Hi friends! A huge source of inspiration for this video is the book 'Warrior to Vanguard' by Dr Oscar Parkes, whose exhaustive research crafted a fascinating narrative of British battleship design doctrine for the 19th and 20th centuries - highly recommended!
Off the top of your head; have you any recommendations on book/websites/info on commerce raiders/auxiliary cruisers (German) of the first world war? I have been seeing some info but details of the particular ships are somewhat scarce and since some were converted out of cargo vessel designs it perhaps could be a video topic one day. Please do continue to branch out into warships, this video was very good.
Hey man! I was wondering if you could ever do something on the Edmund Fitzgerald or the Great Lakes freighters in general. Next year around this time would be a great idea since that marks 50 years, but I think it’s a very popular ship
If you get the chance I think you’d be interested in the book Nemesis. One of the first iron hulled warships built in Britain and in secret, for the East India Company. She had quite the story.
Well, just liners are very limited in content creation. Eventually he will run out of ship disasters too and he will need to find other sea like content.
I'm not really one to blame the Royal Navy's naval architect for washing his hands of the project. The officer who had the ideas behind HMS Captain went above the heads of those who knew what they were doing and basically took his arguments to the court-of-public-opinion. Plus at this point USS Monitor had been lost due to its own low freeboard in rough seas, so it wasn't like the phenomenon of low freeboard turret ships being lost in rough seas was unknown. The officer who steamrolled his way through the objections and secured his approval and funding from the top and that top individual bear the bulk of the blame, because if the naval architect that had resigned in protest had tried to object to issues along the way, he simply would have faced being overruled again and again, and worse, possibly forced to stamp his approval even when he did not approve. This sort of thing is common enough when engineering goes wrong that it should be recognized, but we consistently fail to learn from it.
The monitor USS Miantonomoh (with a freeboard of a mere 31 inches) had just sailed to England the year before HMS Captain was laid down, and Coles had been given a tour of the ship. That probably gave him undue confidence in the ability of low-freeboard ships to sail the Atlantic. Though he (perhaps willfully) ignored the fact that Miantonomoh was mastless, and thus did not fatally combine that low freeboard with a high center of gravity, like Captain would do.
@@dexterlab4694 that is one other case. where the constructor are so full of himself. that they don´t listen to pepole who know what they are doing and the end result is that the constructor dies.
I feel like naming a ship “Captain” could get confusing. “Hey, look it’s the Captain!” “What? I’m over here!” “No not you, Captain. I mean the Captain!” “But I’m the Captain…”
If so many people wouldn't have died, yes, maybe, but now it haunted him. "If only he would have objected more, didn't just resign but fought tooth and nail"
@@BartJBols I doubt that anything he did would’ve changed the outcome Coles would’ve steamrolled through any objections regardless as he had from the start to the point I suspect he would have warnings that the ship was getting to heavy and pretty clear that Steel could not refuse to sign off in their inspections during construction
@@BartJBolsI dunno. “Last time you didn’t listen to me 500 men died” is in fact the level of Told You So I wish to have in my back pocket someday. Like the guilt for that isn’t on you. The guilt is on literally EVERYONE else
I have never had any interest whatsoever in shipbuilding, sailing, oceanography, etc. And, yet, my friend Mike Brady always makes videos like this that are absolutely fascinating and incredibly well produced.
And ironically it survived by being turned into a training ship in 1904 and then into an oil hulk off the coast of Wales in WWII - she was completely restored to her original condition in the 1980s!
It should be noted that Coles' campaign against Reed even involved the media constantly putting pressure on the Admiralty. Numerous articles were published by newspapers calling the admiralty cowards and how they should respect the revered war veteran Coles. Those same newspapers instantly shut up about their role in the loss of Captain. Remember folks: Ship design should be left to experts, not public opinion.
Well said. I therefor actually don't agree to the conclusion that Reed and the admirality should have done more to cooperate with Coles and Baird/Birkenhead. They had already done so in the past but were unruly pressured by someone who would not listen. In that case, if they would not have distanced themselves in time, it is quite likely that they would have been blamed for any possible accident by the very same forces that previously tried to coerce them into doing it.
"Sometime back I read a testimony from one of the sailors who survived. He said he had just finished his watch and was disturbed to the severity of the Captain‘s condition during the storm that he took it upon himself to cut the lashings securing the ships launch and climbed inside under the tarpaulin. When the Captain capsized the launch was hurled into the sea. He managed to help the other survivors to get on board. Without his actions there would have been no survivors. He said he knew he would likely get into serious trouble for his actions if the ship did not sink but thought the risk was worth taking. Along with the rest of the survivoirs(sic) he was exonerated." Name that fellow, please, someone.
I doubt any cooperation would've served to save Captain. It sounds like a story we see often, much like Oceangate, where Coles had so much pressure and backing the Admiralty knew that the bad design was inevitable. So rather than lose their credibility by attaching themselves, they simply let it happen. The only thing that could sink this projects it seems; would have to be the ocean.
Couldn't agree more. I'd guess if the admiralty had cooperated as Mike suggests. The weight may have been closer to spec but only offered a few additional degrees of roll before catastrophe? Was that additional weight in upper plates, lower plates, uniform throughout, design changes? Unfortunately the video doesn't give anything to make a guess. But yeah Cole sounds a lot like Stockton
A few degrees of roll for a fully rigged ocean going ship.... By design, ships with sails roll different amounts depending on what course you've set, hauling, reaching or running. Not to mention roll change while crossing the wind, tacking and jibing. Jibing especially must have been utterly terrifying on Captain 😨
I suspect that might be why the plans were marked "not objected to" instead of "approved", what Reed actually meant by "not objected to" was "I cannot approve these, but there's too much pressure for me to reject them so I'll mark them down as "not objected to" as I have no realistic means to object to the plans"
@@MostlyPennyCat No, I said a few additional degrees possibly. Mike already stated in the video 21 degrees would be catastrophic. Since 10-20 would be normal everyday sailing for ships of that time. 21 as a limit sounds insane, and 24 (I.E. a few additional) doesn't sound much better
@27Metaldragon I agree with you. When someone is trying to go over your head to approve something you simply cannot condone as an expert, the worst thing to do is actually cooperate to try and mitigate anything. If you do, the failure will be almost entirely on your hands and everyone will throw you under the bus. By standing aside and not vetting anything, you can say that you never came even close to approving anything, which leaves the ones who pressed the idea over your ruling to be the sole persons responsible. There's a very good reason we build entire groups of experts on technical subjects. Bypassing them is absolutely not acceptable and when that occurs, they should stay as far away from those projects as they can.
