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Blasco de Garay (1500 – 1552) was a Spanish navy captain and inventor.

The Spanish mariner Blasco de Garay was a captain in the Spanish navy in the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. He made several important contributions to navigation. The most important was the development of the paddle wheel , which had already been used in the fourth century in China and Byzantium, as a substitute for oars, accredited by the discovery of documents found in the General Archives of Simancas by the scholar Joaquin Rubió Ors and presented in 1880. According to some sources, he may have made the first attempt to power a ship by steam.

Proof of steam navigation

The attribution to Blasco de Garay of the test of a steam engine made on a boat in the port of Barcelona was noted in 1825 by Tomás González, director of the royal archives of Simancas, to the distinguished historian Martín Fernández Navarrete. González stated that in that file there is documentation endorsing a test conducted in navigation on 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:

"Blasco de Garay, a captain in the navy, proposed in 1543, to the Emperor and King, Charles the Fifth, a machine to propel large boats and ships, even in calm weather, without oars or sails. In spite of the impediments and the opposition which this project met with, the Emperor ordered a trial to be made of it in the port of Barcelona, which in fact took place on the 17^th on the month of June, of the said year 1543. Garay would not explain the particulars of his discovery: it was evident however during the experiment that it consisted in a large copper of boiling water, and in moving wheels attached to either side of the ship. The experiment was tried on a ship of two hundred tons, called the Trinity, which came from Colibre to discharge a cargo of corn at Barcelona, of which Peter de Scarza was captain. By order of Charles V, Don Henry de Toledo the governor, Don Pedro de Cordova the treasurer Ravago, and the vice chancellor, and intendant of Catalonia witnessed the experiment. In the reports made to the emperor and to the prince, this ingenious invention was generally approved, particularly on account of the promptness and facility with which the ship was made to go about.

The treasurer Ravago, an enemy to the project, said that the vessel could be propelled two leagues in three hours that the machine was complicated and expensive and that there would be an exposure to danger in case the boiler should burst. The other commissioners affirmed that the vessel tacked with the same rapidity as a galley maneuvered in the ordinary way, and went at least a league an hour.

"As soon as the experiment was made Garay took the whole machine with which he had furnished the vessel, leaving only the wooden part in the arsenal at Barcelona, and keeping all the rest for himself.

"In spite of Ravago's opposition, the invention was approved, and if the expedition in which Charles the V^th was then engaged had not prevented, he would no doubt have encouraged it. Nevertheless, the emperor promoted the inventor one grade, made him a present of two hundred thousand maravedis, and ordered the expense to be paid out of the treasury, and granted him besides many other favors."

"This account is derived from the documents and original registers kept in the Royal Archives of Simancas, among the commercial papers of Catalonia, and from those of the military and naval departments for the said year, 1543." Simancas, August 27, 1825, Tomas Gonzalez.

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 play, a comedy in a prolog and 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 support the Spanish claim.

Other 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.

Had he obtained research funding, the importance of Garay could have been immense. Despite the fact that commissioners gave the Spanish king positive reports, the Finance Minister, for superstitious or other reasons, refused to authorize the project.

External Links

• Spanish article on history of steam propulsion.