Photo: A frame from the video
On the pages of the American edition of Jalopnik, a material appeared dedicated to the armored monitor “Novgorod”, built in 1870 in Russia. The first such ships were built by the northerners during the Civil War in the United States – their first ship was called “Monitor”. Outwardly, it looks like a huge plate filled with military equipment.
This vessel was driven by steam power, had a rotating drive tower. Such vessels had a low side, were suitable for patrolling rivers, but it made no sense to use them at sea.
The designer of the “Novgorod” was the rear admiral of the Russian Imperial Fleet Andrey Alexandrovich Popov. First he made a plan of the ship, then a mock-up, and then he achieved the construction of the ship itself. The ship was powered by six steam engines with a total capacity of 3,360 horsepower. “The steam engines and boilers were so massive that they occupied about half of the internal volume of the ship,” the author of the article notes.
The maximum speed of the “Novgorod” did not exceed 12 km/h. It took 45 minutes for the ship to turn around completely. It could be called clumsy – and the reason lay in its shape. However, because of the same shape, it could spin around its axis very quickly.
Soon, such vessels began to be used for the coast guard. In bad weather, they became almost uncontrollable. “At least during one trial voyage upstream of the Dnieper, this ship (and another larger one called “Vice Admiral Popov”) was spun by the current, and they became uncontrollable. Almost everyone on board experienced an unpleasant dizziness, ” the article says. The author adds that the very fact of the existence of such ships is surprising.