Blasco de Garay

Biography

No record of Blasco de Garay's birth or family exists except a mention of an older brother, Diego de Alarcon, an army captain killed in Italy. Several people of the Garay name, likely from minor nobility in Toledo, distinguished themselves in letters and military service. The most plausible account describes Garay as an impoverished minor nobleman, educated in letters, who entered the king's service out of necessity and dedicated himself to sciences and invention.

Steamship controversy

In 1825, Tomás González, director of the royal archives of Simancas, claimed to have found documentation of a test conducted on June 17, 1543, by a naval captain and engineer of Charles V of a navigation system without sails or oars that contained a large copper of boiling water. González communicated this to historian Martín Fernández Navarrete, who published the account in 1826. According to González's letter, Blasco de Garay proposed the machine to the emperor in 1543, and despite opposition, a trial was ordered in the port of Barcelona on the stated date.

The experiment was conducted on a ship of two hundred tons called the Trinidad, whose captain was Peter de Scarza. Witnesses included Don Henry de Toledo, Don Pedro de Cordova, treasurer Ravago, and the vice chancellor and intendant of Catalonia. The invention was generally approved in reports to the emperor and prince, particularly for the ship's promptness and facility in going about. Treasurer Ravago opposed the project, stating the vessel could travel two leagues in three hours but that the machine was complicated, expensive, and dangerous if the boiler burst.

Other commissioners affirmed the vessel tacked as rapidly as a galley and made at least a league an hour. After the test, Garay removed the entire machine, leaving only the wooden parts in the Barcelona arsenal. These claims have been discredited by Spanish authorities; it has been proposed that González mistook a steam-powered desalinator created by Garay for a steam boiler.