THE ARCTIC S. S. “ROOSEVELT”
In July, 1904, in one of the charming villas overlooking the city of Bar
Harbor a meeting took place, small as to numbers but weighty with
importance in the affairs of the Peary Arctic Club, for at that meeting
was taken the formal step which meant the building of the _Roosevelt_.
Four men were present at the meeting: Morris K. Jesup, Lewis L.
Delafield his counsel, Captain Charles B. Dix, and myself.
Mr. Jesup had stated some time previous, that if subscriptions to the
Peary Arctic Club could be secured to the amount of $50,000, including
his own generous check for not less than half that sum, he would assume
responsibility for the construction of the ship and guarantee the
contract, thus insuring the construction of the ship in time to go North
in 1905, and giving nearly a year additional time in which to secure the
additional funds necessary.
Up to this time the interest had not been particularly widespread. The
amount of subscriptions was still short of $50,000, but time was
pressing and the material must be ordered at once in order to give even
a reasonable chance of completing the ship in time.
Personally I felt no doubt but what the total amount of money could be
raised, and yet it must be admitted that the prospects were none too
favourable and discussion did not seem to appreciably clear the
situation.
Mr. Jesup was as deeply interested as I, and was not only willing but
anxious to do everything in his power to put the matter through, but he
hesitated at assuming too much responsibility because, as he frankly
told me, he did not feel, much as he wished to, that he could properly
assume the entire burden of the expedition.
Finally Captain Dix said that he would order the timber for the building
of the _Roosevelt_ on his own responsibility; that he believed the money
would be raised, and that if it were not, he would assume whatever loss
might result from his action. His statement was like a ray of sunlight
both to Mr. Jesup and myself, for it brought out clearly the fact that
there was something in the project which appealed irresistibly to
business men of big ideas.
The next scene which I recall most distinctly was in another beautiful
villa in Vermont, commanding miles and miles of beautiful country and
with a regal mountain and forest domain back of it. It was just before
the 1st of August, the date on which the $50,000 must be subscribed to
insure the signing of the contract for the construction of the ship. The
total still fell several thousands short of that amount. Mr. Colgate had
already promised a generous check with an intimation that he might
increase it if it were necessary.
At this meeting there were but three: Mr. Colgate, Judge Darling,
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and myself. The situation was presented
to Mr. Colgate, and with characteristic promptitude and generosity his
check was increased by an amount that rounded out the $50,000 and so the
building of the _Roosevelt_ became a certainty.
[Illustration:
CAPTAIN CHAS. B. DIX. BUILDER OF THE “ROOSEVELT”
]
[Illustration:
THE “ROOSEVELT” ON HER TRIAL TRIP, JUNE, 1905
]
[Illustration:
THE PEARY ARCTIC CLUB’S S. S. “ROOSEVELT”
]
In approaching the general question of a ship for Arctic or Antarctic
ice navigation, one thing is immediately apparent to anyone at all
conversant with the matter, _i. e._, that she should be as small as is
consistent with carrying the party, supplies, equipment, and coal for
the work planned.
The reasons for this are evident. The smaller a ship is, the stronger
she is, and the more easily handled.
In looking for facts to show the results of past experience in this
field, it is at once discovered that practically all ice boats past and
present have been built by the three countries, Scotland, the United
States, and Norway, for the prosecution of the whale and seal fisheries.
In this work the Norwegians have operated in the seas about Spitzbergen,
Jan Mayen, East Greenland, and Nova Zembla; the United States in Hudson
Bay and Bering Sea; and the Scotch principally in the chain of waters
comprising Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Lancaster Sound and their
tributaries, with a few voyages to East Greenland and Hudson Bay.
The ice conditions encountered by the Norwegians and Americans may be
very broadly stated as floes and broken ice drifting in an open sea,
through which the ships have to thread their way.
The ice conditions encountered by the Scotch whalers, are a nearly solid
expanse of one season’s ice in Melville Bay, and when that is passed,
heavy ice in narrow land-locked channels, notorious for their strong
currents, the direction of which is opposed to the course of the
whalers.
It has been said by one writer that the American whalers use their steam
to keep out of the ice, while the Scotch use theirs to get into and
through it.
Comparing existing ships of the Scotch, Norwegian, and United States
whaling fleets, it is found that the following average proportions of
beam to length exist:
Scotch, 1:5.75
Norwegian, 1:4.7
American, 1:4.5
It is seen at once that the Norwegians and Americans have not departed
from the old-fashioned sailing ship model. (The average ratio in our
modern Bath-built schooners is 1:4.78.)
