Foundering of HMS Captain, by Geoff Hunt (1948-) dated 2024
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HMS Captain was an experimental ‘sail-and-steam’ turret warship which capsized in a storm off Cape Finisterre, Spain just after midnight on 7 September 1870.
There's an ongoing project lead by the University of Wolverhampton to find the wreck of the unfortunate ship. See https://findthecaptain.co.uk
i meant for this to be a short post but oops its really long already and im nowhere near finished so if you wanna learn about this terribly designed warship, join me after the cut; if you dont, enjoy this picture of an oddly designed ship.
the hms captain was a british warship. it was built during a time where shipbuilders were phasing sails out for steam engines, and where warships were being much better armoured. for example, the hms captain was steam-powered with two propellers and had wrought iron armour.
wrought iron armour caused a problem for warships. like think of any pirate media youve seen where theyve got wooden ships with these iron cannonballs; the cannonballs very easily breach the wooden ships. they dont really do that with iron armour. instead, they bounced off.
so the british admiralty, media and public were all in want, to some extent, of a ship with better guns that could breach ship armour. enter cowper phipps cole:
a man who looks like a rasputin prototype and seems to have the charisma to back up the comparison.
see coles was very good at public engagement. when he needed to, he could very easily get the media and public on his side, which is a power he leveraged in order to get hms captain approved, commissioned and built.
his design, oddly enough, goes back to a raft from the crimean war.
this is the lady nancy, constructed in 1855 to aid during the siege of taganrog. it was for shore bombardment which you can see in this illustration of it. while cameras were a thing back then (i think daguerreotypes existed during this time), i dont believe we have any photos of the lady nancy.
coles was a captain in the navy in 1855, and him and a group of sailors constructed it. according to those there, the guns on the raft were protected by some kind of dome structure or a "cupola" as they called it.
hms captain was inspired by the lady nancy, and so, it was also intended for shore bombardment. for this purpose, two big fuck off rotating turrets were mounted inside the hull on the gun deck.
these had been patented by coles himself in 1859 which is partly how he became a consultant for the admiralty when it came to building ships. being the nephew of admiral lord edmund lyons 1st baron lyons gcb gcmg kch, by marriage, twice over certainly also helped.
quick note on that:
its not technically incest, i think, his wife emily pearson was lyons niece and his mom is the sister of lyons wife augusta
i also didnt know what those acronyms meant beforehand, gcb is a british order of chivalry called most honourable order of the bath, gcmg is another one: most distinguished order of saint michael and saint george, kch is a hanoverian order of chivlary called royal guelphic order. yeah thats just gobbledegook.
lyons was important because of his role in the crimean war as commander-in-chief of the mediterranean fleet and hes credited as ensuring victory for britain.
originally, the admiralty just ordered prototypes of his big fuck off turrets and they were actually impressed with them.
and so the hms prince albert was built with four of them (is that four turrets in your pants or are you just happy to see me) and the hms royal sovereign was converted to be a turret ship. both, however, could only operate as coastal service vessels.
hence, the admiralty allowed coles to draw up plans for a two (2) turret oceangoing ship in 1863, working with nathaniel barnaby who was chief constructor for the navy. keep in mind, coles had little to no experience in ship design.
then, they suspended the project.
but they allowed him to work on a one (1) turret oceangoing ship that was based on the hms pallas with joseph scullard who was head draughtsman in 1864.
and then in 1865, a committee rejected/cancelled his projects, and decided to move forward with a different design for a two (2) turret ship called hms monarch.
this made coles very angry, and an angry coles is not a good thing for the british admiralty.
(i spent an hour making this because im so bad at making things look purposefully bad)
so you know like today where bad actors like andrew tate, tucker carlson, joe rogan and even like graham hancock can just use public platforms and social medias to get a relatively large portion of the population of their side, seemingly with ease, just by talking/communicating confidently, playing into fears and anxieties of the public, and creating an us and them?
yeah so cowper phipps coles was also really good at this. grifters, liars and pretenders have alway existed.
