Blasco de Garay


Blasco de Garay was a Spanish navy captain and inventor.
De Garay was a captain in the Spanish navy in the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. He made several important inventions, including diving apparatus, and introduced the paddle wheel as a substitute for oars. In the nineteenth century, a Spanish archivist claimed to have discovered documents that showed that de Garay had tested a steam-powered ship in 1543. However, these claims have been discredited by the Spanish authorities.

Biography

There is no record of Blasco de Garay's birth or of his familial connections except for the mention in his memorial of an older brother, a Diego de Alarcon, who lost his life as an army captain in Italy. At the time there were several people of the Garay name who distinguished themselves in letters and in the military service who seem to have been from the minor nobility in the Castilian city of Toledo. That his brother's name was in the Castilian form "Diego" supports a Castilian origin. The most plausible account is that he was an impoverished minor nobleman, educated in letters, who out of necessity went into the King's service but, as he wrote, dedicated himself to the sciences and invention.

Inventions

Garay himself sent the emperor a document setting out eight inventions which included:
  1. A way to recover vessels underwater, even if they were submerged a hundred fathoms deep, with only the aid of two men.
  2. An apparatus by which anyone could be submerged under water indefinitely
  3. Another device to detect objects on the seabed with the naked eye.
  4. A way to keep a light burning underwater.
  5. A way to sweeten brackish water.

    Steamship controversy

The attribution to Blasco de Garay of the testing of a steam engine made on a boat in the port of Barcelona was claimed in 1825 by Tomás González, director of the royal archives of Simancas, to the distinguished historian Martín Fernández Navarrete. González stated that in a file he had found, there is documentation endorsing a test conducted June 17, 1543 by the Naval Captain and Engineer of the navy of Charles V of a navigation system with no sails or oars containing a large copper of boiling water. Navarrete published González's account in 1826 in Baron de Zach's Astronomical Correspondence. The letter from González to Martín Fernández Navarrete is as follows:
Steamboats were in fact not introduced to Spain until 1817. Real Fernando, launched in 1817 and which plied the Guadalquivir River from Sevilla to Sanlucar, was probably the first steamboat built in Spain. She was joined by PS Hope, built at Bristol in 1813.
The belated claims made on behalf of Blasco de Garay have since been discredited by the Spanish authorities.

The failure to find documentation confirming that letter led to a controversy between French and Spanish scholars. The issue gained such popularity that Honoré de Balzac wrote a comedy, made of five acts, with the theme as an argument entitled Les Ressources de Quinola which premiered in Paris on March 19, 1842 and which tended to be sympathetic to the Spanish claim.