The reason there was no cooperation given, is because this was precisely about the conflict between professional, qualified and experienced naval designers, who were definitely at times too conservative and clung to proven ideas, versus amateur civilian designers who would lobby enormous amounts of non-naval interest using patriotism, fear of the french and pointing to the perceived loss of supremacy to foist sometimes useless ideas on the navy. The navy basically made this happen to lance the boil of amateur inventor enthusiasts. Here was the living embodiment of giving someone enough rope to hang themselves. Plus, lets not forget that the navy cooperated with Coles on the Monarch, but because he didn't get all his way, he made their life hell. THERE was the cooperation between Coles' idealism and the navy's expertise you think should have happened. HMS Captain was the result of Coles insisting that his innovations should trump the navy's experience completely.
Exactly. The cooperation did happen and Coles was having none of it until he got his own way. Him going down with his failure of a ship is karmic justice and I only feel bad about the 500 other people who died because of the ego of one man.
27:04 Earlier in this video, you described that the Admiralty had attempted to work with Coles to create a ship to his satisfaction, and the result, Monarch, only annoyed him and prompted his political backers and the public to pressure the Admiralty to let him make the ship he wanted. If the Admiralty had worked more closely with him in the construction of the Captain, correcting the ship's design flaws as it went, wouldn't the result have been the same again?
Yeah I think only thing admiralty did wrong was to accept ship to service. Coles literally stepped over them and went to sea lord to get this ship build because admiralty and architect didn't want to build his original death trap as he wanted it.
I think the impetus would be on them to push again rather than just give up and wash their hands of the whole thing, especially since they would be accepting and operating the ship. Make no mistake, Coles and his supporters must wear the majority of the blame here - but I think it was up to the admiralty to push harder and state their case although I understand that can be difficult in the face of mounting political and popular pressure!
@@OceanlinerDesigns The problem there is the involvement of a Sea Lord - that is, the man in the highest position on the military side of the admiralty. If the Sea Lord issues an order here, it becomes about disobeying orders, and not just pushing back against pressure.
Mike, I think you should do a video on the collision between HMS Camperdown and HMS Victoria. A young commander named John Jellicoe was one of the survivors.
It does not feel like Captain Coles was looking to cooperate or be supervised in anyway. Chief Reed and Controller of the Navy seemed to have been stymied at every step with Coles using his influence to push his design. I have been in Reed's position and it stinks. Watching a disaster in the making without the ability to stop it is one of the most helpless feelings in the world. As with Reed, all I could do was started the design is sound in its current state with the preface I did not agree with the overall concept.
I love this era of ship design. No one had any idea what warfare would become so they just made all of these interesting and weird ships. A lot of them didn't work but it's so much fun to learn about
we seen that with tanks and planes , and now seeing it in drones too , from ones made of cardboard who can destroy tanks , to basicly "human guides missles" , problem with ships is they are big and stupidly expensive and take forever to make.
Captain wasn’t the first or the last of the iron clad, turreted, tall sail fighting steam ships. Skimming thru my dad’s library, I found 12 other warships of this breed….and I probably missed some. Great Britain wasn’t the only nation to build ‘em. The notion kinda…sorta made sense… until it didn’t in a very dramatic way. The Royal Navy loved sails…it kept the crews physically fit. Hauling anti torpedo nets did’t quite substitute. Great channel! Two thumbs up…that’s all I’ve got!
Yay! An HMS Captain video! Please do the SS La Bourgogne disaster (Women and children first was NOT a thing during her sinking. 13% of passengers survived, while 48% of the crew survived) and as another comment suggested, the HMS Victoria due to a blunder in navigation. She sank so fast her propellers were still spinning as she went under (Photos were even taken. It's quite terrifying to see sailors clinging onto the stern as she goes under with the propellers still spinning) and she also has the dubious distinction of being one of only two known shipwrecks that are...vertical on the seafloor (The other being the Russian monitor, Rusalka, which ironically sank the same year: 1893).
@@blondbraid7986 All three of these cases were cursed by fate and disastrous blunders. Under her captain, the La Bourgogne had prior collisions because the ship was always going full speed (Including sinking a vessel in fog that was anchored waiting out the fog). Ironically, she herself would be sunk in foggy conditions after a collision with the Cromartyshire. The fog was so thick the crew of the Cromartyshire didn't know the La Bourgogne sank until lifeboats appeared within a viewable distance. No children and only only one woman survived. There was virtually no order as crew members seized available lifeboats (Only the starboard side was usable, the ship was listing too much to use port side life boats) and reportedly beat people with oars or stabbed them to prevent them from getting into the boats. The HMS Victoria was the pride of the Royal Navy, and while much better designed than the HMS Captain, she, too, was hampered by bureaucratic nonsense, egos,laziness, and baffling decisions in how she was handled. Of all situations for a naval ship to be lost in, it was a training exercise in calm conditions. A failure in signalling caused a collision with the Camperdown, where the Camperdown got do demonstrate the power of her ram bow in the worst possible way. The Rusalka was a blunder the moment she was tested for seal trials. Overweight, slower speed, and lower in the water than intended in her designs. She would have done okay perhaps in coastal patrols. What does one do with such a vessel? Make her sail out to sea in stormy conditions of course. She had an escort, but they lost sight of her...and kept going anyway (I guess it was the mindset of "Eh, I'm sure they'll be fine").
To be fair to Cole, he was an actual designer and his turret design is very influential to all future turret design - best in the era and is the basis of pretty much all future designs. He just overestimated his competency in designing actual ships.
@@raquellofstedt9713 no? HMS Monarch was launched a year earlier, have pretty much the same turret layout, same guns, and managed to be more accurate and faster firing. Unlike the Captain, she also managed to not sink itself and enjoyed a long and fruitful career, broken up in 1905. The actual great innovation in those years, is the two-ship Devastation class. Much more sensible turret layout and the first ocean-going warship in the RN that don't carry sails
Keep in mind that while turrets ultimately were correct, it was not the same as the turrets used at the time of Captain. Instead the "modern" gun turret is an enclosed barbette, with some key differences in how they work compared to Cole's designs.
