CHAPTER XII

MISCELLANEOUS APPLICATION OF STEAM-POWER

Tugs -- Cargo-boats -- Floating Docks -- Ferries -- Icebreakers --

Yachts -- Eccentricities of Design -- Conclusion

Not the least important of the types of steamers which throng the

ports of the world--or which used to do so, for their number is

decreasing--is the tugboat. Up to a few years ago it played a most

important part in the work of a port; every sailing ship entering

port usually engaged the services of a tug; many ports, like that of

London, could not be entered at all by a large sailing ship without the

services of “a fair wind ahead,” as sailors often call the tug, and in

the waters outside the Port of London the tugboats found one of the

best “pitches” in their business. To be towed safely into port might

mean a saving of many days in avoiding the waiting for a wind. The tug

was equally useful to a ship leaving port, as she might not only tow

her into the open sea, but might even take her right out of sight of

land altogether, in helping her along until a favourable slant of wind

was met. At ports like Liverpool sailing-ship masters often, when wind

and tide were favourable, brought their ships into port under full sail

without a tug, though probably three or four of them kept her company

in the hope that their services would be required, as they generally

were when the time came to enter dock.

Nowadays sailing ships are few in number and are becoming fewer, and

steamers seldom require aid. They enter and leave port under their own

steam and even at times dispense with a tug when passing through the

dock entrance, their own steam or a steam capstan ashore being found

sufficient.

But a certain amount of towing has still to be done, and the tug is

then able to prove herself indispensable. She has often to tow a ship

from one coast port to another, while for rescue work on the coast

their services mean all the difference between success and failure. A

lifeboat is towed to a wreck or vessel in danger. The tug, which has

perhaps been several hours fighting her way forward against a howling

gale and a terrific sea which threatens to overwhelm her, then stands

by, and a paragraph in the papers to that effect is about all the

recognition she gets, yet the perils undergone by the men on the tug

are no less real than those of the lifeboatmen. Year in and year out

the tugs pursue their calling, and it must indeed be bad weather that

will induce a tugboat captain to seek the shelter of a harbour if his

bunkers are fairly full and he sees a chance of doing business.

The feats performed by some tugs are extraordinary. They will undertake

a voyage of a few thousand miles as serenely as one of as many yards.

Cleopatra’s needle, in its strange cylinder ship, was towed to this

country, after being lost adrift in the Bay of Biscay, by a well-known

London tug. Among the most remarkable recent feats are the towing of

immense unwieldy floating docks from this country to South American

west-coast ports; it is not too much to say that a tug-owner will

cheerfully undertake to tow anything that will float from any one

seaport to any other.

The cargo steamer until ten or fifteen years ago possessed no special

features. It was simply a big box carrying propelling machinery and as

much cargo as possible on the smallest attainable registered tonnage.

Such vessels were usually loaded and discharged by the necessary

machinery on the quay side, while if the transfer of cargo had to be

to or from barges alongside, the operation was likely to be tediously

performed by means of a derrick or two, or a gaff with tackle that

might or might not be worked by a steam-winch. The increasing size of

vessels and the use of steel for steamer building rendered imperative

the adoption of faster methods, and the demands for special steamers

adapted for particular trades brought about the development in cargo

steamers of special types. These types have to a very large extent

taken the trade away from the steamer of the “tramp” class, which

wandered from port to port taking cargoes of anything or everything

from anywhere to anywhere. They were usually slow and uncomfortable

boats and the complaints made as to the condition of some of them were

fully justified. The demand for better cargo accommodation was met by

the supply of vessels of various types which are a tremendous advance

upon the old “tramp,” and their advent compelled the builders of

ordinary cargo carriers to produce a better and larger steamer in every

way, and fitted with modern appliances for the rapid and satisfactory

handling of cargo.

The cargo “tramps,” built about 1902, were on an average about 350 feet

long, 2800 tons gross and 4000 tons dead weight. In build they were of

the poop, bridge, and forecastle deck type with main deck below the

upper deck, and fitted with double bottoms. The appliances for working

cargo are extraordinarily complete and effective. To each hatch there

are usually two winches and two derricks, having 5 tons lift each,

with, as a rule, a heavy derrick capable of lifting from 20 to 30 tons;

the last is portable, so that it can be used at either of the two main

hatches. Cathead davits have been dispensed with as, with stockless

anchors, they are not required owing to the anchors stowing up the

hawse pipes. Officers, &c., are berthed in deckhouses built on the

bridge deck, leaving the bridge ’tween deck clear for cargo. Electric

light and steam-heating are fitted to all rooms, advantages not enjoyed

by older boats.

About the year 1904 the shelter-deck type reached its present stage

of perfection, the advantage of this type being increased cargo

capacity on a small net tonnage. The accommodation of officers and

engineers is fitted in midship deckhouses and side houses. Much more

attention is now paid to the ventilation of the holds and ’tween decks,

more especially in coal-carriers, where efficient ventilation is of

the highest importance. The adoption, within very recent years, of

wide-spaced pillars in holds and ’tween decks has greatly improved the

facilities for stowage of large cargo.