The Scotchmen have a finer model, and since this model is a practical
evolution by shrewd seamen and builders from an experience of over one
hundred and twenty-five years, in a business where large financial
returns were the lot of the best ship; and the seas where that
experience was secured and for which that evolution was designed, are
the seas to be navigated by the proposed ship, it seemed clear that the
Scotch model was the one on which to base our studies.
The problem of size did not present itself in the present instance in
quite the form that it did to Nansen, and the English and German
Antarctic Expeditions. In these instances the size of the party and the
length of time it was to be absent being determined upon, and the coal
consumption of the engines fixed, it was easy to calculate the cargo to
be carried which, plus the dead weight of the ship and machinery, gave
at once the displacement needed.
In the present case it was regarded as practicable to determine in
advance upon a size and proportion of ship which should most nearly
balance and meet the various requirements, and let the difference
between her displacement, and her own dead weight, go for cargo
capacity, of which the greater portion would be coal.
The size fixed upon was 184 feet over all by 35 feet beam by 16 feet
draft, loaded. (Load water-line 166 feet.) This gives a ship of nearly
the same length, but a little greater beam than the English Antarctic
ship, _Discovery_. Her length ratio would be 1:5.26, not quite as fine
as the Scotch average, but much finer than the Norwegian or American
models.
Such a ship is in the same class as the _Terra Nova_, _Bear_, _Thetis_,
and _Neptune_ of existing whalers, the _Proteus_ (lost), and the
exploring ship _Discovery_.
Length and beam having been determined, the form of hull was next to be
considered. In the navigation of the particular regions contemplated by
the Expedition, a light draft is preferable to a heavier one, as
enabling the ship to go closer to the shore, and thus get round a
barrier, or retreat close in shore from advancing heavy ice, and let it
ground outside of the ship.
The element of light draft also enters into the consideration of the
lifting of the ship under heavy pressure from ice-floes. The deeper a
ship is in the water, the more difficult will it be for her to rise and
save herself.
It has been well said that while a form of hull that would allow a ship
to rise easily and readily under ice pressure is desirable, and this
desirability has been recognised, no ship previous to the _Fram_ had
been built to meet that requirement.
In the _Fram_ almost everything else was sacrificed to this requirement.
Seaworthiness was sacrificed, and as the _Fram’s_ experience in her two
voyages shows, ability to make her way through ice was sacrificed.
For the purpose for which she was designed, _i. e._, to enter the ice
and then drift with it, evading destruction from ice pressure, she was
well adapted, but as the designers of the German Antarctic ship _Gauss_
said in discussing the _Fram_ model, she would have been even better
adapted for this had she been bowl-shaped.
Contrary to popular ideas, the work which an Arctic ship has to do is
not principally that of breaking up one season’s ice, as is done by
harbour and river icebreakers, in Canadian and Russian waters for
instance. Such conditions of level, unbroken ice of uniform thickness
are found only in Melville Bay on the upward voyage, where the one
season ice is encountered, and late in the season when the new ice is
beginning to form. The main work of the Arctic ship is that of threading
and pushing and wedging and prying her way among and between and around
fragments and cakes and large floes of ice, the latter of such thickness
(twenty to fifty or seventy feet) that nothing could break a passage
through them. Of course, nothing can be done but squeeze a way around
these. It is for this reason that the powerful Russian _Ermack_ is not
available for a Polar voyage, and why she is not treated of in this
discussion. Fifty _Ermacks_ merged in one could not break through these
floes, and in squeezing around them the _Ermack_ could not carry enough
coal to take her half-way to the Pole.
To return to the hull model. In the _Fram_ everything was sacrificed to
secure certainty of lifting under pressure. In the _Gauss_, which is a
modified _Fram_, while the broad beam of the _Fram_ (thirty-six feet)
was retained, greater length was given the ship to render her a better
sea boat for the long voyage from Germany to the Antarctic Circle. Her
ratio is 1 to 4.25 as compared with the _Fram’s_ 1 to 3.25. The
_Gauss’s_ draft, however, is excessive (nineteen feet).
As already noted, great draft is a disadvantage in the region under
consideration, and every increase in beam makes impassable leads which
otherwise would be available, and greatly increases the power required
and the difficulties of pushing a way through loose ice.
The English _Discovery_ was built, as was to be expected, on the lines
of the Scotch whalers, with a little broader beam. Her ratio is 1 to
5.27. Her draft is a little less than that of the whalers. She was not
specially modelled to rise under pressure, but was specially constructed
(as the _Fram_ and _Gauss_ were not) for ramming a way through opposing
ice.
