USQUE AD MARE
A History of the Canadian Coast Guard and Marine Services
by Thomas E. Appleton

The Napier Ships

When Francois Baby and Robert Napier discussed the building of the Queen Victoria and the Napoleon III, the contract was signed before completion of the specification. Both were men of affairs; Baby, sixty-two at the time, had long ago lost and regained a fortune in business and was now a member of the Legislative Council of Canada, while Napier was in the front rank of ship builders and marine engineers. They lost no time in getting down to business, Napier's notebook containing the following entry:

Offer dated 27th., Octr 1855
Accept 27th., Octr 1855
Specs to be ready 1 July

No 75 and 76

Specifications of two steam vessels fitted with screw propellers to be employed as tugs at the mouth of the River St. Lawrence.

Dimensions: length of keel and fore rake about 170 feet.

Breadth (moulded) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 feet.
Depth ( " ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 feet 6 ins.

In many ways, the specification is remarkably modern. Napier had already made his name with the paddle engines for the first Cunarders of the Britannia Class, and had developed early screw machinery for warships which had found great favour with the French Navy. The two Canadian ships, although relatively small, reflected this experience and were advanced for their time. Both ships were exactly the same, being flush deckers with a straight stemmed iron hull. They had wood decks and bulwarks and were fitted with towing bitts and an elm belting which protected the hull for most of the length. The whole concept reflected a type of technical thinking by no means usual at the time:

"An extra strong plate forward strongly braced as a preservation against the ice for each vessel for about two feet above load draft to about two feet below light draft."

CGS Napoleon III

The vessel is shown alongside the coaling wharf at Quebec about 1880.

(Notman Archives)

The owners memorandum, on which Napier based his specification, states:

"The machinery of the two engines of each vessel should be so constructed as to be worked by one, two or three boilers separately; the object of this is to save coal, for instance a tug is going down in fine weather looking out for ships it will not do to anchor in a harbour. The tug must be moving about, in such case one boiler may answer, with one ship in tow a second boiler may be sufficient and with two or three the third and fourth boilers may be required. The saving of coal is of great importance for in Canada it is the heaviest expense and at times it cannot be had except at an enormous rate at times twelve or fourteen dollars a cauldron."

In fact, Napier completed the ships with two boilers; these were of the vertical tubular type, generating steam at 25 pounds per sq. inch, each having its own funnel with natural draft. The memorandum went on to note:

"It is usual to have a spare propeller, an after shaft piece and a spare piston, of course the engines are to be driven by double gear, the direct gear would not answer."

Gearing for early screw vessels.

When screw propulsion was introduced about 1840 the slow running paddle engine with overhead crankshaft was adapted by the use of multiplying gearing. The illustration shows gearing with a ratio of 1: 2.75 used in the P & O liner Simla. The original was built by Todd & McGregor in 1854 and was similar to that supplied by Napier for the Queen Victoria and Napoleon III in 1856. Four rows of hardwood teeth were mortised into the large wheel on the engine shaft which mated with a pinion on the screw shaft. The teeth were staggered to reduce wear and increase strength. The multiplying gear worked satisfactorily in the Napoleon III until she was re-engineered with a compound marine engine in 1887.

(Science Museum, South Kensington)

The word "engines" is liable to cause confusion, as the Victoria and Napoleon were single screw ships. In those days, and for some years to come, each cylinder and drive unit was referred to as "an engine", and this machinery was actually of the two cylinder oscillating type with simple expansion in each. The cylinders were supplied with steam through the trunnions, and were of 5 feet in diameter and 4 feet 6 ins. stroke, being placed in the bottom of the ship in a diagonal arrangement driving a common overhead crankshaft with cranks at ninety degrees. Most marine engines of the day had the rods working upwards and, when the more modern type of reciprocating engines were developed with the cylinders on top, they were known as "inverted" engines for a period thereafter.

Engines of this type were very slow running, perhaps only 30-40 r.p.m. much too slow for the recently introduced screw propeller. The propeller speed had therefore to be increased by gearing, quite the reverse of the modern marine drive where the problem is to use the efficiency of high speed engines by reduction to the shaft. The gearing of the Napier ships consisted of a cast-iron wheel on the crankshaft which was mated to a cast-iron pinion on the propeller shaft. This was actually a much better arrangement than it sounds as the teeth were arranged in four steps on the width of the gear to avoid backlash. Gear cutting machines had not then been invented and the mating of involutes teeth was largely achieved by careful hand fitting; to reduce wear and noise, the wheel teeth were made of hardwood, perhaps lignum vitae, mortised into the rim of the cast-iron and, in use, plentifully lubricated with tallow. With renewal of teeth from time to time, these engines lasted for years, although they must have required nursing when working in ice. The Napier machinery of these ships was rated at "250 h.p. Admiralty rule", probably developing upwards of 1500 h.p., as records show that they achieved a speed of 13 knots.

Although Napier's diary noted "specs to be ready 1 July", it is probable that he was referring to the vessels themselves, for they were launched in May and June and arrived in Canada the same year, 1856.

The ships were fitted with galleys for 150 passengers and crew, to provide food for a transfer of immigrants from ocean ship to shore, but the sleeping accommodation was for a small number of passengers who could be carried in comfort. With the master and officers, the passengers lived aft, where an awning provided a cool place in summer, and protection from cinders and funnel smoke in the vicinity of the companion and skylight.