The four desiderata of a modern cargo-boat are that she should

have a low registered tonnage in comparison with her capacity,

ample water-ballast tanks, large hatchways, and holds as free from

obstruction as possible. Three or four methods are practised by

builders for attaining these objects, and every builder has made

modifications of them as time has shown the necessity of the changes to

meet varying trade conditions.

The principal types of cargo vessels are the turret, trunk, cantilever,

and side tank.

The earlier modern ocean-going steamers were usually flush-decked. This

left the machinery openings bare in the deck, so a bridge was added for

their protection, and the flush deck was further encroached upon by the

addition of a forecastle and poop. In some cases the quarter deck was

raised, which was an awkward arrangement on account of the change it

necessitated in the structure and framing, and in others the bridge and

poop were joined. What is sometimes called the “three island” type, a

very appropriate name in rough weather when the steamer takes a sea on

board, came into great favour; it consists of a forecastle, bridge, and

poop, and many vessels of considerable size have been built in that

style. The cattle trade was responsible for some important changes in

design, the “wells” where the cattle are carried being given iron and

steel shelters, which thus form the shelter decks, a type of light deck

introduced into the superstructure of most ocean-going steamers.

The secret of the turret steamer is strength without unnecessary

weight. Every ton of steel that can be kept out of a ship without

reducing her strength adds a ton to her carrying capacity. This

object is partly achieved in the turret steamer by the large amount

of flanging adopted in the construction of these vessels. This is

shown in the whole of the sheer strake and stringer plates, in the

deck and frames of the cellular bottom work, and with great success

in the joggled plating of the hull. Since 1895, when the Doxfords

introduced a new method of rolling ships’ plates with joggled edges,

they have built all their vessels under this system, making “packing”

unnecessary. The turret gives longitudinal strength in the hull and

leaves the hold clear. The strength is so great that in a steamer in

which, by the substitution of deep for ordinary frames, all internal

supports, beams, and girders are dispensed with, a clear hold is

obtained. The firm claims that 58 cubic feet per ton dead weight under

hatches is secured against 52 to 54 cubic feet per ton in the ordinary

type. Thus the turret carries more on a given displacement, and having

a lower registered tonnage, can earn more freight and save expenses.

There are several designs of turret steamers adapted to different

trades. Their suitability for bulk cargo, such as coal, or for large

and heavy packages, is evident, while other types are equally suitable

as passenger steamers, not a few lines having adopted them. Another

advantage is that deck cargoes of wood can be carried with perfect

safety on the turrets. Some of the cargo-boats designed for the ore

and coal trade have their machinery right aft, and their holds are

absolutely clear of obstruction of any kind whatever. Many of these

are mastless but are fitted with twin derricks, a 10,000-ton boat

carrying as many as seven pairs. The first of the mastless type was

the _Teucer_. Convention fixed the depth of hold at about 15 feet,

but now a depth of 26 feet and more is becoming fairly common. All

cargo vessels are built on the box-girder system, which ensures great

strength and capacity, and permits of enormous hatchways, and marine

engineers have solved the problem of providing greater speed without

additional expense.

Messrs. Doxford, in their latest attempt to solve the problem of the

easily-shifting cargo in bulk, proposed that vessels intended for

this trade should have inner upright walls fitted some distance from

the hull, and so arranged that when the vessel is heeled over within

the usual range of inclinations of a vessel at sea, the weight of the

cargo and the buoyancy create a restoring couple in all conditions of

loading. The spaces between the cargo-hold and the outer shell may be

left empty or used for water-ballast as required. In some instances

the bottom is reduced in depth as much as the loading regulations will

allow.

Among the more notable features of recent years in cargo-boats

specially adapted for the coal, iron ore, and other dead-weight

trades is the patent cantilever framed type of steamer built by Sir

Raylton Dixon and Co., Ltd., Cleveland Dockyard, Middlesbrough, on

the Harroway and Dixon patents. This type of boat has the advantage

of having totally unobstructed holds with very large hatchways and an

additional 75 per cent. water-ballast, which is placed in the tanks

inside the cantilever construction at the top of the holds under the

deck. In these steamers the space on either side and under the decks

is used for water-ballast, which is carried in triangular tanks at

either side of the vessel, immediately beneath the main deck. The

tanks extend from the coamings to the sides of the ship, the greatest

side of the triangle being towards the cargo and supported by the

cantilever framing; the tank framing and plating increase the strength

of the hull materially. The sloping topsides thus formed prevent bulk

cargo shifting. An advantage to the owner is that the tanks are exempt

from tonnage measurement. When these tanks are filled with water and

also the lower and peak tanks the vessel is seaworthy even if the

cargo-space is empty.