The irony is that, in essence, she was actually just a very large twin-turret 'Laird ram'. The yard had designed and built many of these ships over the preceding near-decade and they proved largely successful. The problem here seems to have been twofold: Scaling up the concept with nothing but 1860s performance prediction formulae (the 'existing' maths would be the primary cause of the 'Orlando'-class cruisers of the 1880s being seriously overweight and 18 inches deeper in the water than as designed) and the excessive sailing rig and its associated effects on centre of gravity and righting moments. It was a perfect storm, and Lairds were actually the ideal choice to build a super-sized deathtrap of the particular form that was chosen in this case. It is my opinion that they couldn't possibly have realised, until it was clearly too late, how badly wrong it would turn out.
This one has always been fascinating. Plenty of channels have covered that it happened, you’re the first I’ve seen explore why it happened. And as usual, ego and pride. Great stuff.
I remember hearing about HMS Captain. Reading the story now proves that "the more things change, the more they stay the same". Someone without the expert knowledge on shipbuilding, nonetheless is able to use loopholes to get his design built, as ill-advised as it was, and and the ship predictably meets disaster. We continue to listen more to people that are not experienced yet highly influential over actual experts, and will continue to, unfortunately.
This was a perfect vid for your channel! Please make more like this. Thoroughly enjoy the making of ships, their design process and the behind-the-scenes politics and the context of why and how the ship was built. Thank you, friends at OD. RIP to the sailors on the Captain.
What a wonderful video to watch on a Sunday with a warm cup of tea in hand and a storm howling outside. Big thank you for making it - first of yours I've seen and is both incredibly well produced and presented.
Feel better. Make sure to take all of your vitamins, especially zinc and vitamins C and D. Also, don't pass up an opportunity to get sunlight, if its available where you are. Be well..................
Nelson's flagship at Cape St. Vincent bore the same name, when he charged out of formation and hurled Captain against seven Spanish ships, several of which had nearly twice Captains firepower. He smashed her into two and captured them. Think Captain was also at The Nile
Ah, our friend Mike Brady - and a mention for my friend HMS Warrior! I see her often, sat, as she is, merrily afloat just across the harbour from my town. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that, should the call come and the need arise, she'd be quite capable of looking after herself even today! The less-heralded younger sister - it was ever thus - but a remarkable, redoubtable ship. The same, I fear, I will not in half an hour's time be able to say of HMS Captain...
If the team visited the wreck and see one of the gun turret in good condition it should be rise and be restored to a museum as a memorial to the crews of HMS Captain. Please do the tragedy story of HMS Victoria (1887).
Some Notes. the MASTS on HMS Captain were an early Tripod Mast, (see around 17 minutes) to cut down the rigging. This also made them stronger. Normally a good thing, but if they had been weaker there is the possibility that the masts would have snapped rather than drag the ship over. TURRETS the use of rotating guns were pioneered by Erikson, Coles & Eads. However, what was used on ships from about the 1880s was more properly called a Hooded Barbet. This is an armoured ring that eventually extended below the waterline to magazines. The Hood came to cover all sides & the top in significant amounts of armour. Unlike the Turret, this rested on the Barbet & because of differences in gun mounting could be lighter than a true Turret mounting the same size gun. (The RN tried the different systems on sister ships to test the point) While Erikson, Coles & Eads began the design line of what are now "called" Turrets in fact the 20th Century examples were a very different beast from the rotating round boxes they started off with.
Before the Captain sailed, John Trevithick, Second Lieutenant, had cut a parchment page from an Ethiopian manuscript and given it to a friend, a sailor on HMS Malibu. It was in Coptic but Trevithick had been on attachment to Lord Napier's 1858 expedition, helping to chart a course through the Hormuz Straits at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. In boxes of plunder were dozens of manuscipts. The page in question was attractine, written in well-spaced, looping Ethiopian script in black ink and red crosses at the points of punctuation. One column had a painting of a group, a man and five women placing a body in a tomb. The pretty page made a decent present. The rest of the MS was sent to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. One of the group, unlike the others, is a white man in priest's robes, kneeling, praying with hands oustretched in forgiveness. It is Pilate at the tomb of Jesus seeking repentance. The page, sewn into a sailor's vest with nametape was recovered and has been translated, being a prayer from Pilate in short Coptic sentences pleading for forgiveness (as if a man gasping for air). A remarkable survival along with the few souls who found the small boat, cutting its canvas cover, that had been inside a larger one washed off the deck.
Thanks for the video. I still think that the most hopeless war ship is Vasa ship from Sweden. It sunk on her maiden voyage just after one kilometer. It was discovered and salvaged later and nowadays it stands in the museum in Stockholm.
Hello my friend Mike Brady. I have recently found your channel and enjoyed a few videos. Your video format and presentation is fantastic, easy to listen to and watch. Its great to see a fellow Australian interested in history and design change in ships. This video is interesting due to the design cocepts introduced during the period and the blunders that occured to the Captain. Keep up the good work. 😊
I live a few minutes walk from the SS Great Britain which is kept in Bristol as a museum ship, its really interesting to visit and walk around the ship. It’s kept in dry dock with the hull protected from the weather so you can wonder around that too. There’s also a maritime museum joined to it which is as interesting as the ship itself. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area!
I never really appreciated before how the evolution to the low-in-the-water iron-clads led people to imagine the next logical innovation: a ship completely submerged for protection. Thus the submarine.
As a resident of the Hamtop Roads area,I very much appreciate that Mr. Brady gets the name of the confederate ship,CSS Virginia correct. An Australian can get it but almost no residents of the area can,they still refer to the Virginia as the Merrimack. Thank you sir!
Speaking as an American, I think that must be an extremely regional thing... I learned about the battle of Hampton Roads as being the Monitor vs the Virginia, and the fact that the Virginia used to be a ship named the Merrimack is just a trivia factoid taught as a sort of footnote. Never heard of anyone knowing it as the Merrimack first/primarily
@@angrytigermpc As chance would have it, the Merrimack is the name used in a French comic that came out in 1975 (Les Bleus de la Marine, part of the Les Tuniques Bleues series), which uses the battle between the Virginia and the Monitor as the centerpiece of its plot. Quite a few French-speaking people of my generation do know the ship as the Merrimack as a result (although a footnote does point out its proper name was the Virginia).
