Blasco de Garay

Blasco de Garay (1500 – 1552) was a Spanish navy captain and inventor.

De Garay was a captain in the Spanish navy in the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. He made several important contributions to navigation. The most important was the development of the paddle wheel, which had already been used in late antique Rome and also in China, as a substitute for oars, accredited by the discovery of documents found in the General Archives of Simancas by the scholar Joaquin Rubió i Ors and presented in 1880. According to some sources, he may have made the first attempt to power a ship by steam.citation
url = http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/garay/
title = Blasco de Garay's 1543 Steamship
year = 1996
series = Rochester History Resources
publisher = University of Rochester
accessdate = 2008-04-24]

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The attribution to Blasco de Garay of the test of a steam engine made on a boat in the port of Barcelona was noted in 1825 by Tomás González, director of the royal archives of Simancas, to the distinguished historian Martín Fernández Navarrete. González stated that in that file there is documentation endorsing a test conducted in navigation on June 17, 1543 by the Naval Captain and Engineer of the navy of Charles V of a navigation system with no sails or oars containing a "large copper of boiling water". Navarrete published González's account in 1826 in "Baron de Zach's Astronomical Correspondence".citation
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=oDQDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA13&num=100
title = The steam engine familiarly explained and illustrated; with numerous illustrations
last1 = Lardner
first1 = Dionysius
authorlink1 = Dionysius Lardner
year = 1851
place = Upper Gower Street, and Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, London
publisher = Taylor, Walton, and Maberly
page = 13] The letter from González to Martín Fernández Navarrete is as follows:

:"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 17^th 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 V^th 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."citation
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=avcCyVp0T3sC&pg=PA134&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA16,M1
title = The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated: With an Account of Its Invention
last1 = Lardner
first1 = Dionysius
authorlink1 = Dionysius Lardner
year = 1840
page = 16
publisher = Taylor and Walton] citation
title = Stories of Inventors and Discoverers in Science and the Useful Arts: A Book for Old and Young
year = 1860
last1 = Timbs
first1 = John
publisher = Harper & Brothers
place = Franklin Square, New York
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=sfI6cdeFet8C&pg=PA472&num=100#PPA275,M1
page = 275]

:"This account is derived from the documents and original registers kept in the Royal Archives of Simancas, among the commercial papers of Catalonia, and from those of the military and naval departments for the said year, 1543." Simancas, August 27, 1825, Tomas Gonzalez.citation
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=SKAEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&hl=en#PPA6,M1
title = Journal of the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania and Mechanics' Register. Devoted to Mechanical and Physical Science, Civil Engineering, the Arts and Manufactures, and the Recording of American and Other Patented Inventions.
editor1-last = Jones, M.D.
editor1-first = Thomas P.
volume = XXV
place = Philadelphia
publisher = The Franklin Institute
year = 1840
page = 6]

The failure to find documentation confirming that letter led to a controversy between French and Spanish scholars.citation
title = History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce
first1 = William Schaw
last1 = Lindsay
page = 12
year = 1876
publisher = S. Low, Marston, Low, and Searle
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=bDoSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&num=100#PPA12,M1] The issue gained such popularity that Honoré de Balzac wrote a play, a comedy in a prolog and five acts,citation
last1 = Wedmore
first1 = Frederick
last2 = Anderson
first2 = John Parker
title = Life of Honoré de Balzac
year = 1890
publisher = W. Scott
page = ii
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=DlyXgPXpmIAC&pg=RA1-PR2&num=100] with the theme as an argument entitled "Les Ressources de Quinola"citation
url = http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7417
publisher = Project Gutenberg
title = The Resources of Quinola by Honoré de Balzac] which premiered in Paris on March 19, 1842 and which tended to support the Spanish claim.citation
title = 1543 - 1555. Copernic. Potosi. Nostradamus. Ambroise Paré
publisher = Un journal du monde
last1 = Peltier
first1 = L.
year = 2008
date = March 21, 2008
url = http://www.unjournaldumonde.org/2008/03/21/1543-1555-copernic-nostradamus-ambroise-pare/?m=2008] citation
editor1-last = Urban
editor1-first = Sylvanus
title = The Gentleman's Magazine
year = 1884
date = July to December 1884
volume = CCLVII
page = 308
place = London
publisher = Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=U_EIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA308&num=100]

Other inventions

Garay himself sent the emperor a document setting out eight inventions which included:citation
first1 = J. Barto
last1 = Arnold
first2 = Robert S.
last2 = Weddle
title = The Nautical Archeology of Padre Island: The Spanish Shipwrecks of 1554
publisher = Academic Press
year = 1978
page = 81
isbn = 0120636506
url = http://books.google.com/books?num=100&id=zuwTAAAAYAAJ&q=%22without+oars%22&pgis=1#search]

# A way to recover vessels underwater, even if they were submerged a hundred fathoms deep, with only the aid of two men.
# An apparatus by which anyone could be submerged under water indefinitely
# Another device to detect objects on the seabed with the naked eye.
# A way to keep a light burning underwater.
# A way to sweeten brackish water.

Had he obtained research funding, the importance of Garay could have been immense. Despite the fact that commissioners gave the Spanish king positive reports, the Finance Minister, for superstitious or other reasons, refused to authorize the project.

References

External links

* [http://www.mgar.net/mar/vapor.htm Spanish article on history of steam propulsion.]