The model selected for the _Roosevelt_ was intended to meet the
requirements of lifting under pressure, of being short enough to handle
easily, and of being able to ram a passage through heavy ice effectively
and continuously.
Detailed features of these requirements are as follows:
For lifting under pressure, steel-sheathed sides, sloping bilges, flat
floor to prevent heeling when lifted, flush stem and keel, raking stem,
raking stern (this a new feature). For forcing a way through loose ice:
sharp wedge bow, and full counter to keep ice from propeller. For
ramming ice: a sharply raking stem, steel-sheathed.
From this general description, it will be understood that while the hull
model contained the best features of preceding ships, it was not a
departure from ordinary models, like the _Fram_ and _Gauss_, but rather
a modification of them to meet special requirements.
When the question of power was approached, there was a radical
departure, in fact a complete reversal of previous practice in Arctic
ships, and the adoption of ordinary commercial practice.
Hitherto Arctic ships have had full sail power (full-rigged bark being
the favourite rig) and auxiliary engines, often of surprisingly puny
power. The object of this has been economy of coal, and the consequent
ability of the ship to cover long distances at slow speed, and remain
away from home for a period of years.
The _Roosevelt_ is a powerful steamer, with all the engine force she
could contain, and with only moderate sail area. There is no question in
my mind but that this is the correct principle upon which to build a
modern Arctic ship for effective results.
The Smith Sound or “American” route is especially advantageous for this
method, presenting a coasting voyage, facilities for placing coal
depots, the key of the route condensed in a few hundred miles of heavy
ice navigation, and the possibility of even obtaining coal _in situ_
along the route.
The _Roosevelt_ had engines capable of developing one thousand
horse-power. They were of the inverted, compound type, driving a single
eleven-foot propeller, and steam was supplied by two water-tube boilers
and one Scotch boiler. Her sail plan is a light, American, three-masted
schooner rig, possessing the advantage of light weight (it is to be
remembered that every pound of weight saved in rigging or fitting means
a pound of coal in the hold), and small surface to be forced through a
head wind; yet sufficient to materially help the engines in a favouring
wind, and to enable the ship to make her way home should her coal be
exhausted.
As to construction: The strength of the hull must be such that it will
resist the terrific pressure of the ice-floes, and keep its shape intact
until the lifting of the ship bodily releases the pressure; such that if
supported at each end only, or in the middle only, or thrown up on the
ice and resting upon her bilge, during the paroxysms of the floes, she
will not be strained or injured; and such that she can ram the ice by
the hour when necessary, without injury to seams or fastenings.
It is a popular fallacy that steel is a suitable material for the
construction of an Arctic ship. A steel ship, though structurally
strong, is peculiarly vulnerable locally to the ragged, rock-like
tongues and corners of heavy Arctic ice.
The elasticity, toughness and resiliency of thick wooden sides are
essential in an Arctic ship; but the wood planking may be steel-sheathed
on the outside to enable the ship more easily to slip from the grip of
the ice, and the methods of composite ship building may be utilised in
the interior of the vessel, to reduce weight, while at the same time
increasing its structural strength, and not lessening the strength and
rigidity of the interior bracing.
In the interests of strength, the frames of the _Roosevelt_ were made
treble, keel, keelson, stem and stern-post exceptionally strong; the
planking is double; the deck beams, and especially the ’tween-deck
beams, which are to be just below the water-line, are extra heavy, and
spaced more closely than usual. Additional struts from the bilges, and
strong posts from the keelson, longitudinal tie plates at the waterways
and on the upper-deck beams, and transverse bulkheads, add still further
to her great strength.
In the interest of lightness there is no ’tween-deck planking, no
interior fittings; and the spars and rigging are made as light as
possible.
The keel, false keel and keelsons are of oak, and form a rigid backbone
to the ship six feet in height. The stem and rudder and propeller posts
also are of massive oak timbers, the former having a depth on the ship’s
axis of seven to ten feet, to take the blows when ramming ice. The
frames also are of oak, placed almost close together, and each composed
of three thicknesses of timber bolted together to give great strength.
The planking is double, yellow pine inside and oak outside.
The sides of the ship are from twenty-four to thirty inches thick.
[Illustration:
A STUDY IN BRONZE
Typical face of Eskimo woman
]
[Illustration:
AHWEAHGOODLOO
Four-year-old Eskimo girl dressed in blue fox kapetah and sealskin
kamiks
]
To keep even these heavy sides from being crushed in, they were
reinforced by heavy deck beams placed unusually close together, and a
lower tier of heavy beams just below the water-line forming with steel
rods and inclined posts and struts to the ship’s sides and bilges, a
strong truss at an interval of every four feet in the length of the
ship.
