertical cylinders.
The burner for a naphtha engine uses naphtha itself, and is similar to that used for
steam car
A steam car is a car (automobile) propelled by a steam engine. A steam engine is an external combustion engine (ECE) in which the fuel is combusted outside of the engine, unlike an internal combustion engine (ICE) in which fuel is combusted ins ...
s. Although such convenient and self-regulating liquid fuel burners were also used on steam launches, most launches at the time of the naphtha engine's heyday were still using solid fuel.
General arrangement
To avoid problems of premature condensation, the engine and boiler units were mounted together. Engines were three-cylinder single-acting vertical
simple expansion
A compound engine is an engine that has more than one stage for recovering energy from the same working fluid, with the exhaust from the first stage passing through the second stage, and in some cases then on to another subsequent stage or even st ...
engines, with 120° crankshaft spacing, so as to be self-starting without dead centre problems.
Boiler
The boilers were of spiral
monotube form. These were single-pass
"water-tube" steam generator A Steam generator is a device used to boil water to create steam. More specifically, it may refer to:
*Boiler (steam generator), a closed vessel in which water is heated under pressure
*Monotube steam generator
*Supercritical steam generator or Ben ...
s, where liquid at one end of the tube boiled by the time it reached the end, without any looped circulation. Similar boilers, although with conventional water and steam, were also used for steam cars such as the
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
. The boiler was mounted directly atop the engine, and encased in a polished brass or copper casing with a short funnel above. The purpose of the funnel was merely to vent fumes above the heads of passengers, rather than to act as a draught to draw the fire.
Burner
Unlike coal or wood, the jet burners used did not require additional draught. The boiler was fired with a pressure jet burner, a small quantity of pressurised naphtha being tapped off from the boiler.
A prominent tube and funnel on the front of the boiler casing (sometimes mistaken for a whistle) is the air inlet. The fuel jet mixes with the downwards air flow in this vertical tube, then the mixed air and fuel is fed to a ring-shaped burner inside the boiler casing. For starting, a hand air pump was used to pressurise the fuel tank and encourage fuel flow, together with pre-heating of the burner coil by lighting a little of the fuel in a tray below it.
There was no throttle valve or regulator to control the engine speed. As was commonly used on single-pass spiral monotube boilers, the burner output was regulated instead with the fuel valve and the boiler responded quickly enough for this to be sufficient.
Engine
Lubrication of the engine was performed by the fuel itself, collected in a sealed
wet sump
Within piston engines, a wet sump is part of a lubrication system whereby the crankcase sump is used as an integral oil reservoir. An alternative system is the dry sump, whereby oil is pumped from a shallow sump into an external reservoir.Wet sum ...
arrangement beneath the crankcase. The naphtha fuel was an acceptable lubricant and this avoided the problem of separating lubricating oil from condensed fuel vapour leaking past the piston ring seals. It did however require careful sealing of the crankcase.
The engine valvegear was simple, compared to
that of contemporary steam engines. A single rotating
overhead camshaft
An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion c ...
ran above the cylinders, parallel to the crankshaft.
Eccentric
Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to:
* Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal"
Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics
* Off-center, in geometry
* Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...
s on this shaft actuated a transverse
slide valve
The slide valve is a rectilinear valve used to control the admission of steam into and emission of exhaust from the cylinder of a steam engine.
Use
In the 19th century, most steam locomotives used slide valves to control the flow of steam into ...
for each cylinder. The valve camshaft was driven at engine speed by gears from the crankshaft. A prominent handwheel on the camshaft allowed the engine to be reversed, in a similar manner to
slip-eccentric valve gear by shifting the phase of the camshaft relative to the crankshaft.
Condensers
External water-cooled condensers were used, simple pipes run under the hull, along the length of the keel.
Despite the obvious risks of damage from
grounding, these seem to have given little trouble in service. The fuel tank was in the
fo'csle of the boat, well away from the engine and risk of fire. This fuel tank was pressurised by the returning naphtha, avoiding the need for a fuel pump.
Low boiling point
One of the attractive features that first led inventors to consider naphtha as a working fluid was its low
boiling point
The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid equals the pressure surrounding the liquid and the liquid changes into a vapor.
The boiling point of a liquid varies depending upon the surrounding envir ...
, compared to water. This allows a relatively simple engine to be constructed, although it actually represents a limitation on the efficiency of such an engine. At the time,
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...
was already an advanced science and the limitations of
thermodynamic cycle
A thermodynamic cycle consists of a linked sequence of thermodynamic processes that involve transfer of heat and work into and out of the system, while varying pressure, temperature, and other state variables within the system, and that eventuall ...
s were well understood by physicists, if not by all engineers. By limiting the range of temperatures between which the engine worked, this actually reduces the potential efficiency of the engine, rather than increasing it.