Thanks, I knew the outline but you filled in a lot of the details. A quote "But how we looked on in terror and wonder/When our shot hit her sides and glanced harmlessly 'oer." (from memory, may not be word perfect) but it's from a song about the attack by ironclad CSS Virginia on the wooden USS Cumberland at Hampden Roads so I thought it was appropriate.
I have ambivalent feelings about the nearly inexhaustible examples of maritime disasters. On one hand, it can almost be enough to make a person vow never to set foot on a large ship due to seeming as though every ship in history met its end in some disastrous way... On the other hand, that means that our friend, Mike Brady, will doubtless be able to continue to bring us fascinating tales, naval design appreciation, and reverence for history for many, many years to come. At bottom, I think the positive must outweigh the negative, if only due to Mike's obvious passion and enthusiasm for the subject.
Thank you for this. Ever since first reading about Captain in the 1970s,ive been waiting for her wreck to be discovered. That doesn't seem too far off now. My fear is she sits inverted,and there will be neither good photos -nor turrets, as,im sure, they must have fallen out upon the sinking when she rolled over.
Hi Mike, love your content. But you have a problem with one of your cameras panning over documents. There is a colour fringe (which moves as you pan) at the top, left, bottom and right of the picture. Chromatic aberation. I think the lens you use is not suited for this task. I saw it in one of your previous videos as well. Otherwise wonderful presentation!
Mike.... Everyone says "our friend Mike Brady" but I am wondering when we'll be more than just friends. I am your boat boy remember or did you forget all the boat stuff. Your a good man Mike. Sorry for catching feelings. KEEP UP THE GREAT BOAT VIDEOS
Fascinating - could we please have an episode on how ship designers and builders actually estimate and measure weight, freeborad, centre of gravity, and other parameters?
I had a moment when Reed was writing a letter expressing concerns feel like modern times where we write emails to our boss explaining something isn't going to work and it gets left on read 😂
R.A.N Admiral of the Fleet Brady, SIR! Fact filled and very intriguing, AS ALWAYS! Thank you for allowing a lowly E4 the privilege of viewing your ongoing research. By Your Leave, SIR! Melka JF BT3 B55 1853
Hi friends! A huge source of inspiration for this video is the book 'Warrior to Vanguard' by Dr Oscar Parkes, whose exhaustive research crafted a fascinating narrative of British battleship design doctrine for the 19th and 20th centuries - highly recommended!
Off the top of your head; have you any recommendations on book/websites/info on commerce raiders/auxiliary cruisers (German) of the first world war? I have been seeing some info but details of the particular ships are somewhat scarce and since some were converted out of cargo vessel designs it perhaps could be a video topic one day. Please do continue to branch out into warships, this video was very good.
Tis a very good book. A “must have” if you like British battleships.
Thanks, I appreciate the recommendation.
I'm curious; what made you so interested in the whole subject?
Hey man! I was wondering if you could ever do something on the Edmund Fitzgerald or the Great Lakes freighters in general. Next year around this time would be a great idea since that marks 50 years, but I think it’s a very popular ship
If you get the chance I think you’d be interested in the book Nemesis. One of the first iron hulled warships built in Britain and in secret, for the East India Company. She had quite the story.
I love it that you’ve branched out from just liners and now discuss just about anything that has happened on the seas. 😄
And above the Seas 🧐
the first vid of his I watched was the Kormoran one. Heh... that thing had passenger quarters, but it wasn't a cruise liner.
Well, just liners are very limited in content creation. Eventually he will run out of ship disasters too and he will need to find other sea like content.
Heck I’d love to see an episode on the floating dry dock at 8:34 That thing is pure Victorian madness!
I can't wait for the Loch Ness Monster video.
I'm not really one to blame the Royal Navy's naval architect for washing his hands of the project. The officer who had the ideas behind HMS Captain went above the heads of those who knew what they were doing and basically took his arguments to the court-of-public-opinion. Plus at this point USS Monitor had been lost due to its own low freeboard in rough seas, so it wasn't like the phenomenon of low freeboard turret ships being lost in rough seas was unknown.
The officer who steamrolled his way through the objections and secured his approval and funding from the top and that top individual bear the bulk of the blame, because if the naval architect that had resigned in protest had tried to object to issues along the way, he simply would have faced being overruled again and again, and worse, possibly forced to stamp his approval even when he did not approve.
This sort of thing is common enough when engineering goes wrong that it should be recognized, but we consistently fail to learn from it.
The monitor USS Miantonomoh (with a freeboard of a mere 31 inches) had just sailed to England the year before HMS Captain was laid down, and Coles had been given a tour of the ship. That probably gave him undue confidence in the ability of low-freeboard ships to sail the Atlantic. Though he (perhaps willfully) ignored the fact that Miantonomoh was mastless, and thus did not fatally combine that low freeboard with a high center of gravity, like Captain would do.
likec Ocean Gate
Ideas guys when they have control over a project:
@@dexterlab4694 that is one other case. where the constructor are so full of himself. that they don´t listen to pepole who know what they are doing and the end result is that the constructor dies.
Good point. It's always unfortunate when guys with fragile egos are in charge.
I feel like naming a ship “Captain” could get confusing.
“Hey, look it’s the Captain!”
“What? I’m over here!”
“No not you, Captain. I mean the Captain!”
“But I’m the Captain…”
Catch 22 Major, Major, Major.
Look at me! I am the Captain now!
Lol apparently there were more than a few substandard aspects.
😂@@jiubboatman9352
"Of course you're the Captain, but you need to see the Captain!"
Reed's level of I told you so is a level most people fantasise about when they're ignored.