(milo rossi discusses this a lot in his series on hancock's ancient apocalypse docuseries, and id 100% recommend the whole series.)
so how did coles do this?
well, he began with a very strong and very harsh attack on robert spencer robinson who was a vice admiral and controller of the navy, and his full title was admiral sir robert spencer robinson kcb frs.
the title admiral sir is very funny, like i want to get a cat called that with the nickname addy. kcb is basically the same as gcb. lyons was general grand cross and robinson was knight commander, because of fucking course its this stupid. frs is an award given to you from the royal society of london; the fellowship of the ring royal society is granted to those who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science, and medical science".
it wasnt just mr admiral sir that coles attacked; he also attacked several other admirals who were on the committee but he really seemed to hate robinson. coles also lobbied parliament and the press, focussing on the flaws he saw in monarchs design and how britain was going to be left behind in the shipping arms race since many other nations were pressing ahead with several oceangoing turret ships. unsurprisingly, it was the united states that were winning the race so far.
around this time, coles' contract as a navy consultant was terminated in january 1866. like thats as hard as he was going, he fully lost his job. of course he had his dear not-quite-incest uncle lord lyons to fall back on. one hell of a safety net, very well entwined.
in response to this professional fuck you, coles simply protested that he had been misunderstood and the man must have rolled a nat 20 on his charisma saving roll because on the 1st march 1886, he was re-employed.
he waited a month and a half to submit his critique of the monarch proposal on the 16th april. he refused to publicly support a vessel that didnt represent his "views of a sea going turret-ship" because He Was Like That™. we're in the cowper karen era. his critique went on to say that hms monarch could not give his "principle a satisfactory and conclusive trial."
now at this point, the admiralty really should have just sent him packing. theyve given him chance after chance after chance despite him having pretty much no experience.
like say you have a blocked toilet that you cant unblock, but instead of calling a plumber, you ask your friends nephew whos an art curator who really wants to give this plumbing thing a go. then his first attempt makes it worse; now the taps in your bath turn on everytime you use the kitchen sink and your toilets still blocked. but you give him another go and now theres a shower curtain stuck in your toilet which is still blocked. and now youre fingers are hovering over the call button on a plumbers number when your friend calls and asks you to give their nephew another go. its only been three weeks and theres a 24 hours mcdonalds up the road that you can go to for the bathroom and youve got a shower at work you can use, so you think, okay, sure. and then he accidentally rips your kitchen sink out and you still have a blocked toilet and a non-working shower and your bath taps are running 24/7, and your friend asks you again to give him a "second chance."
like youre not giving him another chance, theres a goddamn shower curtain in your toilet and your kitchen sink is in your fucking living room. of course, youre not giving him another chance.
but say everyone in your street and everyone in your friend group is on his side because hes been telling little lies and charming them all with his aunts baked goods and his knowledge of local art and history. and everyone else is rooting for him and they all believe this is the chance.
thats the situation first naval lord admiral frederick grey (full title: admiral the hon. sir frederick william grey gcb) found himself in. obviously coles should not be given another chance, but the whole country believes he should.
so on the 21st april (thats me moms birthday :)) he agreed that coles should be allowed to build his "perfect" oceangoing turret ship.
and so the hms captain was born
the ship was to be built on a private shipyard and coles selected laird brothers' chesire yard on the 8th may 1866.
one of the biggest problems ship designers had with turret ships is that ships tend to have quite a lot of rigging that gets in the way of the turrets. this was a genuine design flaw for the hms monarch, it was brought up by the chief designer sir edward james reed kcb rfs, but he was overuled. he didnt think a turret ship should have either a forecastle or poop deck.
on a typical warship, youll see a small rise on either end of the ship. at the front/bow, you have the forecastle which was typically used as a defensive measure. at the back/stern, youd typically have the captain quarters within the hull and the roof of that is the poop deck. it would be used for either the captain or a helmsman or a first mate maybe to supervise the crew and their work.
reed, very correctly, did not want these measures because they interfered with the turrets. he also wanted much less rigging because the more wooden beams and rope and sail youve got, the less room the turrets have to fire.
he wrote that "the middle of the upper deck of a full-rigged ship is not a very eligible place for fighting large guns."
and coles and the lairds seemed to agree with this sentiment because their design corrected these flaws.
their solutions were to erect a hurricane deck to place the rigging on. this is an upper deck that is above the frame of the hull. they also used tripod masts to reduce rigging. they also placed the turrets within the hull in their own special gun deck.
now, just because youve corrected for some flaws doesnt mean you havent introduced several of your own which spoiler, the captain had a lot of flaws which we will be getting into.
captain had a length of 320ft or 97.54m; she had a beam (width at the widest part) of 53ft3 or 16.23m; her draught (the distance between the waterline and the keel/bottom of the hull) was 24ft10 or 7.57m; and her top speed was 15 knots which is about 17mph.