This additional water-ballast has the special merit of immersing the

ship deeper when in ballast only, consequently giving more power to the

propeller and rendering the ship more manageable when light, as well

as supplying unique security in case of damage, for when one of these

boats is loaded and the topside tanks are empty, they correspond to the

air tanks of a lifeboat and thus prevent the ship from sinking.

These vessels in some cases have been fitted with shelter decks right

fore and aft for the carriage of cattle and horses, and indeed would

be suitable for passenger service, for which the very easy rolling

movement would be a great recommendation.

This type of vessel has been on the market for about four years and

already some 200,000 tons have been built. One of the largest steamers

built on this plan is the _Echunga_, 405 feet long, 56 feet beam, and

28 feet 8 inches moulded depth. She was built in 1908 for the Adelaide

Steamship Company. Her net register is 2245 tons, her dead-weight

capacity 8400 tons, and her measurement 11,000 tons. Her topside tanks

contain 1350 tons, and her total water-ballast is 3200 tons.

In the steamers built by Messrs. William Gray and Co., Ltd., of West

Hartlepool, water-ballast is carried not only in the double bottoms

but in side tanks, the inner skin of the double bottoms being carried

a considerable distance up the sides. A hull within a hull is thus

formed, the intervening space being used as water-ballast tanks. Not

the least advantage is the great additional strength the ship is given.

The trunk system of shipbuilding adopted by Messrs. Ropner and Sons,

Ltd., of Stockton-on-Tees, differs from the turret by having a double

wall on each side, and has not the rounded turret base. The steamer

_Thor_, built for a Norwegian owner, has only one hold, no less than

250 feet in length, the engines being placed aft.

Messrs. R. Craggs and Sons, Ltd., of Middlesbrough, have made a

speciality of building tankers, and were the designers and contractors

for the first ocean steamer to load oil in bulk. Their stringerless

system of construction is, they claim, the last word in transverse

framing, and has numerous advantages for single-deck vessels.

During the last three years three distinct innovations in steam-ship

construction have been made. All three are of a revolutionary

character, and two are likely to have no small influence upon the

construction of both passenger and cargo steamers, while the third

is of great importance for the rapid loading and discharging of

coal and ore cargoes. The first of these is the Isherwood system of

longitudinal ship construction, in which the transverse frame as

ordinarily understood is dispensed with, but deep transverse web frames

are placed at intervals of 15 to 18 feet apart and extending right

round the ship, forming both frame and beam together. These frames are

intersected by longitudinal frames consisting of sections of convenient

form, preferably bulb angles, spaced about 20 to 30 inches apart, just

as transverse frames are under the ordinary system. The fore and aft

frames are fitted beneath the deck also, and are spaced from 30 to 50

inches apart. In the double bottom the fore and aft girders are formed

of plates and angles.

The first general cargo vessel on this plan was the _Craster Hall_,

launched in February 1908 by Messrs. William Hamilton and Co., Ltd.,

Port Glasgow. Her length is 392 feet 6 inches; breadth, 50 feet; depth,

29 feet to the upper deck; dead weight, 7300 tons.

[Illustration: THE “MONITORIA.”]

[Illustration: THE “IROQUOIS” AND THE “NAVAHOE.”]

Two oil-tankers, the _Paul Paix_ and _Gascony_, have been built by

Messrs. Craggs and Sons on this system. One of them grounded off Calais

with a cargo of oil or benzine on board, and on being dry-docked for

examination was found to have no damage to her plates whatever. All the

steamers built on the Isherwood plan have a marked absence of vibration

even when running light.

The corrugated steam-ship _Monitoria_, launched in the summer of 1909

by Messrs. Osbourne Graham and Co., Sunderland, to the order of the

Ericsson Shipping Company of Newcastle-on-Tyne, is another departure

from accepted ideas. She is an ordinary “tramp” steamer so far as

dimensions and engine-power go; her only difference, and it is an

important one, is that she has two corrugations running along each

side between bilge and load water-line, and extending from the turn of

the bow to the turn of the quarter. These corrugations do not project

very greatly, but according to the inventor, they so affect the stream

and wave action around and under the vessel that a source of wasted

energy is prevented, and more power becomes available for propulsion.

The _Monitoria’s_ dimensions are: length, 288 feet 6 inches over all;

breadth, 39 feet 10¹⁄₂ inches; the breadth over the corrugations

is nearly 42 feet. The space for bulk cargoes is greater than on

her sister ships by the cubic contents of the corrugations, but the

tonnages remain unaltered. As a sea-going ship it was found that the

corrugations made her much steadier, acting as though they were bilge

keels, and that the coal consumption was less, notwithstanding that

she made faster time than her sister vessels under precisely similar

conditions.

[Illustration: THE “MONITORIA”: TRANSVERSE SECTION.]