If so many people wouldn't have died, yes, maybe, but now it haunted him. "If only he would have objected more, didn't just resign but fought tooth and nail"
@@BartJBols I doubt that anything he did would’ve changed the outcome Coles would’ve steamrolled through any objections regardless as he had from the start to the point I suspect he would have warnings that the ship was getting to heavy and pretty clear that Steel could not refuse to sign off in their inspections during construction
@@BartJBolsI dunno. “Last time you didn’t listen to me 500 men died” is in fact the level of Told You So I wish to have in my back pocket someday. Like the guilt for that isn’t on you. The guilt is on literally EVERYONE else
I have never had any interest whatsoever in shipbuilding, sailing, oceanography, etc. And, yet, my friend Mike Brady always makes videos like this that are absolutely fascinating and incredibly well produced.
HMS Warrior was so utterly indestructible that it's _still here_
_It's still afloat_
Not only that, but you can tour it as it was back in the day.
And ironically it survived by being turned into a training ship in 1904 and then into an oil hulk off the coast of Wales in WWII - she was completely restored to her original condition in the 1980s!
I've been on her. The impressions I got where creepy, cold and quiet.
@@choc113 Nah..that was just the impression of England in general
It's an amazing ship to tour. I'd recommend it for anyone who's a fan of old ships.
It should be noted that Coles' campaign against Reed even involved the media constantly putting pressure on the Admiralty. Numerous articles were published by newspapers calling the admiralty cowards and how they should respect the revered war veteran Coles. Those same newspapers instantly shut up about their role in the loss of Captain.
Remember folks: Ship design should be left to experts, not public opinion.
Well said. I therefor actually don't agree to the conclusion that Reed and the admirality should have done more to cooperate with Coles and Baird/Birkenhead. They had already done so in the past but were unruly pressured by someone who would not listen. In that case, if they would not have distanced themselves in time, it is quite likely that they would have been blamed for any possible accident by the very same forces that previously tried to coerce them into doing it.
@@JosipRadnik1 Reed's "sign-off" on Captain's design was the best part of that
"Sometime back I read a testimony from one of the sailors who survived. He said he had just finished his watch and was disturbed to the severity of the Captain‘s condition during the storm that he took it upon himself to cut the lashings securing the ships launch and climbed inside under the tarpaulin. When the Captain capsized the launch was hurled into the sea. He managed to help the other survivors to get on board. Without his actions there would have been no survivors. He said he knew he would likely get into serious trouble for his actions if the ship did not sink but thought the risk was worth taking. Along with the rest of the survivoirs(sic) he was exonerated." Name that fellow, please, someone.
Underrated comment.
I doubt any cooperation would've served to save Captain. It sounds like a story we see often, much like Oceangate, where Coles had so much pressure and backing the Admiralty knew that the bad design was inevitable. So rather than lose their credibility by attaching themselves, they simply let it happen. The only thing that could sink this projects it seems; would have to be the ocean.
Couldn't agree more. I'd guess if the admiralty had cooperated as Mike suggests. The weight may have been closer to spec but only offered a few additional degrees of roll before catastrophe? Was that additional weight in upper plates, lower plates, uniform throughout, design changes? Unfortunately the video doesn't give anything to make a guess. But yeah Cole sounds a lot like Stockton
A few degrees of roll for a fully rigged ocean going ship....
By design, ships with sails roll different amounts depending on what course you've set, hauling, reaching or running.
Not to mention roll change while crossing the wind, tacking and jibing.
Jibing especially must have been utterly terrifying on Captain 😨
I suspect that might be why the plans were marked "not objected to" instead of "approved", what Reed actually meant by "not objected to" was "I cannot approve these, but there's too much pressure for me to reject them so I'll mark them down as "not objected to" as I have no realistic means to object to the plans"
@@MostlyPennyCat No, I said a few additional degrees possibly. Mike already stated in the video 21 degrees would be catastrophic. Since 10-20 would be normal everyday sailing for ships of that time. 21 as a limit sounds insane, and 24 (I.E. a few additional) doesn't sound much better
@27Metaldragon I agree with you. When someone is trying to go over your head to approve something you simply cannot condone as an expert, the worst thing to do is actually cooperate to try and mitigate anything. If you do, the failure will be almost entirely on your hands and everyone will throw you under the bus. By standing aside and not vetting anything, you can say that you never came even close to approving anything, which leaves the ones who pressed the idea over your ruling to be the sole persons responsible.
There's a very good reason we build entire groups of experts on technical subjects. Bypassing them is absolutely not acceptable and when that occurs, they should stay as far away from those projects as they can.
The reason there was no cooperation given, is because this was precisely about the conflict between professional, qualified and experienced naval designers, who were definitely at times too conservative and clung to proven ideas, versus amateur civilian designers who would lobby enormous amounts of non-naval interest using patriotism, fear of the french and pointing to the perceived loss of supremacy to foist sometimes useless ideas on the navy. The navy basically made this happen to lance the boil of amateur inventor enthusiasts. Here was the living embodiment of giving someone enough rope to hang themselves. Plus, lets not forget that the navy cooperated with Coles on the Monarch, but because he didn't get all his way, he made their life hell. THERE was the cooperation between Coles' idealism and the navy's expertise you think should have happened. HMS Captain was the result of Coles insisting that his innovations should trump the navy's experience completely.
Exactly. The cooperation did happen and Coles was having none of it until he got his own way. Him going down with his failure of a ship is karmic justice and I only feel bad about the 500 other people who died because of the ego of one man.
Shame they had to kill like 472 people to make that point, then.
27:04 Earlier in this video, you described that the Admiralty had attempted to work with Coles to create a ship to his satisfaction, and the result, Monarch, only annoyed him and prompted his political backers and the public to pressure the Admiralty to let him make the ship he wanted. If the Admiralty had worked more closely with him in the construction of the Captain, correcting the ship's design flaws as it went, wouldn't the result have been the same again?
Yeah I think only thing admiralty did wrong was to accept ship to service. Coles literally stepped over them and went to sea lord to get this ship build because admiralty and architect didn't want to build his original death trap as he wanted it.
I think the impetus would be on them to push again rather than just give up and wash their hands of the whole thing, especially since they would be accepting and operating the ship. Make no mistake, Coles and his supporters must wear the majority of the blame here - but I think it was up to the admiralty to push harder and state their case although I understand that can be difficult in the face of mounting political and popular pressure!
@@OceanlinerDesigns The problem there is the involvement of a Sea Lord - that is, the man in the highest position on the military side of the admiralty. If the Sea Lord issues an order here, it becomes about disobeying orders, and not just pushing back against pressure.
