Copper Sheathing

I was doing a bit of reading today and I came across something that I found pretty interesting.

Now this certainly isn't something that everybody would find interesting. One of the great tragedies of my life is it seems my interests never really line up with anybody else's. It's truly a shame. But moving past that it seems that the American Revolution may or may not have been won because of poor ship design by the Royal Navy.

So apparently in the 1780's the Royal Navy decided to implement a shipbuilding technique called copper sheathing. What this does is it covers the bottom of a ships hulk with plates of copper. In theory, this technique eliminates marine growth, such as crustacea, which both slow ships down and can cause potential damages to the vessel (you'd think that copper plates would weigh more than crustacea but I guess not).

While this sounds nice and all, like all great ideas it didn't manifest itself into the greatest of results. Perhaps it was the pressure to furnish as many ships as possible in a short amount of time. The country was at war after all. Not like the Americans could touch the British at sea but the French always remain a threat. Either way, the copper ended up corroding iron nails underwater. Obviously this wasn't too great for British ships.

Relating this back to the Revolutionary War, British naval ineffectiveness was essentially how the Americans were able to win at Yorktown. After all, Washington was only able to trap Cornwallis because he was cut off by the French at sea. Well, by the time the French arrived the British ships were in such poor condition that the HMS Terrible almost tore itself apart simply by firing its own guns.

It was always a point of interest to me as in how the French of all people managed to beat the British in a naval confrontation. I mean, just 20 odd years later the British would crush the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar. Surely I had always assumed that it was some fluke of history. I find military history a little bit dull. All I want is for wars to make sense. The British, with superior naval everything, probably shouldn't have lost at Chesapeake Bay. That's the part that didn't really make sense to me. And now I know why. Happy Austin!