The third innovation is the application of the belt-conveyor principle

to a collier. The steamer _Pallion_, in which the machinery is

installed, is equipped throughout with twin belt conveyors which,

travelling fore and aft the vessel in a space under the cargo, carry

the cargo towards the stern, whence it is carried on other belts at

the front of the poop for delivery. The latter belts are carried on

swivel booms which can be raised or lowered or moved sideways, so that

the cargo is delivered direct by the belts into railway trucks on the

quay or into barges, and the operation can be conducted at the rate of

250 tons an hour on each side of the vessel simultaneously. Under this

system no shoots are used, and there is no handling of the coal. The

_Pallion_ requires only about six hours to discharge a full cargo with

six men, as against over a hundred men and eleven hours in the ordinary

way. Her water-ballast tanks can be emptied or filled as fast as the

cargo is placed in her or taken out. She was built by the Doxford firm

at Sunderland for a Newcastle Shipping Company.

The carrying of petroleum in bulk has spread enormously of late years

in both steamers and sailing vessels specially designed for the

purpose. In all such vessels the method of the subdivision of the

holds into tanks is of the greatest importance, together with that of

ventilation, and every builder and owner of such vessels has his own

theories as to the best means to be adopted. A later type of tanker

has the engines astern. A further innovation in this class of steamer

is to fit them for burning oil fuel, the two big tankers _Oberon_ and

_Trinculo_ having had the necessary installation placed in them last

year at Smith’s Dock, North Shields, sometimes called “the home of

tank-steamer repairing work.”

An economical method of transporting oil in bulk across the Atlantic is

adopted in the case of the steamer _Iroquois_, which herself carries

about 10,000 tons of oil in bulk, and also tows with her the sailing

barge _Navahoe_, carrying an equal quantity, one set of engines thus

doing duty for both cargoes. The _Navahoe_ is the largest sailing ship

in the world, is schooner-rigged on all her six masts, and is able to

make her way to port in case she becomes separated from her consort.

The floating dock is one of the most interesting of the many

developments in connection with the naval and mercantile marine of the

second half of the nineteenth century. Like all innovations, floating

docks were received with derision.

Now they have proved their worth, but circumstances are easily

conceivable in which all the marvels they have already accomplished

will be far eclipsed by what they may be called upon to do. In the case

of a naval battle, for instance, it may be a matter of impossibility

for a crippled warship to enter a dry dock, or even to get to one; but

a floating dock can be sent to meet the injured warrior and possibly

save it from going to the bottom altogether.

The floating dock is a sort of raft, and the first man who ever hauled

a boat from the water upon another boat or raft to repair, it started

the idea of the floating dock. The first real floating dock, as the

term is now understood, was probably that which was improvised in the

Baltic Sea, so tradition says, by the skipper of a vessel which had

sustained some damage in those waters. He bought an old hulk, removed

the stern, and in its place constructed a flap gate. His vessel was

then floated into the hulk, the flap gate was closed and the water

pumped out. Floating docks of this type were almost the only kind known

up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and are in use to-day

at some ports for small yachts, fishing-boats, and vessels of similar

dimensions.

With the growing size of vessels, greater docking facilities became

necessary, and, as the commerce of the world increased and ports were

developed, demands arose for docking accommodation which could not

always be met, owing in some cases to financial difficulties, and in

others to the engineering difficulties connected with the localities.

As a solution of the problem, the floating dock, as it is known to-day,

was invented. In spite of the opposition with which it was greeted,

the new contrivance held its own, and its merits became generally

recognised.

The difficulties and the cost of constructing dry docks are very great,

and the time taken in the work may run into years; one dock, indeed, is

stated to have taken fifteen years to complete.

As an instance of rapidity of floating-dock construction, the Vulcan

Company of Stettin required a dock 510 feet long and of 11,000 tons

lifting power at short notice. The complete dock with all machinery and

fittings was launched within seven and a half months, and within eight

months and thirteen days of the inception of the project, the dock,

after being towed across the North Sea and moored in place at its site,

was sunk ready to receive its first ship. The Havana dock was delivered

at Havana within eleven months after the signing of the contract for

its construction; the actual time expended on it, dating from the day

the first plate was laid until the complete dock was launched, was six

months and a day. Both these docks are of over 10,000 tons lifting

power. How long would it have taken to excavate and build graving

docks capable of receiving vessels of the size that these docks can

accommodate?

No dry dock can take a vessel larger than itself, and in reckoning the

dimensions of a dock for receiving purposes it must be remembered that

its cill is a fixture, that the width of the entrance at the cill must

not be made greater than the strength of the structure will permit, and

that though a dock may in other respects be able to receive a vessel

it cannot do so if that vessel through any mishap should draw as much

water as that at depth of cill, or if in heeling over, its bilges

should be wider than the width of the dock entrance. None of these

drawbacks apply to the floating dock. These immense modern structures

of steel and iron can receive vessels longer than themselves, and

in the case of the off-shore docks, can receive vessels wider than

themselves.

