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Title: Bomb Ketch (1858)
Description: Engels's short article on the bomb ketch, the old sailing mortar vessel.
Author: Friedrich Engels
Date: 1858
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/originales/1858%20Bomb%20Ketch
---


*Written by Frederick Engels about October 5, 1857, and published unsigned in* The New American Cyclopædia *(New York: D. Appleton and Company), vol. III, 1858, p. 452. Text of the Cyclopædia, from the public-domain scans in the Internet Archive (newamericancycl21danagoog), with the OCR corrected against the page images; collated with the German version in Marx/Engels,* Werke*, vol. 14 (Berlin, 1961), p. 146, and found complete. Misprints of the Cyclopædia are kept and pointed out in the notes of the translation.* [Traducción al español](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/1858%20Galeota%20bombardera)

BOMB KETCH is now generally used to designate the more old-fashioned sort of mortar vessels (*galiotes à bombes*). They were built strong enough to resist the shock caused by the recoil of the mortar, 60 to 70 feet long, 100 to 150 tons burden; they drew from 8 to 9 feet water, and were rigged usually with 2 masts. They used to carry 2 mortars and some guns. The sailing qualities of these vessels were naturally very inferior. A tender, generally a brig, was attached to them, which carried the artillerymen and the greater part of the ammunition, until the action commenced.