BLASCO DE GARAY

and LA TRINIDAD'S 1543 STEAM SHIP TRIALS

Given that 2012 is the 200th anniversary of Henry Bell's 'Comet', her first sea trials on Saturday, January 18, 1812 and
that Robert Fulton had already pioneered a successful commercial steam-boat, the 'Clermont', properly, as she was
registered, the "North River Steam Boat", her first successful trip, beginning on Monday, August 17, 1807 and
taking her on a 30-hour long, 150 mile trip up the Hudson River, from New York to Albany, it is appropriate to
remember the even earlier steam boat of Blasco de Garay, a Basque seaman, who had left the Spanish royal navy to
dedicate himself to his obsession with mechanical inventions, with which he seems to have bombarded the Emperor
Carlos V.

As set out in a memorandum of 1539, these included a manually-operated shipboard mill, a chemical process for
making water without water, another for converting sea water into drinking water, "the means by which a man may
remain under water without suffocating" and devices for underwater lighting and raising sunken vessels.

In 1540 the Emperor was persuaded, without much conviction, to finance de Garay's first effort at "steam navigation"
by means of a boiler mounted in a vessel at Malaga. The trial was not successful and the inventor was reduced to
selling his sword for food.

In a letter to his patron at court, Juan Vázquez de Molina, he begged more money, "because without eating one can
do nothing" and the loan of a 200-ton two-decker galleon for further experiments, mentioning that it would be
necessary to bore the hull and that, although his device was suitable for any ship, less damage would be done to a two-
decker than to a galley. The second trial had to wait three years, until Thursday, June 14, 1543, in the port of
Barcelona and the story told in José L. Fernández Rua's "Inventores Españoles" (Publicaciones Españolas, Madrid,
1959).

The vessel used was La Trinidad of 200 tuns, commanded by Pedro de Ecarza and recently arrived with a cargo of
wheat from Colibre.

On board was a commission nominated by the Emperor and including Enrique de Toledo (the Treasurer-General of
the Crown of Aragón), the general Bernardino de Mendoza, the governor Pedro de Cardona, the provision-master
Francisco Juan Gralla and the royal treasurer, Rávega.

The latter recorded that La Trinidad "moved at a league an hour, heaving up in half the time required by an ordinary
galley moved by long oars" but, that the device "was liable to the boiler bursting", the commission was not wholly
satisfied.

The historian Martín Fernández de Navarrete writes "Garay never wished to display the device openly; but one could
see, at the time of the trial, that it consisted of a great cauldron of boiling water and moving wheels fastened to one
side of the vessel and the other.

"The trial over, Garay collected the device which had been mounted in the ship and having deposited the timbers in
the Atarazanas of Barcelona, the mediaeval dockyards which now house Barcelona's Maritime Museum, kept the rest
to himself.

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"The Emperor Carlos V gave him a once-and-for-all gratification of 200,000 maravedies, ordered The General
Treasury to pay all the expenses of the experiments and granted him other favours".

In an earlier written account, Thomas Gonzales, at Simuncas, on August 27, 1825, asserting that "This account is
derived from the documents and original registers kept in the Royal Archives of Simuncas, among the commercial
papers of Catalonia and from those of the military and naval departments for the said year, 1543" differs in his identity
of the ship, the Trinity, rather than La Trinidad and reports the trial date as June 17, 1543 which, being a Sunday and
the events, watched by dignitaries and taking place in a Catholic country, seems somewhat questionable.

Thus "In 1543, a naval officer under Charles V is said to have propelled a ship of two hundred tons, by steam, in the
harbor of Barcelona. No account of his machinery is extant, except that he had a large copper boiler and that paddle
wheels were suspended over the sides of the vessel. Like all old inventors he refused to explain the mechanism. The
following account was furnished for publication by the superintendent of the Spanish royal archives.

"Blasco de Garay, a captain in the navy, proposed in 1543, to The Emperor and King, Charles the Fifth, a machine to
propel large boats and ships, even in calm weather, without oars or sails.

"In spite of the impediments and the opposition which this project met with, The Emperor ordered a trial to be made
of it in the port of Barcelona, which in fact took place on the 17th on the month of June, of the said year 1543.

"Garay would not explain the particulars of his discovery: it was evident however during the experiment that it
consisted in a large copper of boiling water and in moving wheels attached to either side of the ship.

"The experiment was tried on a ship of two hundred tons, called the Trinity, which came from Colibre to discharge a
cargo of corn at Barcelona, of which Peter de Scarza was captain.

"By order of Charles V, Don Henry de Toledo, the governor, Don Pedro de Cordova, the treasurer, Ravago and the
vice chancellor and intendant of Catalonia witnessed the experiment.

"In the reports made to the emperor and to the prince, this ingenious invention was generally approved, particularly
on account of the promptness and facility with which the ship was made to go about.

"The treasurer Ravago, an enemy to the project, said that the vessel could be propelled two leagues in three hours that
the machine was complicated and expensive and that there would be an exposure to danger in case the boiler should
burst.

"The other commissioners affirmed that the vessel tacked with the same rapidity as a galley maneuvered in the ordinary
way and went at least a league an hour.

"As soon as the experiment was made Garay took the whole machine with which he had furnished the vessel, leaving
only the wooden part in the arsenal at Barcelona and keeping all the rest for himself.

"In spite of Ravago's opposition, the invention was approved and if the expedition in which Charles the Vth was then
engaged had not prevented, he would no doubt have encouraged it.

"Nevertheless, the emperor promoted the inventor one grade, made him a present of two hundred thousand
maravedis and ordered the expense to be paid out of the treasury and granted him besides many other favors".