Should a vessel be heavily down by the head or stern, a floating dock

can be tilted to lift it, and should the vessel be heeling over,

the dock itself can be inclined so that it shall receive it without

difficulty. Yet another advantage is that the floating dock can be

used in any kind of ordinary weather. Lying at its moorings it is head

on to wind and sea. The amount of surface it opposes to the direct

action of wind and sea is comparatively slight. The very massiveness

of its structure reduces longitudinal and lateral motion to a minimum,

especially when submerged. Even with a fairly heavy sea running, a

damaged and leaking vessel can be brought upon the dock where its

weight, added to that of the dock itself, makes the combined structure

additionally stiff, so that the necessary repairs can be undertaken in

safety as soon as the vessel is lifted, and with as much ease as if the

dock and its burden were in still water. Floating docks also can be

used at any state of the tide, but he would be a rash man who attempted

to warp a vessel into an ordinary dry dock with the tide running past

the entrance with any degree of strength.

[Illustration: OLD FLOATING DOCK AT ROTHERHITHE, circa 1800.]

The earliest type of the modern floating dock is that known as the box

dock. It consists of a pontoon divided into cells or compartments,

and having on either side a large wall also divided into compartments

arranged in tiers, the ends of the structure between the walls being

open. The earliest of these docks were made of wood, and compared

with those of later date were of small dimensions. One of the most

noteworthy wooden docks was that at Rangoon, launched in February

1866, and having a length of 300 feet, with a breadth of 90 feet, and

an inside breadth of 70 feet, and able to take vessels drawing from

15 to 16 feet of water. There is also at Altona a wooden floating

dock built in 1868 and still in active use; it is 138 feet in length,

and can lift vessels up to 420 tons register. The early floating docks

were usually in transverse section like the capital letter =[U]=,

and followed fairly closely the form of the round-bottomed ships of

the time. As the girder principle, however, became introduced in

shipbuilding it was recognised that floating docks must be constructed

approximating to that shape, and modern floating docks are now built

rectangular in transverse section, though in constructional details

this form is a modification of the =[U]= shape.

Floating docks themselves are in occasional need of repair, and when

it was found that they could be constructed of a greater size than any

then existing dry dock, it being customary to dry dock them for repair,

the necessity arose of devising a means whereby the repairs could be

made without taking the floating dock out of the water. Sometimes

a dock can be tilted endways or sideways as occasion requires, for

a portion of its under-water surface to be exposed, but there is

obviously a limit to this operation and to the effectiveness with which

work under these conditions can be carried out. This difficulty was

met by constructing docks on the sectional principle, whereby any two

sections of a floating dock constructed in three sections can lift

the other one; while with off-shore docks, which are usually built in

two sections, either can lift the other. An attempt to careen the old

=[U]=-shaped Bermuda dock nearly capsized her altogether.

One of the earliest--if indeed not the earliest--of self-docking

double-sided docks is that associated with the name of Mr. Rennie,

and now generally known as the Rennie type, or, in an attempt made

at uniform classification of self-docking docks by Messrs. Clark and

Standfield, who probably have had greater experience of floating-dock

designing than any other firm in the world, the “sectional pontoon”

dock. This is an extremely simple form of dock, consisting of a series

of similar pontoons connected together into a whole by the walls or

side girders, which run along each side on top of the pontoon, to which

they are attached by bolts. In self-docking, any particular pontoon can

be unbolted from underneath the walls, allowed to sink slightly, and

then be drawn out sideways, turned half round, and lifted on the rest

of the dock. The type is also very suitable for erection abroad, for

the pontoons can be built and launched separately, and, being but light

structures, require no expensive launching slips, whilst the side walls

can be erected on top of the pontoons after they are afloat.[100]

[100] “Modern Floating Docks,” by Lyonel Edwin Clark, M.I.N.A.

The first Bermuda Dock, launched at North Woolwich by Messrs. Campbell,

Johnstone and Co., in September 1868, was the largest built up to that

time, and was ordered by the Admiralty for the use of British ships in

the West Indian Squadron. It was 381 feet in length, 123 feet 9 inches

in extreme breadth, and had a total depth of 74 feet 5 inches. Caissons

enclosed a dock space of 333 feet by 83 feet 9 inches in width, capable

of receiving a vessel of 3000 tons. The section of the dock is of =[U]=

form throughout, though for convenience of towing, a tapered bow of

wood was added, and remained until it rotted off at Bermuda. The dock

was designed by Mr. Campbell. The sides consisted of a cellular space

20 feet in width, and midway between the inner and outer skin was a

water-tight bulkhead, running the whole length of the structure. Each

side was subdivided by longitudinal bulkheads into three compartments,

named from the bottom, the “air,” “balance” and “load” chambers, and

was further subdivided into twenty-four water-tight cells. The dock

was fitted with four steam engines and pumps on each side. Hitherto

all floating docks had been built in sections, shipped to their

destinations and erected there. The Bermuda dock, however, was towed

there, experimentally, and so successfully was the work accomplished

that the towing of floating docks across the ocean has become the rule,

and some wonderful feats of towing have been performed. This dock,

becoming unequal to the requirements of modern shipping, gave place to

the present dock built at Wallsend in 1902.