In appearance, the Queen Victoria and Napoleon III were handsome vessels; they had black hull and funnels, while the deck work was varnished or painted and grained. In common with all seagoing steamers of the time, they were square rigged on the foremast and although there is little evidence that they were ever handled under sail, early photographs show the Napoleon with her tops neatly clewed up to the bunt, as was the fashion of the times. It is probable that the lower yard was also useful in discharging supplies by yardarm tackle.

As we have already seen, both ships were used for the conveyance of distinguished travellers, the most momentous of these occasions being the voyage of the Queen Victoria to the Charlottetown Conference of 1864. In his book Brown of the Globe, Professor J. M. S. Careless recalls the event as seen by the Hon. George Brown who joined the ship at Quebec on August 29 and made the round voyage to Prince Edward Island, Halifax and Saint John, returning on September 19.

In a letter to his wife, Anne, Brown described the arrival at Charlottetown, when the Queen Victoria came to anchor with smartness and precision:

"Its man-of-war cut evidently inspired the natives with huge respect for their big brothers from Canada."

He wrote:

"I flatter myself we did that well."

When Macdonald, Cartier, Galt, Brown and their distinguished colleagues went down the starboard gangway to go ashore by ships boat, he commented:

"Being each duly manned with four oarsmen and a boatswain, dressed in blue uniform, hats, belts, etc., in regular style, we pulled away for shore and landed like Mr. Christopher Columbus, who had the precedence of us in taking possession of portions of the American continent."

Professor Careless writes that:

"There in the chief stateroom of the Queen Victoria, amid the wineglasses and cigar smoke, twenty-three men had warmly agreed to found a new nation. Other states might have had a more dramatic start but few, surely, a more enjoyable one."

In a final revealing note, which brings the moment to life in the tradition of the great diarists, Brown confided to his wife that he returned on board, after an exhausting round of official calls, to fish for lobsters over the side.

Poor Queen Victoria; in two years she would meet her end off Cape Hatteras. Of that event, much has recently come to light and her bell has been located in the village of Prospect Harbour, Maine.

Under the command of Captain Pouliot, who had been her master for some years, the Queen Victoria was chartered by a commercial firm to make a run to Cuba for a cargo of cigars, tobacco and fruit. On the return trip she weathered a fierce hurricane on October 3, during which the mate was washed overboard and drowned, and the vessels boats, together with her foremast, were carried away or severely damaged. Later that day, she sprang a severe leak and, when all hands with pumps and buckets could no longer keep the water below the stokehold, she lost steam and lay disabled in a heavy swell and high sea.

On the morning of the 4th., the Queen Victoria, by now almost awash, was sighted by the American brig Ponvert, Captain Allen; with consummate seamanship and in the face of great risk to themselves, Captain Allen and his men managed to pick up the people of the Queen Victoria before, at three in the afternoon that day, she sank in position 33 deg. 3 min. North, 76 deg. 30 min. West.

The passengers and crew were saved, with the exception of Henry Bailey, the second engineer, who died of pneumonia as a result of his efforts to save the ship, working alternately in the heat below and the icy wash of seas on deck. Somehow or other, 40 survivors were accommodated on the little brig where, in token of their admiration for the gallantry of Captain Allen, they presented him with the bell of the Queen Victoria which someone, with an apt sense of the moment, had snatched from its mounting as the last boatload shoved off.

In 1875, Captain Allen presented the bell to the school at Prospect Harbour where, from then until 1953, it called the children to their daily lessons. The bell weighs ninety pounds and, in course of time, the wooden belfry became unsafe; when this happened the treasured memento of a lost ship and the gallantry of an American shipmaster was transferred to the Community House, where it remains to this day.

After the loss of the Queen Victoria, the Napoleon III became the principal ship of the fleet and she served faithfully and well for another twenty-four years. Occasionally, as in 1877, accounts show that Napier's oscillating engine was carefully maintained:

"Steam pipes and trunnion glands repaired . .$25.00

17 teeth for cog wheel   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $20.00"

and, in 1887, she was given a new lease of life when the original engines were removed and she was fitted with:

". . . a complete pair of compound engines, boilers, etc., which belonged to the wrecked steamship Fylgia, and were found perfectly suitable. . ."

Thus repaired and strengthened, the old ship continued to work in the Gulf of St. Lawrence while the new machinery effected a considerable saving of coal. Had her coal consumption been more economical in the days when Francois Baby ran her as a contract ship, she might even have made a profit for her owner and, who knows, the history of the Canadian Marine Service might have been completely different.

But she too eventually came to a sad end. On October 18, 1890, the Napoleon III stranded at the entrance to Little Glace Bay in a gale of wind, and her hull was considered a total loss. The machinery was salved and taken to Halifax for disposal.

Of the third Napier ship, the Lady Head, little has been mentioned. She was smaller than the other two, but generally similar in design except that she had only one boiler and one funnel and carried no square canvas. The two larger ships of the group being named after the prominent crowned heads of the day, this was considered a little too grand for the small sister which was christened in honour of Maria, Lady Head, wife of Sir Edmund Walker Head, a former Oxford don who eventually became Governor-in-Chief of Canada. It was Sir Edmund Head, incidentally, who recommended Ottawa as the preferred location of the capital city. The Lady Head became a total loss when she stranded, in 1878, near Cape Rosier light. At a subsequent board of enquiry, held at Quebec, it was recorded in the findings that:

"There was an entire absence of discipline on board, and a condition of things existing, that made the loss of the vessel only a question of time."