in a futile attempt at a balanced view, i will say that the speed was fairly impressive. most other ships had top speeds of 10-12 knots or about 11-14mph. the use of double propellers was a good choice.
one of the very few good choices.
see the captain was designed to displace or essentially weigh 6910 long tons, and was expected to have a freeboard of about 8ft or 2.4m.
a ships freeboard is the distance between her exposed upper deck and the waterline. typically, warships have high freeboards. its not quite as simple as the higher the freeboard, the more stable your ship is, but in general, higher freeboards do offer more stability. this is something the captain needed
see, most of her weight was high up in the ship which meant she had a low metacentric height. to not get into all of the complicated science that im not entirely sure i understand (dyspraxic nation rise up), lower metacentric heights tend to make ships more unstable.
[from wikipedia:]
so all of this is a bad design. apart from her impressive speed, she seemed like a ship with poor stability and a real risk of flooding because of the exposed gun decks. and with flooding, you might just fucking capsize 🚢⬆️↗️↘️🌊☠️
mr admiral sir robert spencer robins already raised concerns at the design stage in regards to the low freeboard and flooding. reed also raised concerns about the ship being too heavy and having too high a centre of gravity, but they were ignored.
if i had a nickel for every time edward james reed was overruled after raising a legitimate concern about the design of a turret ship, id have two nickels, but its weird its happened twice.
still, first lord of the admiralty (genuinely feel like this is a made up job) sir john pakington approved the design on the 23rd july 1866, though he did note that coles and the lairds would be held responsible for any failures.
if youre interested, john pakingtons full title is john somerset pakington 1st baron hampton gcb pc frs and he was a fucking tory, and the right honourable lord hampton, which okay, dude, you overcompensating for anything over there? pc means he was a member of his majestys most honourable privy council, who are all advisors yes-men to whichever bellend is on the crown.
moving past that cag-mag of a man, lets talk about how this mess got even worse. and you might be asking, "kai, how can it get worse? havent you already told me that the ship can easily sink?"
and you know, fair point, but you can always make your ship even more likely to sink.
see coles came down with an illness during the building of the ship. im not sure what it was; i cant find anything on it, but whatever it was, it meant he couldnt supervise the building of his ship. now, im not sure how much that would help considering he was the art curator turned amateur plumber in the metaphor, but maybe it would have done some good.
because when she was finished, she did not displace 6910 long tons. no, she displaced 7767 long tons. and her 8ft freeboard turned into a 6ft6 or 1.98m freeboard. she was floating 22 inches deeper than expected. oh, and her centre of gravity raised by 10 inches!
reed didnt just raise hell over this, he dragged heaven down too. and its not like he was wrong. the ship was a floating disaster.
hms captain had an angle of list of 21°. this means of she listed 21° or more, she would capsize.
now, theres no real average angle of list, but most people would say 40-50° as a reasonable yardstick. for some vessels, it might dip into the 30s°, but 21° is a ridiculously low angle of list.
for reference, this is a 20° angle.
its not much of an angle, is it?
and remember, the captain is meant to be an oceangoing vessel. the oceans dont exactly have a reputation for being calm.
unless youve got a direct telegram to poseidon and are in a place where you can ask him to calm down, the captains not gonna have fun.
and of course when reed raised his concerns, he was overuled.
if i had a nickel for every time edward james reed was overruled after raising a legitimate concern about the design of a turret ship, id have three nickels, and its kinda concerning that its happened three times.
instead, she was commissioned on the 30th april 1870 under captain hugh talbot burgoyne vc. to commission a ship is simply to place it into active service. also vc simply means burgoyne received the victoria cross whatever that one is.
anyway, she underwent several trials in the months after this and i guess everyone had pre-ordered their rose-coloured glasses because the captain won many supporters and was considered everything that coles had promised.
part of these trials were the gunnery trials. these took place in vigo and the captain was against both hms monarch and hms hercules, a non-turret ship. their target was a 600ft long, 60ft high rock. they each had 5 minutes of continuous firing.
all three ships had problems with aiming after the first few shots because the smoke emitted from the weapons meant they couldnt fucking see anything.
still, hms hercules had an accuracy rate of 65%, while hms monarch came in with a 40% rate and hms captain limped in with a 35% rate.
and im not just using "limped" as an exaggeration, these trials showed that when the turrets fired, it caused the ship to list and the list was 20°.
im sure you can see the problem there.
if you can, youre better than the admiralty who just ignored it and was like fantastic, she works. coles straight up had the entire admiralty hostage and the only person speaking up was reed.
if i had a nickel for every time edward james reed was overruled after raising a legitimate concern about the design of a turret ship, id have four nickels, which is great and all but id rather give reed a hug at this point.
