SUBDUING THE WAVES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 25 April 1907, Page 1

SUBDUING THE WAVES.

THE SCHLIOK GYROSCOPE. The pronouncement of such an authority as Sir William White, formerly chief constructor to the .Admiralty, that Otto Schlick's gyroscopic apparatus absolutely prevents the rolling motion of ships, commands for Schlick's invention the attention of the whole civilised world. In a very modest but unavoidably technical article in a German paper (translated and published in "The Scientific Anie'ricaii"), Mr Otto Schlick, the inventor, describes the gyrostat. The idea was suggested to liitn by Certain curious phenomena which he" had observed in paddle-wheel steamers. One of these is the violent list causd by putting the helm about, which is much greater than can be explained by the centrifugal force due to the turning. In its essentials, the gyrostat seems to consist of a horizontal wheel revolving at high speed at a point low down in the body of the ship. Says Mr Schlick.' — "My gyrostat is a heavy wheel revolving rapidly about a vertical shaft mounted ill a frame supported on trunnions which allow it to turn about a horizontal transverse axis so that the shaft of the wheel swings in the vessel's plane of symmetry. As the common centre of gravity oof the wheel, shaft, and frame is lower than the trunnions, the shaft hangs vertical while the vessel is at rest, but it swings fore and aft like a pendulum when the vessel rolls. The arrangement above described, however, would only lengthen the period of rolling, because part of the eiiergy derived from the waves would be consumed in raising the centre of gravity of the apparatus as the shaft is deflected from the vertical position. . . . The addition of a hydraulic brake makes it possible to check the oscillations of the apparatus, and indirectly through reaction, those of the ship. In other words, the energy taken from the rolling motion during one phase is not restored to it during another, but is converted into heat by the brake, so that the energy of rolling is diminished."