@@arnaudbouret5562 Yes. Insubordination like that could and would end a man's career in an instant. It's happened before and it's happened since.
Mike, I think you should do a video on the collision between HMS Camperdown and HMS Victoria. A young commander named John Jellicoe was one of the survivors.
How unfortunate.
@@hanzzel6086 that you Beatty?
@somethinglikethat2176 Crud, I've been made!
@@hanzzel6086 there’s something wrong with your bloody comments today.
That admiral jellicoe?
It does not feel like Captain Coles was looking to cooperate or be supervised in anyway. Chief Reed and Controller of the Navy seemed to have been stymied at every step with Coles using his influence to push his design. I have been in Reed's position and it stinks. Watching a disaster in the making without the ability to stop it is one of the most helpless feelings in the world. As with Reed, all I could do was started the design is sound in its current state with the preface I did not agree with the overall concept.
I love this era of ship design. No one had any idea what warfare would become so they just made all of these interesting and weird ships. A lot of them didn't work but it's so much fun to learn about
we seen that with tanks and planes , and now seeing it in drones too , from ones made of cardboard who can destroy tanks , to basicly "human guides missles" , problem with ships is they are big and stupidly expensive and take forever to make.
Captain wasn’t the first or the last of the iron clad, turreted, tall sail fighting steam ships. Skimming thru my dad’s library, I found 12 other warships of this breed….and I probably missed some. Great Britain wasn’t the only nation to build ‘em. The notion kinda…sorta made sense… until it didn’t in a very dramatic way. The Royal Navy loved sails…it kept the crews physically fit. Hauling anti torpedo nets did’t quite substitute.
Great channel! Two thumbs up…that’s all I’ve got!
I love your comparison between sailing rig and anti-torpedo nets: Very apposite.
Both useful busy work to instill and maintain discipline though.
Plus with the unreliability of steam engines, makes a lot of sense
Yay! An HMS Captain video! Please do the SS La Bourgogne disaster (Women and children first was NOT a thing during her sinking. 13% of passengers survived, while 48% of the crew survived) and as another comment suggested, the HMS Victoria due to a blunder in navigation. She sank so fast her propellers were still spinning as she went under (Photos were even taken. It's quite terrifying to see sailors clinging onto the stern as she goes under with the propellers still spinning) and she also has the dubious distinction of being one of only two known shipwrecks that are...vertical on the seafloor (The other being the Russian monitor, Rusalka, which ironically sank the same year: 1893).
I'm not superstitious, but in case of the Rusalka, naming a boat after a water sprite who drowns people just feels like tempting fate.
@@blondbraid7986 All three of these cases were cursed by fate and disastrous blunders.
Under her captain, the La Bourgogne had prior collisions because the ship was always going full speed (Including sinking a vessel in fog that was anchored waiting out the fog). Ironically, she herself would be sunk in foggy conditions after a collision with the Cromartyshire. The fog was so thick the crew of the Cromartyshire didn't know the La Bourgogne sank until lifeboats appeared within a viewable distance. No children and only only one woman survived. There was virtually no order as crew members seized available lifeboats (Only the starboard side was usable, the ship was listing too much to use port side life boats) and reportedly beat people with oars or stabbed them to prevent them from getting into the boats.
The HMS Victoria was the pride of the Royal Navy, and while much better designed than the HMS Captain, she, too, was hampered by bureaucratic nonsense, egos,laziness, and baffling decisions in how she was handled. Of all situations for a naval ship to be lost in, it was a training exercise in calm conditions. A failure in signalling caused a collision with the Camperdown, where the Camperdown got do demonstrate the power of her ram bow in the worst possible way.
The Rusalka was a blunder the moment she was tested for seal trials. Overweight, slower speed, and lower in the water than intended in her designs. She would have done okay perhaps in coastal patrols. What does one do with such a vessel? Make her sail out to sea in stormy conditions of course. She had an escort, but they lost sight of her...and kept going anyway (I guess it was the mindset of "Eh, I'm sure they'll be fine").
Coll & Reed's story is what happens when a fantastical dreamer is prioritized over an experienced, practical, and intuitive architect.
To be fair to Cole, he was an actual designer and his turret design is very influential to all future turret design - best in the era and is the basis of pretty much all future designs. He just overestimated his competency in designing actual ships.
If they could have worked together, Captain would have been a great innovation. Alas.
@@raquellofstedt9713 no? HMS Monarch was launched a year earlier, have pretty much the same turret layout, same guns, and managed to be more accurate and faster firing.
Unlike the Captain, she also managed to not sink itself and enjoyed a long and fruitful career, broken up in 1905.
The actual great innovation in those years, is the two-ship Devastation class. Much more sensible turret layout and the first ocean-going warship in the RN that don't carry sails
@@windoverwaves6781 And the Devastation class were, of course, designed by Reed.
Keep in mind that while turrets ultimately were correct, it was not the same as the turrets used at the time of Captain. Instead the "modern" gun turret is an enclosed barbette, with some key differences in how they work compared to Cole's designs.
Thanks for covering lesser known wrecks, this stuff is so interesting.
Drachinifel has a video about the search after HMS Captain.
That last sentence summed up all the story SO well. Excellent video, as always.
Yes - strong finish. Nice writing.
Alright I'll just jump to that then. Half an hour saved.
Yeah, finding a way to still point fingers and put blame where none of it belongs, "well" and "excellent" indeed.
The ocean and human hubris makes for a spectacularly horrifying combination, as always.
The Royal Maritime Museum here in Greenwich has a model of the Captain. Just looking at it boggles the mind... There's something offbeat about it.
And for any visitors, HMS Warrior and HMS Victory can be found in Portsmouth for tourists 🙂
@baba This is where I went to uni! So many interesting maritime artifacts. 💙
The irony is that, in essence, she was actually just a very large twin-turret 'Laird ram'. The yard had designed and built many of these ships over the preceding near-decade and they proved largely successful. The problem here seems to have been twofold: Scaling up the concept with nothing but 1860s performance prediction formulae (the 'existing' maths would be the primary cause of the 'Orlando'-class cruisers of the 1880s being seriously overweight and 18 inches deeper in the water than as designed) and the excessive sailing rig and its associated effects on centre of gravity and righting moments.