[Illustration: MODEL OF THE BERMUDA DOCK.]

The length of the present Bermuda dock is 545 feet over the keel

blocks, its width of entrance 100 feet, and it is capable of normally

taking vessels drawing 33 feet of water over keel blocks 4 feet high.

The walls themselves are 53 feet 3 inches high, and 435 feet in length,

and they form girders of enormous strength. Three pontoons, secured

to the lower portions of the walls by fish-plate joints, lugs, and

taper-pins, form the bottom or deck of the dock. The middle pontoon is

a rectangle 96 feet by 300 feet; the end pontoons, each 120 feet long,

taper for 49 feet towards their outer extremities to facilitate towing.

At this immersion the walls have a freeboard of 3 feet 6 inches, which

in urgent cases might be safely reduced by a foot or more in order to

increase the depth of water over the blocks. Its lifting power up to

pontoon-deck level is 15,500 tons, but by utilising the “pound” formed

by the bulwark surrounding the pontoon decks, additional lifting power

up to 17,500 tons can be gained. The dock, without its machinery,

weighs 6500 tons. When called upon to perform its maximum lift the dock

is sunk until the summit of its walls is but 2 feet 6 inches above

sea-level. Water is admitted into the three pontoons and the two side

walls, and from them removed by eight 16-inch centrifugal pumps at a

rate sufficient to lift an ironclad of 15,000 tons in three and a half

hours. In order that the dock may not tilt as it rises, the whole is

divided into fifty-six divisions, each of which is separately connected

with the pumps. By turning off cocks, water can be left in any desired

divisions, and the dock forced to incline in any direction for purposes

of cleaning and repairs. When undergoing its official tests the

Bermuda dock lifted H.M.S. _Sans Pareil_ over 11,000 tons, and after

its arrival at Bermuda it received and raised completely out of the

water H.M.S. _Dominion_, when that vessel was badly damaged through

stranding and was so down in the water as to displace nearly 17,000

tons.

It is specially important that a structure of this kind should be

self-docking, that is, able to lift any part of itself clear of the

water. To expose the bottom of one side the dock is first lowered to a

depth of 20 to 21 feet, the water inside the wall compartments being

brought to the same level as that of the water outside. The dock is

then raised by emptying the pontoons, and when these are exhausted the

water is released from the side to be exposed until the outer corner is

two feet or more clear. The pontoons are lifted in turn by withdrawing

the pins of one, and allowing it to float, while the rest of the dock

sinks. The pontoon is then made fast to the walls at its floating

level, and the dock emptied, so exposing the whole of the bottom of the

raised pontoon. The two end sections can be treated simultaneously,

and floated if required on to the central portion, but the latter must

be moved only when the other pontoons are in position. Electric lights

and hauling machinery are distributed over the dock. A crane capable of

lifting five tons runs along each wall from end to end.

A somewhat similar dock to that at Bermuda, slightly shorter but of

greater lifting power, was designed for the Navy Department of the

United States of America, and constructed by the Maryland Steel Company

at Baltimore, and stationed at Algiers near New Orleans. Its length is

525 feet over blocks, its entrance 100 feet, and its lifting power up

to pontoon-deck level no less than 18,000 tons, making it as regards

lifting power then the most powerful dock in the world. This lifting

could be increased to 20,000 tons by using the “pound.” Its hull weight

is 5850 tons.

[Illustration: SELF-DOCKING OF THE BERMUDA DOCK (WELL HEELED).]

[Illustration: BERMUDA DOCK: CENTRE PONTOON SELF-DOCKED]

It is interesting to note the different methods adopted by the

Governments of the two countries for the shoring or berthing of the

ships on the dock. The English custom in the case of ironclads of the

pre-_Dreadnought_ era, and also that of Italy and Japan, is to support

the armour belt on more or less vertical shores inserted under an

angle-iron firmly attached to the belt.

These shores are put into position as the ship is rising, and, as the

water recedes, more and more shores are inserted. The Bermuda dock

has large and heavy altars constructed for this purpose. The American

custom is to strengthen the bilges of their ironclads with strong bilge

docking keels, forming, with the keel proper, a level bottom. No shores

are required beyond those necessary to centre the vessel, and no great

care is required in adjusting the berth, and one set of bilge blocks

does for all sizes of vessels. The American plan affords a great saving

in weight and quantity of shores, and, what is more important, a great

saving in time, not only in the preparation of the berth and centreing

of the ship, but also in the actual lifting. With the American plan it

would be perfectly feasible to dock a vessel completely in the time

required to centre and adjust her with shores disposed according to

English practice.

