Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[Ferryfan]

When did cowl vents come into use, and what preceded them?
If you look at pictures of the SS Great Britain you can see that it has no cowl vents. It is a steamship so air has to get from outside the ship to the boilers through a hole somewhere in the deck. The only explanation I can come to is that one of the companionways led into the boiler room, meaning that the doors had to be left open when the ship was at sea. Anyone have any better knowledge or ideas?
I am building a model of a steamship  built 15 years after the Great Britain, and information about the former suggests it also did not have cowl vents.

[Colin Bishop]

I think the skylights and hatches, particularly the big one aft of the funnel, would have admitted air and light to the boiler and engine room spaces.

https://isambardkbrunel.weebly.com/construction-of-the-ss-great-britain.html

Colin

[SteamboatPhil]

Early ones and indeed almost to tis day would supply air (forced  and natural) to lower decks and common areas.
Early drawings also show "dead lights" om the vents which could be closed in storms

[PJM]

HMS Warrior built in 1859 shows cowl vents in modern photos although these could obviously be a retrofit.

[dodes]

How about similar method as used most probably on the old sailing men of war. Gratings over hold then hatch cloth, lifted one end by lashings and secured the other end by battens and wedges, this would catch the breeze and force the air movement below.

[dodes]

Just remembered, when i was on the old cable vessel St Margaret's, when in hot weather underway, to increase ventilation to the lower deck we used to rig a canvas
cloth/ Old hatch cloth with odd timber to make temporary funnel vent to force air below when underway.