That's one way to launch

June 29, 2022 4:44 PM

The Naphtha Engine: "After steamboats got a reputation of danger from explosion, the Coast Guard required operators to be licensed, thereby removing steamboats from small owner/operator utilization. The outboard motor would solve this problem eventually, but in 1885 it didn’t exist. In 1883 Frank W. Ofeldt took out a patent on a naphtha engine which was essentially a closed loop steam engine that used naphtha instead of water." A Twitter thread on naphtha launches from Dreadnought Holiday. Some extant examples: "Anita" and "Frieda." See also: Powered by Boiling Petrol.
posted by mandolin conspiracy (16 comments total)

If you're fortunate enough to gain access to Mystic Seaport's archived collection of boats, you can see the Lillian Russell.

Turns out I didn't take any pics myself when I had the chance, but there's one here. Alas, not the greatest, but it's sitting in a dimly lit warehouse these days. You can also get the line plans and construction offsets, if you're feeling saucy about building one yourself. You're on your own vis a vis the engine, though.
posted by ursus_comiter at 5:46 PM on June 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Nothing scares me the way naphtha does. In the army when in the field we had immersion heaters to provide hot water for morning ablutions. The way they worked was exceedingly simple: a galvanized trash can filled with water was heated by a stovepipe type device with a bucket full of naphtha that would drip in a controlled manner onto a flash pan. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how things could go wrong. The first and most common mistake was to put too much naphtha in the flash pan when you first start it. At least a dozen times I’ve heard the FOOM! of an immersion heater shooting from between the tents into the sky, followed by the sight of a disoriented plug with his eyelashes singed off.
posted by furtive at 5:54 PM on June 29, 2022 [8 favorites]

The whole "it only works well if you're in a boat, because water cooling" thing is kind of a great little engineering gotcha.

I'm only familiar with naptha very indirectly; the pigment "napthol red" is (by processes I can't particularly parse with my lack of chemistry knowledge) I believe a derivative from the hydrocarbon, which is in that general mode of being an industrial byproduct the case for a whole lot of late 19th and early 20th C. synthetic pigments.
posted by cortex at 6:01 PM on June 29, 2022

Naphtha is benign and dangerous at the same time. Basically mineral spirits but with the toluene and benzine still in it.

Other junk I'm sure but hey if it's a closed system!
posted by Max Power at 6:14 PM on June 29, 2022

I wonder if someone's tried to make Naphtapunk a thing.

Certainly this part of the twitter thread seems like a story prompt:

Legendary pacifist and 'merchant of death' Alfred Nobel had a naphtha launch made of aluminium. I'm slightly disappointed he didn't try lobbing his products off the stern in an early version of Project Orion instead.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:16 PM on June 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

I wonder if any of those ships were ever mothballed?

I'll show myself out.
posted by hippybear at 6:21 PM on June 29, 2022 [17 favorites]

I'm waiting for the 'same word for slightly different things' metafilter fun re: what we mean when we say naphtha.
posted by bartleby at 6:29 PM on June 29, 2022

Naphtha? Barely know her
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:03 PM on June 29, 2022 [4 favorites]

I wonder if someone's tried to make Naphtapunk a thing.

There's Lyra's world in His Dark Materials, which is lit by "naphtha lamps" which seem to take the place of gaslight. They aren't described in detail but I assume are what we'd call Coleman lamps (not the kind that run on propane).
posted by BungaDunga at 7:19 PM on June 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

Naphta powered cigarette lighter and pulse firing potato glider.
posted by clavdivs at 7:20 PM on June 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

so much ferrous spaghetti

Love this. It would be a great account name.
posted by hovey at 7:23 PM on June 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

Speaking of naphtha lamps, there's a great set of Technology Connections videos on hurricane lamps, gas mantles, and pressure lamps.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:38 PM on June 29, 2022 [4 favorites]

I wonder if the vaporetti that ply the canals of Venice were so named because they initially were powered by naphtha.
posted by acb at 1:05 AM on June 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

> RonButNotStupid:
"I wonder if someone's tried to make Naphtapunk a thing.

You must not be familiar with classic Coleman Fuel appliances and the collector scene around them. Stoves, heaters, lamps and lanterns, even clothes irons. Coleman Fuel is Naptha with some corrosion inhibitors added.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 6:21 AM on June 30, 2022 [2 favorites]

Naptha is the main ingredient in old-school mothballs. Fun fact, battlefield scenes with shell explosions on the ground can be done with a can of crushed mothballs having a small charge at the bottom.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:21 AM on June 30, 2022

The 70 foot twin screw motor yacht powered by 2 12 horse naphtha engines must have moved at a rather sedate pace.
posted by rockindata at 2:35 PM on June 30, 2022