It was a perfect storm, and Lairds were actually the ideal choice to build a super-sized deathtrap of the particular form that was chosen in this case. It is my opinion that they couldn't possibly have realised, until it was clearly too late, how badly wrong it would turn out.
I sink slow too 😂
A another cozy Sunday, blessed with another video courtesy of our friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs
These episodes are consistently well-researched and entertaining.
This one has always been fascinating. Plenty of channels have covered that it happened, you’re the first I’ve seen explore why it happened. And as usual, ego and pride. Great stuff.
Practicality aside, I love the multi-tiered multi-turret design using hardwood and black iron. What a beauty.
I remember hearing about HMS Captain. Reading the story now proves that "the more things change, the more they stay the same". Someone without the expert knowledge on shipbuilding, nonetheless is able to use loopholes to get his design built, as ill-advised as it was, and and the ship predictably meets disaster. We continue to listen more to people that are not experienced yet highly influential over actual experts, and will continue to, unfortunately.
This was a perfect vid for your channel! Please make more like this. Thoroughly enjoy the making of ships, their design process and the behind-the-scenes politics and the context of why and how the ship was built. Thank you, friends at OD. RIP to the sailors on the Captain.
Thanks!
Why not US$2.00?
How often is it that not just the captain but also the designer goes down with the ship? You could make a series of that!
Hey! It’s our friend, Mike Brady, from Oceanliner Designs!
With powers COMPARABLE to Drachinifel.
Always good to see our friend!!
Woohoo!!
… another bot comment
Crazy to see f man here f man is a guy of taste coming to watch ocean liner designs two goats on yt and both have my notifications on !
What a wonderful video to watch on a Sunday with a warm cup of tea in hand and a storm howling outside. Big thank you for making it - first of yours I've seen and is both incredibly well produced and presented.
I have been sick for the last week, and our friend Mike Brady's documentaries have been a wonderful addition to the cold meds and hot tea.
Feel better. Make sure to take all of your vitamins, especially zinc and vitamins C and D.
Also, don't pass up an opportunity to get sunlight, if its available where you are.
Be well..................
Can you do a video of Olympics scrapping, it would be very interesting!
My friend and yours. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Mike Brady!
From Oceanliner Designs!
I also love that you include the imperial system and the metric system.
Another great video! I wish documentaries were this good when I was growing up.
Naming a ship “Captain” should be against nautical protocol. It’s like giving a kid his last name as his first name too.
Nelson's flagship at Cape St. Vincent bore the same name, when he charged out of formation and hurled Captain against seven Spanish ships, several of which had nearly twice Captains firepower. He smashed her into two and captured them.
Think Captain was also at The Nile
SERGEANT MAJOR MAJOR, CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE NOW MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR
@@LunarisSutareiMajor Major Major IV
What is wrong with that? Harper Stanley is a family name, and we are proud of it.
@@nat9909 To each their own. No disrespect intended.
Our Friend Mike Brady!
Ah, our friend Mike Brady - and a mention for my friend HMS Warrior! I see her often, sat, as she is, merrily afloat just across the harbour from my town. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that, should the call come and the need arise, she'd be quite capable of looking after herself even today! The less-heralded younger sister - it was ever thus - but a remarkable, redoubtable ship. The same, I fear, I will not in half an hour's time be able to say of HMS Captain...
Great piece of history there. Well done, and thanks to you and your team.
If the team visited the wreck and see one of the gun turret in good condition it should be rise and be restored to a museum as a memorial to the crews of HMS Captain. Please do the tragedy story of HMS Victoria (1887).
Imagine that being told with one of Mike's full-on animations!
lets not.
They are too heavy with the wreck being too deep.
@@chrisperrien7055 ..not to mention it being the grave for nearly 500 men. Best left well alone, apart from surveying.
Some Notes. the MASTS on HMS Captain were an early Tripod Mast, (see around 17 minutes) to cut down the rigging. This also made them stronger. Normally a good thing, but if they had been weaker there is the possibility that the masts would have snapped rather than drag the ship over.
TURRETS the use of rotating guns were pioneered by Erikson, Coles & Eads. However, what was used on ships from about the 1880s was more properly called a Hooded Barbet. This is an armoured ring that eventually extended below the waterline to magazines. The Hood came to cover all sides & the top in significant amounts of armour. Unlike the Turret, this rested on the Barbet & because of differences in gun mounting could be lighter than a true Turret mounting the same size gun. (The RN tried the different systems on sister ships to test the point) While Erikson, Coles & Eads began the design line of what are now "called" Turrets in fact the 20th Century examples were a very different beast from the rotating round boxes they started off with.
Great episode,many details of the squabble to get her built that I was unaware of! Thank You for your time and effort in sharing it with us.
Before the Captain sailed, John Trevithick, Second Lieutenant, had cut a parchment page from an Ethiopian manuscript and given it to a friend, a sailor on HMS Malibu. It was in Coptic but Trevithick had been on attachment to Lord Napier's 1858 expedition, helping to chart a course through the Hormuz Straits at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. In boxes of plunder were dozens of manuscipts. The page in question was attractine, written in well-spaced, looping Ethiopian script in black ink and red crosses at the points of punctuation. One column had a painting of a group, a man and five women placing a body in a tomb. The pretty page made a decent present. The rest of the MS was sent to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. One of the group, unlike the others, is a white man in priest's robes, kneeling, praying with hands oustretched in forgiveness. It is Pilate at the tomb of Jesus seeking repentance. The page, sewn into a sailor's vest with nametape was recovered and has been translated, being a prayer from Pilate in short Coptic sentences pleading for forgiveness (as if a man gasping for air). A remarkable survival along with the few souls who found the small boat, cutting its canvas cover, that had been inside a larger one washed off the deck.
Pontius Pilate was not a priest.
Happy New Year, my friend Mike Brady. Awesome video!
The enormousness loss of life just makes it an even more devastating case of 'I told you so'
"Doomed by Design" should be the name of a series by our friend Mike Brady!
As a young man i remember seeing pictures of the captain and going well i wonder how quickly it sunk. But also thinking what a rad looking design.
You are totally amazing storyteller!