The housing of the personnel of the expedition in light structures on
deck, which personal experience has shown to be much the simpler and
better plan than below decks, permits a stronger and more effective
arrangement of these trusses than has been attained in previous ships.
The interior of the bow, which is to the ship what the _cestus_ was to
the ancient gladiator, is filled in solid with timbers and iron.
The stern also, as well as the stem, is iron-plated, and the rudder
post, which is the Achilles’s heel of an Arctic ship, is of unusually
strong construction. The rudder is so arranged that it can be hoisted on
deck out of the way of the ice if necessary. The propeller is so
arranged that it can be used either as a two-bladed or a four-bladed
propeller, and is made of unusual strength. Powerful deck appliances in
the shape of windlass, steam capstans and winch, enable the ship to warp
herself out of a dangerous place, or pull herself off the bottom should
she get aground.
The whole plan and theory of the ship was, first, that her strength, her
power, her weight, her carrying capacity, should all be below the main
deck, and that everything above deck—houses, bulwarks, spars, sails,
rigging, boats and equipment—should be as light as possible, to permit
more coal in the hold; and second, that not a dollar was to be wasted on
fittings or frills, everything to be for strength, power, and
effectiveness.
The keel of the _Roosevelt_ was laid October 15, 1904, in the McKay &
Dix shipyard at Bucksport, Maine, and the ship was launched the 23d of
March, 1905, Mrs. Peary shattering a block of ice containing a bottle of
champagne against the steel-clad stem as the hull glided down the ways
and christening the ship _Roosevelt_.
The installation of the machinery began two days later at Portland,
Maine, and was practically completed in less than two months.
The official measurements of the ship are as follows: length, 184 feet;
breadth, 35.5 feet; depth, 16.2 feet; gross registered tonnage, 614
tons; maximum load displacement, about 1,500 tons. The backbone of the
ship, viz. keel, main keelson, stem and stern posts, as also her frames,
plank sheer, the waterways, and garboard strake, are white oak. Beams,
sister keelsons, deck clamps, ’tween-deck waterways, bilge strakes,
ceiling, and inner course of planking, yellow pine. Outer planking,
white oak, and decks, Oregon pine. Both the ceiling and outer course of
white oak planking are edge-bolted from stem to stern and from plank
sheer to garboard strake. The fastenings are galvanised iron bolts,
going through both courses of planking and the frames, and riveting up
over washers on the inside of the ceiling.
Special features of the ship are as follows:
First, in model, a pronounced raking stem and wedge-shaped bow; very
sharp dead rise of floor, affording a form of side which cannot be
grasped by the ice; a full run to keep the ice away from the propeller;
a pronounced overhang at the stern to still further protect the
propeller, and a raking stern-post.
Second, peculiarities of construction; the unusual fastening, as noted
above; the unusual and massive arrangement of the beams, and bracing of
the sides to resist pressure; the introduction of screw tie rods to bind
the ship together; the development of the ’tween-deck beams and
waterways on a water-line, instead of on a sheer, like the upper-deck
beams; the placing of the ceiling continuous from sister keelson to
upper-deck clamps, and the placing of the ’tween-deck waterways, deck
clamps, and the bilge strakes on top of the ceiling; the filling in of
the bow almost solid where it meets the impact of the ice; the massive
and unusual reinforcement of the rudder post to prevent twisting; the
adoption of a lifting rudder, which may be raised out of danger from
contact with the ice; the armouring of the stem and bows with heavy
plates of steel; the protection of the outer planking with a 2–inch
course of greenheart ice sheathing.
Peculiarities of rig are: pole masts throughout; very short bowsprit,
which can be run inboard when navigating in ice of considerable
elevation; three-masted schooner rig with large balloon staysails. The
_Roosevelt_ carries fourteen sails, including storm staysails, and has a
sail area somewhat less than that of a three-masted coasting schooner of
the same size.
Peculiarities of the machinery installation are: a compound engine of
massive construction; an unusually heavy shaft of forged steel 12 inches
in diameter; a massive propeller 11 feet in diameter, but with blades of
large area, which are detachable in case of injury; a triple boiler
battery; arrangements for admitting live steam to the low-pressure
cylinder, in order to largely increase the power for a limited time; an
elliptical cruiser-type smoke-stack to reduce wind resistance.
The best quality of material and labour were put into the ship, and it
was believed and has since been proven that she is the ablest ship ever
built for Arctic exploration.