Monitor turret installation question

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Harper's Weekly, September 1862:

Now, this image was published about eight months after the event, so I'm not startled that it may not be accurate. In fact, I had always been under the impression that the Monitor's turret was not installed until after the launch. However, now I'm confused, because on page 48 of John D. Broadwater's USS Monitor: A Historic Ship Completes Its Final Voyage (Texas A&M, 2012), he writes of the launching, "Reports indicate that [the builders] reduced weight by not installing all of the layers of iron armor on the turret" for launching, which would seem to indicate that the turret was indeed in place, if incomplete. Anyone else bump into anything like this elsewhere?

 

[ExNavyPilot]

I'll see if I can find anything in some of my sources.

 

[tmh10]

I found this site that implies the turrent was on at launch. Don't know how accurate it is.

Its iron hull and low-lying iron deck, on which was mounted a revolving turret holding two heavy guns, was of revolutionary design. It was an odd-looking vessel, dubbed "the Yankee cheese-box on a raft." It was launched by a crew of volunteers recruited from the Brooklyn Navy Yard's receiving ships (where officers and men waited until they were able to join their ships). After the launching from Greenpoint, on its first night out, heavy seas rolled over the Monitor's low-lying deck, washed out the caulking in the turret, and gushed into the berth deck.

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/day-history-january-30-launching-monitor

 

[ExNavyPilot]

If I remember correctly, a docent at the Monitor Center (Mariner's Museum, Newport News, VA) mentioned the following:
Erickson's design did not include caulking of the turret/deck seam but instead used a brass ring upon which the turret would press down and stay sealed. The Navy did not trust the brass ring idea, mariners having used fiber caulking in seams for centuries, so they added the fiber caulking on top of the brass ring. This had a detrimental effect in rough seas in that when the ship rolled heavily and the turret was temporarily tilted or lifted slightly from the deck, some caulking could be washed out of the seam. Now, when the ship righted and the turret weight was pressing fully and evenly on the seam, there were exposed areas--holes--around which the remaining caulking kept the turret lifted up ever so slightly and allowed for more rocking of the turret and leakage at the seam. At least some historians/ship designers believe that the caulking added on top of the brass ring hastened the demise of the Monitor in the storm off the NC capes.
Has anyone else heard this idea?

Regarding the presence of the turret during launch, I haven't found anything compelling but I believe that the turret was in place at launch (but may well have not been fully plated.) I surmise they wanted that big hole in the top of the hull (which by design had so little freeboard) filled so if any problems arose and water washed over the deck, the water wouldn't fill the hull rapidly and sink the Monitor into ignominy.

 

[Dugger]

If I remember correctly, a docent at the Monitor Center (Mariner's Museum, Newport News, VA) mentioned the following:
Erickson's design did not include caulking of the turret/deck seam but instead used a brass ring upon which the turret would press down and stay sealed. The Navy did not trust the brass ring idea, mariners having used fiber caulking in seams for centuries, so they added the fiber caulking on top of the brass ring. This had a detrimental effect in rough seas in that when the ship rolled heavily and the turret was temporarily tilted or lifted slightly from the deck, some caulking could be washed out of the seam. Now, when the ship righted and the turret weight was pressing fully and evenly on the seam, there were exposed areas--holes--around which the remaining caulking kept the turret lifted up ever so slightly and allowed for more rocking of the turret and leakage at the seam. At least some historians/ship designers believe that the caulking added on top of the brass ring hastened the demise of the Monitor in the storm off the NC capes.
Has anyone else heard this idea?

Regarding the presence of the turret during launch, I haven't found anything compelling but I believe that the turret was in place at launch (but may well have not been fully plated.) I surmise they wanted that big hole in the top of the hull (which by design had so little freeboard) filled so if any problems arose and water washed over the deck, the water wouldn't fill the hull rapidly and sink the Monitor into ignominy.

YES! Erickson designed it so the turret pressed tightly (which it did, weighed a lot) on the ring. No need for caulking. I have read bout this. May not have sunk had the Navy not added the caulking. There is a book, dang cant think of it's title. Addresses this issue.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

If I remember correctly, a docent at the Monitor Center (Mariner's Museum, Newport News, VA) mentioned the following:
Erickson's design did not include caulking of the turret/deck seam but instead used a brass ring upon which the turret would press down and stay sealed. <snip!> At least some historians/ship designers believe that the caulking added on top of the brass ring hastened the demise of the Monitor in the storm off the NC capes.
Has anyone else heard this idea?

This is what Ericsson maintained to his dying day, that had those pesky Naval officers not tried to 'improve' upon his designs by caulking, there wouldn't have been a problem. However, there seems to be enough evidence to suggest that the main problem was that the turret was merely set in place by its own weight, therefore the seam could "work" in rough seas, admitting water; if there had been some mechanism to more firmly lock the thing down in place, perhaps things would have come out better... maybe. (One thing that is clear is that if you took the Monitor and turned her upside down, the turret would fall right off; this is precisely what happened when she sank.) So the way it was sealed wasn't really the issue; the problem was there would be enough of a gap opening and closing all the way around to cause a problem.

It also seems that the way things were caulked on the Cape Hatteras voyage were not the same way things had been secured for the initial trip from Brooklyn to Hampton Roads, which was also a very near-run thing. It looks to me like they were trying to apply some "lessons-learned" but it didn't help.

The Passaic was on the same trip, a few miles off, towed by the State of Georgia, when the Monitor sank; Captain Percival Drayton of the Passaic made the call to turn back and not attempt to round Cape Hatteras that night, which may have saved her. Since more monitors successfully went 'round Cape Hatteras in the war, I'm wondering what might have been the difference in either design or in preparation that enabled them to do so.

ETA Or... a further thought... they took a page from Drayton's book and just waited for better weather to make the attempt.

There's an interesting possibility that the commo between State of Georgia and Passaic was better than between Rhode Island and Monitor; Drayton and the State of Georgia's skipper had worked out a set of agreed flag and flare signals, whereas there doesn't seem to have been as much preparatory communication between the Monitor and the Rhode Island.