Copper in HistoryFact 11 of 28
The first example of copper to clad the underwater hull of a ship was the H.M.S Alarm in 1761. It was used to prevent attack of the wooden hull by the Teredo worm in tropical waters. The copper was also found to reduce biofouling of the hull very significantly, which gave ships a great advantage of speed when compared with those dragging around a vast growth of marine weed. The cladding kept ships in commission at times when others had to be dry-docked or careened on a shore for hull scraping. This significantly enlarged the effective strength of the British Navy.