An earlier use of low boiling point fluids had been Du Tremblay's
ether
In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again be c ...
engine of the 1850s.
This was used for a ''
bottoming cycle
A combined cycle power plant is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem from the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy. On land, when used to make electricity the most common type is called a combined cycle gas turb ...
'' as an addition to a steam engine. Waste heat rejected through the
condenser of the steam engine was used to boil ether and drive a second cylinder.
Other variants
Frank W. Ofeldt
Swedish-American inventor Frank Waldemar Ofeldt (1836–1904) also designed the Alco Vapor engine, sold by the Alco Vapor Launch Co.
This burned
kerosene
Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...
and used
alcohol
Alcohol most commonly refers to:
* Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom
* Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks
Alcohol may also refer to:
Chemicals
* Ethanol, one of sev ...
(probably 'wood alcohol' or
methanol
Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical and the simplest aliphatic alcohol, with the formula C H3 O H (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often abbreviated as MeOH). It is a ...
) as a working fluid. This may have been a measure to avoid the Escher Wyss patents.
Later Ofeldt also designed a more conventional steam-generating water-tube steam boiler. This was similar to the "
Lune Valley
The River Lune (archaically sometimes Loyne) is a river in length in Cumbria and Lancashire, England.
Etymology
Several elucidations for the origin of the name ''Lune'' exist. Firstly, it may be that the name is Brittonic in genesis and deriv ...
" pattern, a central drum surrounded by coiled water tubes, but with irregular wedge-shaped coils rather than a simple circle.
'Simplex' engine
The "Simplex Naptha engine" built by Chas. Willard of Chicago was more akin to an internal combustion
gas engine
A gas engine is an internal combustion engine that runs on a gaseous fuel, such as coal gas, producer gas, biogas, landfill gas or natural gas. In the United Kingdom, the term is unambiguous. In the United States, due to the widespread use of ...
with timed
spark ignition
A spark-ignition engine (SI engine) is an internal combustion engine, generally a petrol engine, where the combustion process of the air-fuel mixture is ignited by a spark from a spark plug. This is in contrast to compression-ignition engines, ty ...
.
It is outside the scope of this article.
Hazards and explosions
Despite the obvious hazards and occasional reports of fires,
the naphtha launch appears to have worked reasonably well and safely.
Models
The naphtha engine is not well known amongst model engineers, but at least one detailed reproduction has been constructed.
In popular culture
In the 1921 novel of the popular
Tom Swift
Tom Swift is the main character of six series of American juvenile science fiction and adventure novels that emphasize science, invention, and technology. First published in 1910, the series totals more than 100 volumes. The character was ...
series, ''
Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters
''Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters'', Or, Battling Flames From the Air, is Volume 24 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Plot summary
While Tom and Ned Newton are reviewing financial records, a fire breaks o ...
'',
the hero rescues passengers with the aid of a naphtha launch, describing it as "old-fashioned". The author also passes comment as to them being "a trifle treacherous" to light.
Naphthalene locomotive
A railway locomotive using ''solid''
naphthalene
Naphthalene is an organic compound with formula . It is the simplest polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, and is a white crystalline solid with a characteristic odor that is detectable at concentrations as low as 0.08 ppm by mass. As an aromati ...
was built by
Schneider-Creusot
Schneider et Cie, also known as Schneider-Creusot for its birthplace in the French town of Le Creusot, was a historic French iron and steel-mill company which became a major arms manufacturer. In the 1960s, it was taken over by the Belgian Empain ...
in France in 1913. This had no relation to the naphtha engine. It was a 70 bhp internal combustion engine, similar to a
petrol-paraffin engine
A petrol-paraffin engine, TVO engine (United Kingdom) or gasoline-kerosene engine (North America) is an old-fashioned type of dual-fuel internal combustion engine with spark-ignition, designed to start on petrol (gasoline) and then to switch to r ...
, which operated as a petrol engine and once started and warmed up could be switched to naphthalene simply as a cheaper fuel. The naphthalene was melted and vaporised by a water jacket, heated by the engine.
See also
*
Organic Rankine cycle
In thermal engineering, the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a type of thermodynamic cycle. It is a variation of the Rankine cycle named for its use of an organic, high-molecular-mass fluid whose vaporization temperature is lower than that of wat ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Naphtha Launch
Boat types