The "R. R. THOMPSON" (a build thread)

[Kevin WS]

Well, it looks very effective!

[Michael Mash]

I read the Wikipedia article about R.R. Thompson being piloted through the “Cascades” rapids on June 3, 1882, in order to take the boat to the lower river.
The article indicates this boat (going with the speeding current) reached a speed of a mile a minute (60 miles per hour).
Hard to believe.
Mike

[FRD]

Right Michael, the process was to take it down the rapids during, "spring runoff" when the water would be at its highest and subsequently, the rapids at their swiftest, if I'm not mistaken, this was one of six ships that shot the rapids at the end of their service on the middle river.

[Kevin WS]

Michael - after reading your post I went and had a look at the same article.

I agree with you that this is hard to believe - the more so since the article also mentions that the vessel was "was not a fast boat. Rather she deliberately was built for comfort".

I wonder if speeds like that would have been feasible for the vessel both in terms of structural strength and controllability.

Perhaps Fred you can shed some light on the above? Would those speeds have been feasible? What are your thoughts?

[Kevin WS]

Fred - I see our posts crossed!

So a vessel of that size and design would have stood up and been controllable at those speeds?

[Michael Mash]

It must have been a "gamble".
My guess: Perhaps if the boat was no longer of use on the upper river, they had nothing to loose attempting to get her to the lower river. With a little luck, it worked.

[FRD]

Kevin, I don't think there was too much control to it, once pointed downstream you were at the mercy of the currents, perhaps small incremental changes in course could be made at that speed but I think that once you started you were pretty much committed.


The reason they always state that it was a, "mile a minute" is because the upper cascades were about a mile long from the "Upper Landing" near Cascade Locks Oregon to the "Lower Landing" near the present day Bonneville Oregon/Washington, they basically noted the time it took from the upper landing to the lower landing, the two "safe points" that the ship could dock in route.


All of the ships that transited the rapids did so before the turn of the 19th century when the Cascade Locks were built to circumnavigate the rapids, prior to the locks being built and the town renamed, it used to be known prior as, "Whiskey Flats" or simply, "The Cascades"


The Upper and Lower Landings were actually on the North bank of the river in what is now Washington State, the upper landing near Stevenson Washington and the Lower landing near the present day Bonneville Washington with the upper cascades rapids between the two.


There were actually three sets of rapids that comprised the Cascades, the lower cascades, middle cascades and the most treacherous, the upper cascades, all within a five mile stretch of river, primarily from Dodson Oregon to Cascade Locks Oregon.


This is also the five mile stretch that was portaged by the Oregon Pony locomotive, it was definitely a "frontier" in the settlement of the Oregon Territory.


So far the three ships that I have done have all, "shot the rapids", I anticipate that all six of this series will fit into that category.

[Don Boose]

Fred - It's a great thing that you are contributing to remembering and preserving this Pacific Northwest history and preserving those great old ships in paper.

Don

[southwestforests]

Keep in mind that the boat was being carried downstream by the current's flow rate at whichever speed the water was moving relative to immobile ground & then within that moving medium the boat needed to make some of its own speed within that moving medium in order to have steerage way.
So ...
Like an airplane flying in a jet stream wind, where it might be doing 120 knots within an environment which itself is moving at 100 knots, the airplane's ground speed would be 220 knots going with the jet stream wind and only 20 knots ground speed if flying against the jet stream wind.
Or ...
The classic example of the fly in the Concorde's galley ...
If the Concorde is going supersonic and the fly flies at 4mph, how fast is the fly flying?
Which means ...
The boat was moving inside of an environment, the water, which itself was moving relative to the ground.
So ...
the boat might have been doing 18 knots inside of an environment, the water, which was itself moving at 30 knots.
Relative to the water it is floating in the boat is doing 18 knots but since that water is itself moving downstream at that 30 knots,
the boat is doing 48 knots relative to that approaching rock.

[maurice]

Built tough in the first place to cope with ardurous river trading.
Still at that time few people had ever traveled at 60mph (+) - (whilst surviving - vertical falls ) and no doubt many still believed it could kill you.
An exciting few minutes