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now the 35% accuracy didnt really matter if the captain was going to be used for shore bombardment. most of the time, youre not aiming for anything specific, youre just trying to cause as much damage as possible.
but that 20° list? that mattered.
it mattered a lot because on the 7th september 1870, she capsized.
shocking i know. only five months after being commissioned and everything.
that day, she was running trials in the bay of biscay during a storm when she was hit by a gale of wind. she rolled over and capsized.
there were over 500 people on board and only 18 survived. coles was among the dead. i hope their souls were able to find peace.
theres a memorial for them in st paul's cathedral in london if youd ever like to pay your respect to them.
now theres not much else to say about the captain other than the inquiry into the sinking blame the public for it.
they concluded that "the captain was built in deference to public opinion expressed in parliament and through other channels, and in opposition to views and opinions of the controller and his department" and this was pretty significant in victorian britain as it was unprecedented.
but realistically, it wasnt wrong. they were the ones backing coles the whole time.
so i guess if theres something to learn from this mess, its that if youre going to support a public figure, whether it be a celebrity or politician or scientist or whatever, take a step back and ask yourself "do i agree with what theyre saying or are they just very good at talking?"
im sure someones said it better than me, but you know, that sentiment. we can also laugh at how much of a disaster hms captain was.
HMS Captain was an unsuccessful warship built for the Royal Navy due to public pressure. It was a masted turret ship, designed and built by a private contractor against the wishes of the Controller's department. The Captain was completed in April 1870 and capsized on 07 September 1870 with the loss of nearly 500 lives because of design and construction errors that led to inadequate stability.
The only survivors of H.M.S. Captain by Aussie~mobs
Via Flickr:
The 'Captain' was completed in April 1870 and capsized in September 1870 with the loss of nearly 500 lives because of design and construction errors that led to inadequate stability. More reading here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Captain_(1869)
HMS Captain attacking the San Nicolas and the San Josef at the Battle of Cape St Vincent on 14th February 1797 in the Napoleonic Wars, by Nicholas Pocock 1801
HMS Captain capturing the San Nicolas and the San José at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797 by Nicholas Pocock 1801
An incident during the French Revolutionary War, 1793-1802. At the beginning of 1797, the British Admiral Sir John Jervis, with 11 ships-of-the-line, lay in the Tagus, while a Spanish fleet of 27 ships-of-the-line lay at Cartagena. The Spanish intended to join the French fleet at Brest, while Sir John’s aim was to prevent this. He prepared to rendezvous with Rear-Admiral William Parker off Cape St Vincent. Admiral Don Jose de Cordova left Cartagena with the Spanish fleet on 1 February for Brest via Cadiz but was blown off course by the fierce Levanter wind.
This pushed the Spanish out into the Atlantic until the wind swung north-west on the 13th, by which time they were close to the British fleet. At 2.30 am on the morning of the 14th Jervis learnt from a Portuguese frigate that the Spanish fleet was 35 miles to windward. When sighted, the Spanish were in two divisions, which the British passed between on the opposite tack, and then turned in succession to follow the weather division.
It was then that Commodore Nelson made his famous decision. His ship, the Captain, 74 guns, was the third from last in the line and it was clear to him that, if he followed the line and turned in succession, he would never catch up with the enemy. He therefore turned out of line to cut off the Spanish and on a signal from Jervis was followed and supported by Captain Collingwood’s Excellent, 74 guns, the last ship in the line.
All in all it was a great and welcome victory for the Royal Navy – fifteen British ships had defeated a Spanish fleet of 27, and the Spanish ships had a greater number of guns and men. But, Admiral Jervis had trained a highly disciplined force and this was pitted against an inexperienced Spanish navy under Don José Córdoba. The Spanish men fought fiercely but without direction. After the San José was captured it was found that some of her guns still had their tampions in the muzzles. The confusion amongst the Spanish fleet was so great that they were unable to use their guns without causing more damage to their own ships than to the British.
The H.M.S. Captain was a 74-gun ship. Commodore Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of St. Vincent in 1797, the highlight of this ship’s career (1784-1813). Nelson’s orders resulted in “Captain” steering through the British line in order to engage the leading Spanish battleships, of which two of the largest surrendered to Nelson himself.
