'20-h DESCRIPTION OF 



5th of that month being in Latitude 4*1 Longitude 65 from the 

 meridian of London, she experienced a heavy gale of wind, 

 and while running 8 and 9 knots, a large sea struck her stern 

 and carried away the rudder at the waters edge, when the ves- 

 sel immediately broached to. The main-mast was sprung and 

 the hull lay exposed to every sea. In this unfortunate situation, 

 Capt. Mugford was reduced to the necessity of steering the 

 ship with cables over the quarters for upwards of twenty days, 

 making however the best of his way towards the western Is- 

 lands and Madeira. The weather during all this time was ex- 

 tremely boisterous, and the ship much exposed to the Sea. 

 It was during this interval that Capt. Mugford planned and 

 executed his temporary rudder. This rudder is made of a spare 

 top-mast and other spars we.ll lashed and secured together, and 

 fastened to a false stern-post by eye-bolts serving as braces, and 

 crowbars and other substitutes for pintles. The false post is also 

 firmly secured to the old stern-post by the guys and old rudder 

 braces which are tennoned into it, tiller ropes are fixed to each 

 end of an old iron tiller; or for want of it, an iron anchor- 

 stock, or a piece of scantling, or a spar is fixed across the rud- 

 der and supported with rope-braces, so that the vessel is steered 

 in the usual manner with the wheel : — and in order to keep 

 this rudder steady in its place, while fixing it, a cannon or some 

 other sufficient weight is fastened to the bottom of it. 



Capt. Mugford (after observing that great difficulty would 

 be avoided in the construction, if the master of every vessel, 

 was in possession of the measure of the rudder and the precise 

 distance of the gudgeons,) informs us that he found it to answer 

 every purpose which could be expected from a temporary rudder, 

 that his vessel was found to steer by it with the greatest ease, and 

 that he sailed with it during fifty days, at the end of which time 

 he arrived in safety at the port of his destination. 



The drawing of the rudder, the following description of it, 

 and the remarks subjoined, were furnished to the society by 

 Capt. William Jones, one of their associates, from the model 

 of the rudder sent by the Inventor and deposited in the cabinet 

 of the Society. 



