''Transit'' was the name given to an innovative sailing ship designed for speed by Captain

Richard Hall Gower Captain Richard Hall Gower (1768–1833) was an English mariner, empirical philosopher, nautical inventor, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. Mariner Richard was the youngest son of Rev. Foote Gower, physician and antiquarian, and Elizabeth, a s ...

and built in 1800. Gower also designed two similar ships with the same name. He hoped to have his designs adopted by the British Admiralty but failed to achieve his aim.

Description

All three ''Transit''s designed by Gower had fine lines at bow and stern, uniform frames mid-ships with concave and convex sweeps and a deep

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

. Their length to beam ratio was unusually high, giving them a remarkable turn of speed. The

foremast The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the centre-line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sails, spars, and derricks, and giving necessary height to a navigation ...

was

square rigged Square rig is a generic type of sail and rigging arrangement in which the primary driving sails are carried on horizontal spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and suppo ...

while the other three or four masts were fore-and-aft rigged,

barquentine A barquentine or schooner barque (alternatively "barkentine" or "schooner bark") is a sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main, mizzen and any other masts. Modern barquentine sailing ...

fashion but carrying very simplified standing and running rigging. Each sail was equipped with a horizontal

sprit The spritsail is a four-sided, fore-and-aft sail that is supported at its highest points by the mast and a diagonally running spar known as the sprit. The foot of the sail can be stretched by a boom or held loose-footed just by its sheets. A spr ...

that enabled it to be

brail Brails, in a sailing ship, are small lines used to haul in or up the edges (leeches) or corners of sails, before furling.''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary'', 1913. On a ship rig, these brails are most often found on the mizzen sail. T ...

ed up to its mast and deployed rapidly. Each mast carried three sails. The

topmast The masts of traditional sailing ships were not single spars, but were constructed of separate sections or masts, each with its own rigging. The topmast is one of these. The topmast is semi-permanently attached to the upper front of the lower ...

s could be lowered and replaced from the deck, in the event the sprits were to fail in strong gales and had to be abandoned. The Patent granted to Gower in 1799 details his theory about the relationship between speed and the length to beam ratio, as well as details of many features of his novel form of rigging, which allowed almost all activities normally conducted aloft to be performed from the deck (including the replacement of damaged masts) ; thus only the foremast was fitted with

ratlines Ratlines () are lengths of thin line tied between the shrouds of a sailing ship to form a ladder. Found on all square-rigged ships, whose crews must go aloft to stow the square sails, they also appear on larger fore-and-aft rigged vessels t ...

Service history

At the instance of

John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent (9 January 1735 – 13 March 1823) was an admiral in the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Jervis served throughout the latter half of the 18th century and into ...

, the

First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...

, ''Transit'' was sailed against HMS ''Osprey'' in 1801. ''Osprey'' was a fast sloop of 383 tons (about twice the tonnage of ''Transit''). Built at Northfleet like a French

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...

, with an 80 ft 6 in (24.5 m) keel, she had the reputation of being very fast. Her length to beam ratio (at waterline) was probably less than 3:1. ''Transit'' with a length of 130 feet (39.6 m) and a length to beam ratio of 6.5:1 performed so well as to have been acknowledged the winner by the captain of ''Osprey''. Despite this success Gower failed to get the support he needed to build a class of vessels to his patents. The reasons given for the rejection of Gower's proposal included the observation that because of her deep keel she would fall over at low tide in many of the east coast ports from which she might have to operate and that the deck was so narrow that guns could not be arranged symmetrically on each side for fear of their recoil causing them to collide. By coincidence, but apparently unbeknownst to Gower, the very gun that he would have needed, the carronade, a short barrelled gun mounted on a slide fixed to the deck, was adopted by the Royal Navy less than a year before the test of ''Transit''. Gower wrote detailed and vivid accounts of the vessels and his experiences with the authorities. George Bayley, owner of the yard that built two of the ''Transits'' also gave an account of the vessels. Macgregor gives a description and illustration of the first ''Transit''.

References

*Gower, R. H. (1799). ''Building and Rigging Ships; A system of naval architecture and rigging of vessels, upon a new and improved plan''. Petty Bag, Clerk’s Copy. in Chaplin (1933). *Gower, R. H. (1799). Patent No. 2350. 1799 (engraved on stone by Malby & Sons, printed by Eyre & Spottiswoode 1856), Mitchell Library, Glasgow. *Gower, R. H. (1793). ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Seamanship'' 1st ed. (2nd ed. 1796, 3rd ed. Wilkie & Robinson, 1808). A separate Supplement contains ''Original observations on Marine Surveying and a description of Transit 1807''. Science Museum Library Cat. No. 629.12. *Gower, R. H. (1799). ''Building and Rigging Ships; A system of naval architecture and rigging of vessels, upon a new and improved plan''. Patent No. 2350. 1799 (engraved on stone by Malby & Sons, printed by Eyre & Spottiswoode 1856), Mitchell Library, Glasgow. *Gower, R. H. (1811). ''A Narrative of the Mode Pursued by the British Government to Effect Improvements in Naval Architecture'' *Bayley, G. (1829). Letters to the Editor from St Peter’s Ship Yard, Ipswich. ''Mechanic’s Magazine''. Vol.9, No. 285, pp. 247 and Vol.10, No. 286, *Gower, R. H. (1834).'' Original Observations regarding the inability of ships to perform their duty with promptitude and safety, with suggestions for their improvement as practised on board the Transit etc''. S. Piper, Albion Press, Ipswich. Ch. VII. *Gower, R. H. (?) ''Miscellaneous Tracts''. NMM Ref. L64/159 pp. 99–102. *Chaplin, W. R. (1933). ''The Four-Masted Ship Transit'', ''Mariner’s Mirror'', Vol. 19, pp. 312–326. *MacGregor, D. R. (1973). ''Fast Sailing Ships: Their Design and Construction''. Nautical Publishing, Lymington, Hants. p. 50 Plans of ''Transit'' vessels at The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England. *ZAZ 6160. 1808, a vessel of 129’ 7" length, 22’ 6" beam (extreme), 22’ (moulded) inscribed "to be sent to Mr Bayley, Ipswich". *ZAZ 6161. 1808, a vessel of 130’ length with the same breadths as ZAZ 6160 "dimensions as stated by Mr Gower". *ZAZ 6162. 1810, a vessel of 112’ 5" length, 21’ 10" extreme, 21’ 4" moulded; titled "Transit Advice Cutter as fitted 1809" and inscribed "Deptford Yard 20th March 1810". *ZAZ 6163. (Undated) A midship bend initialled by R. H. Gower.

External links

Transit Sail plan from Greenwich Maritime Museum
Sailing ships