THE LOSS OF THE " CAPTAIN."
EVEN in the midst of the excitement caused by the war, of the speculations as to the probable fate of Paris and the chances of mediation which engross almost every thought, the loss of our most valuable turret-ship has caused a shock throughout England. It is not only among the friends and admirers of the gallant men who perished, among those who were full of the daring of Captain Burgoyne and those who espoused the cause of Captain Coles, that there is this painful feeling. The shock to public confidence in the new turret- ships is a part of the surprise with which people have received such an unparalleled event as the sudden sinking of a vessel of the tonnage of the Captain, and manned like her, in the very centre of a fleet. It may be that the captain and crew of the flagship were right in saying that they had never seen it blow so hard in all their lifetime as on the night when this happened. But the other ten ships of the squadron sustained no serious damage ; the fleet was rather scattered before morning, and they had all had a rough night of it ; nothing else seems to have struck the Admiral on the Wednesday morning. When he had counted his fleet and found one ship missing, he appears almost to have mistrusted his own eyes, for he made a signal to the rest to count the fleet, and when all the counts tallied, he bore up for the rendezvous. Later in the day, the few floating spars, the boats bottom upward, the remains of the hurricane-deck, told too clearly what had taken place. The few dramatic touches given us by the survivors make the scene more vivid, but there is nothing to surpass the effect of this sudden disappearance. We hear of the ship heeling gradually over, first 18, then 23, then 25 degrees, of her trembling at every blow from the short jumping seas, and settling into the great white mass of foam which spread all around, while the captain vainly gave the orders that ought to have been effectual, and the roar of the steam from the funnel overpowered both wind and wave. Within a few minutes of her lurch to leeward, one or two of her crew were walking first along her side and then along her bottom, as she turned completely over, and that was the end. While the launch, with its small crew of survivors, was still close at hand, while the steam pinnace, bottom upwards, with Captain Burgoyne clinging to it, " in all that storm of broken waters," was a little way to windward, one of the other ships passed almost over the place where the Captain had gone down. In those few words we have the whole story.
It is a mere platitude, though it looks like a paradox, to say that this is just what we ought to have expected. To old-fashioned notions of naval architecture, nothing could have seemed more outrageous than the idea of placing heavy turrets, an open upper deck, and a top-hamper of spars on a vessel with a low freeboard. Of course the discoveries of modern times have upset all these earlier notions, and no one can look for a return to the old system of high broadsides. But if we are to have new inventions, let us be consistent. It is idle to endeavour to fuse two things each of which may be good in its way, but which are irreconcilable. Because sailing- ships were brought to perfection in a former age, it does not follow that they ought never to be abandoned. Because daring experiments have been made with turret-ships, and their low freeboard has successfully braved the fury of Cape Horn, it does not follow that anything may be done with them. We do not exactly know what were Captain Coles's own views about the Captain, or how far his favourable experience of her during the early part of the cruise may have introduced some modification. One of his friends tells us that "he much regretted the Captain had not the height above the water which he originally intended." But this must only be taken to mean that the freeboard was too low for safety in sailing, not that the essential principle on which turret-ships are constructed ran counter to the wishes of their projector. Again, the high freeboard of the Monarch is held up as an example, and the Monarch certainly weathered the storm which was fatal to the Captain. But then we know that the Monarch, which Captain Sherard Osborn calls an oddity, does not answer the requirements of a turret-ship, and is hardly superior in fighting qualities to a broadside ironclad. It is quite conceivable that Captain Coles may have been rendered more sanguine of the success of the Captain as a sailing-vessel by her trial with the Hercules. "Good as the Captain is in her sailing," he wrote on the 14th of August, "I see my way clearly to making her equal in sailing to any sailing-frigate in the world A fleet of Captains could keep the sea, manoeuvre, or go round the world without using a pound of coal." Yet in opposition to this