Thanks for the video. I still think that the most hopeless war ship is Vasa ship from Sweden. It sunk on her maiden voyage just after one kilometer. It was discovered and salvaged later and nowadays it stands in the museum in Stockholm.
Hello my friend Mike Brady. I have recently found your channel and enjoyed a few videos. Your video format and presentation is fantastic, easy to listen to and watch. Its great to see a fellow Australian interested in history and design change in ships. This video is interesting due to the design cocepts introduced during the period and the blunders that occured to the Captain. Keep up the good work. 😊
I knew about this ship but not all the details, great research. Think this is one of your best videos yet, thanks!
I live a few minutes walk from the SS Great Britain which is kept in Bristol as a museum ship, its really interesting to visit and walk around the ship. It’s kept in dry dock with the hull protected from the weather so you can wonder around that too. There’s also a maritime museum joined to it which is as interesting as the ship itself. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area!
Machines and a Mozart piano concerto. i adore this channel
Looks like HMS Captain couldn't help but turn turtle eventually Mike .
I never really appreciated before how the evolution to the low-in-the-water iron-clads led people to imagine the next logical innovation: a ship completely submerged for protection. Thus the submarine.
Absolutely excellent. Thank you very much.
As a resident of the Hamtop Roads area,I very much appreciate that Mr. Brady gets the name of the confederate ship,CSS Virginia correct. An Australian can get it but almost no residents of the area can,they still refer to the Virginia as the Merrimack. Thank you sir!
Speaking as an American, I think that must be an extremely regional thing... I learned about the battle of Hampton Roads as being the Monitor vs the Virginia, and the fact that the Virginia used to be a ship named the Merrimack is just a trivia factoid taught as a sort of footnote.
Never heard of anyone knowing it as the Merrimack first/primarily
The Confederacy lost. We don't acknowledge the pretend names bestowed on US ships by the vanquished.
@@angrytigermpc As chance would have it, the Merrimack is the name used in a French comic that came out in 1975 (Les Bleus de la Marine, part of the Les Tuniques Bleues series), which uses the battle between the Virginia and the Monitor as the centerpiece of its plot. Quite a few French-speaking people of my generation do know the ship as the Merrimack as a result (although a footnote does point out its proper name was the Virginia).
Mike. You have excelled yourself. Really well researched & presented with delicious detail. Well Done Sir 🫡
Fantastic piece of history I knew nothing about- God bless you and Godspeed your efforts.
Mike: Starts introduction.
Me: 'I.. I have.. a friend?' 🥰
Cautionary tale of design by committee. Thanks my friend for another interesting video.
Thanks, I knew the outline but you filled in a lot of the details. A quote "But how we looked on in terror and wonder/When our shot hit her sides and glanced harmlessly 'oer." (from memory, may not be word perfect) but it's from a song about the attack by ironclad CSS Virginia on the wooden USS Cumberland at Hampden Roads so I thought it was appropriate.
This was great! Thank you for reminding many of a forgotten Ship.
Doomed by Design is an awesome name for a video series
I second this
Love your channel, brother! Keep it up!
I have ambivalent feelings about the nearly inexhaustible examples of maritime disasters. On one hand, it can almost be enough to make a person vow never to set foot on a large ship due to seeming as though every ship in history met its end in some disastrous way... On the other hand, that means that our friend, Mike Brady, will doubtless be able to continue to bring us fascinating tales, naval design appreciation, and reverence for history for many, many years to come. At bottom, I think the positive must outweigh the negative, if only due to Mike's obvious passion and enthusiasm for the subject.
Tragic story, beautifully told. Thank you Mike ❤
A fantastic presentation, as always! Cheers, Mike!
Another exellent highly informative documentary from our friend Mike Brady.
Thank you for this. Ever since first reading about Captain in the 1970s,ive been waiting for her wreck to be discovered. That doesn't seem too far off now. My fear is she sits inverted,and there will be neither good photos -nor turrets, as,im sure, they must have fallen out upon the sinking when she rolled over.
Great job, Mike 👍.
Wow this video was very interesting and at the same time very informative thank you for this absolutely great presentation ♥️
Ah I was just thinking I haven’t seen a video from you today. What timing.
Great history and lessons to share
Great story. As an engineer I love to hear about hubris based disasters to remind myself I'm not infallible
Love the military ship videos, I find them very interesting, another great video!
Our friend is back!!! Welcome back M.Brady🎉🎉
The mournful phrase, “O Captain! My Captain!” keeps running through my kind: it takes on an odd new meaning in the context of this tragedy.
Excellent writting, videography and story-telling. Truly top notch stuff.
Thanks Mike!
Hi Mike, love your content.
But you have a problem with one of your cameras panning over documents.
There is a colour fringe (which moves as you pan) at the top, left, bottom and right of the picture. Chromatic aberation.
I think the lens you use is not suited for this task. I saw it in one of your previous videos as well. Otherwise wonderful presentation!
Wow such a fantastic story telling 👏 thank you very much for making this vid 👍
So cool to have a in depth video about the captain!
I love how humble you are
Incredible work Mike and the team!
Excellent history and video design as well. Bravo!
Wonderful video. Keep up the good work sir
Thank you for these history lesson’s!
Had never heard of this one. Truth really is stranger than fiction. Thank you, Mike.
Awsome video! feels like modern battleship features make much more sense
Thank you, friend Mike. I had not heard of the HMS Captain before
Thanks for another interesting video!
Mike.... Everyone says "our friend Mike Brady" but I am wondering when we'll be more than just friends. I am your boat boy remember or did you forget all the boat stuff. Your a good man Mike. Sorry for catching feelings. KEEP UP THE GREAT BOAT VIDEOS
Fascinating - could we please have an episode on how ship designers and builders actually estimate and measure weight, freeborad, centre of gravity, and other parameters?
I had a moment when Reed was writing a letter expressing concerns feel like modern times where we write emails to our boss explaining something isn't going to work and it gets left on read 😂
R.A.N Admiral of the Fleet Brady, SIR!
Fact filled and very intriguing, AS ALWAYS! Thank you for allowing a lowly E4 the privilege of viewing your ongoing research.
By Your Leave, SIR!
Melka JF BT3
B55 1853
Love the music, btw…very well chosen!