The Penarth Floating Dock was constructed in 1909 at Wallsend to the

order of the Penarth Ship Building and Ship Repairing Company, Ltd.

The dock is of the off-shore or single-walled type, and is one of

the finest of its kind. It has an over-all length of about 380 feet,

an extreme width of 75 feet, and is capable of accommodating vessels

having a beam of 55 feet, with a draught of water up to 18 feet, and

a displacement of 4200 tons. Its pumping machinery consists of four

centrifugal pumps and engines, for which steam is supplied by two large

Babcock and Wilcox boilers, working at 160 lb. pressure. This plant

can lift a vessel of 7000 tons dead weight in three-quarters of an

hour. For self-docking, the dock is divided transversely into two equal

portions, each with its own pumping plant, so that either section can

be docked by the other portion. A powerful steam capstan is fitted at

each end of the top wall to assist in warping vessels into position

when lifting or otherwise. It has eight mechanical side shores in

addition to the usual accessories for facilitating the rapid handling

of vessels, such as bilge shores, roller fenders, rubbing timbers, and

bollards. A duplex reciprocating pump, with a capacity of about 100

tons per hour, has a connection to the main drain of the dock, and

enables practically the whole of the water to be pumped out of the

dock. On the delivery side the pump is connected to a service-pipe,

which has connections at intervals for 3-inch delivery hose. The pump

is capable of throwing three jets of water to a height of 40 feet.

To enable this floating dock to enter the wet dock in which it was to

work, the entrance to which is several feet less than the width of the

dock, a joint was provided running the whole length of the pontoon. On

arrival of the dock in Penarth roads this joint was disconnected, and

the separate sections towed into the wet dock, and reconnected, and the

necessary attachment made to the quay wall.

[Illustration: BOLTED SECTIONAL DOCK LIFTING A VESSEL.]

The Callao floating dock, the towing of which to its destination from

the Tyne was the most hazardous towing feat ever accomplished, merits

special attention, both on account of the completeness of its equipment

and of the extraordinary interest which was manifested in its journey.

It is one of the double-sided self-docking type, known as “bolted

sectional,” and is divided into three separate portions. It is capable

of lifting vessels having a displacement of 7000 tons, but it is so

designed that this lifting capacity may be increased to 9500 tons at

some future period by the addition of a fourth section, making the

over-all length about 510 feet, the present length being 385 feet.

Its extreme width, _i.e._, the clearance between the rubbing fenders,

is 70 feet, and the draught over keel blocks is sufficient to take

vessels drawing 22 feet. As in previous floating docks built on the

Clark and Standfield principle, each section has its own independent

pumping machinery and steam-supply. Such usual accessories as keel

and bilge blocks, mechanical side shores, rubbing timbers, flying

gangways, head capstans, &c., are supplied, and there is also a heavy

mooring outfit of anchors and cables. The dock was launched in June

1908, and at that time satisfactorily completed a self-docking trial by

lifting one of the end pontoons alongside the Wallsend shipyard. For

this purpose the three sections of the dock were disconnected, and the

two end sections were turned round end for end, so that their points

came opposite to the central section which is square-ended. They were

then lowered under the water and drawn in under the central section.

On pumping out the end sections they rose, bringing up with them the

central section, which was then resting on their pointed ends. The dock

left the Tyne on August 20 of that year, in charge of the powerful

Dutch tugs _Roodezee_ and _Zwartezee_, each of which has an indicated

horse-power of 1500, their bunker capacity being 650 tons and 600

tons respectively. The dock in its journey to Callao was manned by a

captain, mate, engineer, and nine sailors.

It was fastened to the tugs by extra superior Manila ropes of 18

inches, with 30 fathoms of flexible steel wires of 4¹⁄₂ inches

circumference on both ends, while each tug had on board a new spare

rope of precisely the same size and quality. One tug broke down on the

way, and another had to be sent to Monte Video to take her place.

The time taken on the journey was 225 days, but after deducting the

delays in the Thames and at Monte Video, the time occupied on the

passage was only a little over four months.

The long voyage down the Atlantic, culminating in the passage of the

dreaded Straits of Magellan, caused the vessel to be kept upon the

marine reinsurance list almost from start to finish.

The distance from the Tyne to Callao does not represent a world’s

record for a tow of this nature, inasmuch as it has been exceeded by

the Dewey Dock built by the Maryland Steel Company of Baltimore for the

United States Government, which, in the summer of 1906, was towed from

America to the Philippines, a distance of 13,089 miles, in 150 days.

