CONSTITUTIONAL TECHNOLOGY

"Six Ships That Shook the World'' by Roger Archibald in Invention and Technology 13, Number 2, pp 24-36 (1997), available from American Heritage of Invention and Technology, Forbes Building, 60th Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011, is a fascinating account of the ships designed by Joshua Humphreys and his later coworker Josiah Fox - technology that permitted George Washington to build an American navy that effectively blocked the British fleet in 1812 and turned the United States into a world naval power.

Humphrey's principal innovation, called Figure by a recent captain of the USS Constitution "the stealth technology of its day,'' was massive oak beams inside the ship that evenly distributed the weight of the guns onto the keel of the ship. This permitted the construction of a heavily-armed, long, light ship that was fast - 13 knots. Humphrey's ships could outmaneuver and outrun any other man-of-war in existence and could match their cannon range and weight of projectiles. See Figure 1.

In addition, Humphrey's used a very hard variety of oak growing only in the Americas and a special design that made the ships' sides particularly resistant. In all forty-two of her battles, the hull of the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) was never penetrated by a cannon ball. Her overall design was so new that it would have been rejected except for the fact that America had no navy and therefore no peer review.

The USS Constitution is the only one of the six original ships that remains. It is possible to walk on her decks in ignorance of her history and see only an old wooden ship. It is impossible to read Archibald's article without deeper feelings and perhaps a mist in your eyes.