opinion, we cannot but place Sir T. Symonds' judgment on the sailing qualities of the Captain, and that is sadly confirmed by experi- ence. Moreover, Captain Sherard Osborn says that both Captain Coles and Captain Burgoyne agreed as to the danger incurred by a turret-ship with a low freeboard, if caught by bad weather when under sail alone. " Prior to the first cruise of the Captain," writes Captain Sherard Osborn, " we had a long and anxious conversation on this very subject, and by diagrams and models which were before us, Captain Coles agreed with me that if the leverage of the sails canted the low-sided ship over beyond a certain point, the danger of her not recovering herself would be very great ; and I urged him to be most careful in his experiments on this head, and at all cost not to hesitate, if caught in bad weather, to furl all sails, and bring the ship under steam with her bow to the sea,—an opinion in which he cordially agreed." Unfortunately the attempt was made too late on the night of the Tuesday. The topsail-sheets had been let go, and the pressure of the sails was being removed, when the wind, catching the open bottom of the hurricane - deck, found a new hold for an irresistible leverage. What the sails had begun the second error completed. 0 vermasted, as is the general opinion, overweighted, as is but too evident, being exposed to so many separate dangers that a combination of them was fatal, the Captain was necessarily sacrificed.
Although Captain Coles, in his letter of the 14th of August, considers Sir T. Symonds rather premature in his conclusions that ships like the Captain could not cruise in company with a fleet under sail alone, the opinions expressed by such an authority are well worthy of consideration. The result of the trials of the Captain and Monarch with the Channel Squadron in May and June seems to show that neither vessel was thoroughly fitted for sailing. " With the amount of canvas spread," says Sir T. Symonds in his Report to the Admiralty, " they are bad sailing-ships, whilst the masts are so large as to interfere materially with their efficiency as steamers and fighting-ships." Of the Monarch he says, "Even when the ship is cleared for action, the standing shrouds, mizen- mast, funnel-casing, and forecastle are great hindrances to all- round fire." With regard to the masts of both ships, we are told that they materially interfere with the steaming power when going head to wind, and only make the ships bad sailing ships on a wind. The muting of the Captain " is much over- done beyond the strength of her complement." The Captain does not tack with certainty, having once missed stays in a single-reefed-topsail breeze, while the Monarch is said to have once taken three hours in wearing. We do not deny that many of these defects might be remedied, and it is clear that during subsequent trials the Captain did much to earn the name of a good sailer. But what is the use of a turret- ship being put on her mettle in a race with a broadside ship, if the next thing we hear is that the turret-ship has "turned the turtle " and gone down all standing? We must ask seriously whether we are to build turret-ships at an enormous expense—the contract price of the Captain was £335,000, without counting rigging, armament, and stores— merely that they may win ocean races. Bear-Admiral Ingle- field suggests that we might combine a temporary high free- board for sailing, with a temporary low freeboard for fighting, and it is probable that some such fusion of the two systems will have to be effected if steam and sails cannot be divorced from each other. It certainly appears that it takes the Monarch an hour and a half to clear for action, and if any further time has to be allowed for changing freeboards, an active enemy might do some mischief, or might escape, while the sailing-ship was transformed into a turret. If the sole cause of the Captain's fate was that she was overmasted, a simple reduction of her spars might have saved her ; but it would have reduced the rate of speed, which Captain Coles seems to have thought all-important. We presume, too, that the hurricane-deck, which is sometimes spoken of as a necessity,
depends in a great measure on the use of the sails. A sailing- ship could not be worked from a freeboard of nine feet, which was constantly wetted. And thus we come round again to the point from which-we started, that the attempt to combine two inconsistent objects has caused this calamity. We cannot have Captain Cowper Coles's explanation, and we do not wish it to be thought that we call upon him for his defence. His confidence, as well as that of all on board, was unshaken ; and if, like Winstanley in the Eddystone, he has perished with his invention, he has left his successors a more complete inheritance.
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