Great Britain, though a large builder and the principal designer of

floating docks, does not possess very many; possibly the number and

excellence of the dry docks scattered round her coasts may be the

explanation. But as dry docks are costly to make or alter, the British

Admiralty has ordered the construction at Wallsend of a floating dock

which will take the largest battleship afloat or likely to be built

for some years to come. In anticipation of the possible needs of the

mercantile marine, plans have been prepared for a floating dock with a

lifting power of 45,000 tons.

The largest floating dock in existence at present is at Hamburg, which

has a better equipment in this respect than any other port in the

world. It was built by Messrs. Blohm and Voss, the shipbuilders, for

their own use, and was completed last year and can lift 35,000 tons.

Hamburg has altogether eighteen iron and steel floating docks. Bremen

has three large floating docks, two of which, if used together, have a

lifting power of 3300 tons. The third dock, 385 feet long by 83 feet

inside measurement, can lift a vessel of 10,500 tons.

Other countries also have provided themselves with floating docks;

indeed there are few nations of any importance which have not several

floating docks, modern in type, of great lifting power, and thoroughly

equipped. A few, like Austria, reserve the docks for naval purposes

only.

[Illustration: THE “BAIKAL.”]

[Illustration: THE CARTAGENA DOCK.]

The life of the iron or steel floating dock of whatever type is likely

to be far longer, if care be taken of the structure, than might at

first be supposed. Rennie’s Cartagena dock, built of iron in 1859, was

in such splendid condition when the proposal was made to build a Havana

dock that as a counter-proposal it was suggested to send the Cartagena

dock there. The _Nicolaieff_ built in 1876, has been uninterruptedly

employed ever since in lifting the vessels of the Russian Navy. The

Victoria Dock is 310 feet in length, and of the hydraulic-lift type,

with a lifting power of 3000 tons, and has nine pontoons or trays of

a total length of 2185 feet, and an aggregate lifting power of 17,060

tons; the pontoons were constructed between 1857 and 1876, the largest

of them being of 5000 tons. The Malta dock, also of the hydraulic type,

is 340 feet in length, with a lifting power of 4000 tons, and was built

in 1871. It has two pontoons of 4000 and 2500 tons respectively. The

hydraulic floating dock at Bombay, built in 1872, was rather larger,

being 400 feet in length with a lifting power of 8000 tons, its pontoon

of the same length lifting 6500 tons. These lifts were designed by the

late Edwin Clark, M.I.C.E., who introduced floating docks from which

the present types have directly sprung. These hydraulic docks are no

longer at work.

The carrying of railway trains by ferry-steamers across stretches

of water too large to be bridged over is no new thing, there being

several such in the United States and Canada. Many of the vessels thus

employed are of considerable size. These waters are comparatively

landlocked, and the traffic, except in unusually stormy weather, is

seldom interrupted. The American ferry-boats are double-ended, so that

a train can enter at one end and leave at the other after crossing the

water, the ends of the ferry-boat and of the pier supporting the shore

lines being constructed to fit exactly. Most of the modern American

ferry-boats taking railway trains have two, three, or four sets of

rails on their decks, and accommodate their passengers on a deck above,

where the saloons and cabins are situated. Where the railway-level is

different on the two sides of the water, the boat or the landing-stage

is provided with hoisting machinery which raises the train to the

desired level, a truck or two or a passenger coach at a time.

The nature of the work these railway ferry-steamers have to perform,

and the fact that every one has to be built to suit the special

conditions of the ferriage where it is to be employed, make it

inevitable that no two of them are alike, except such as may be sister

vessels employed on the same station. In Russia the conditions are very

difficult. The current of the River Volga is swift, the height of the

water-level varies as much as 45 feet, and as the ice is frequently

two feet in thickness the work of maintaining the ferry is not to be

undertaken lightly. The vessel by which the service is performed was

built by Messrs. Armstrong, Mitchell and Co. To enable it to be sent

to its destination it was constructed in four parts, so that it would

pass through the Marinsky Canal to get to the Volga. The boat is 252

feet long by 55 feet 6 inches broad, and 14 feet 6 inches deep. It has

four lines of rails, converging at the bow into two, and altogether

can accommodate twenty-four trucks. At the bow is a high framework

for a hydraulic hoist which lifts the trucks between the deck and the

rails ashore, a distance of 25 feet, the difficulty of negotiating the

remaining portion of the difference in the level being overcome by

there being two levels of rails on the landing-stage. The propelling

machinery, of the surface-condensing type with twin screws, gives

the vessel a speed of nine knots an hour. The bronze propellers are

unusually strong and heavy to withstand blows from the ice in the

river; the actual ice-breaking to keep the passage clear is performed

by another steamer.

A ferry-steamer of a different type is that which plies across Lake

Baikal in Central Asia in connection with the Transasiatic Railway.

As the lake is frozen over for nearly half the year and the vessel

has to do duty as an icebreaker as well, the hull has been made

extraordinarily strong and heavy. The stem and stern are of massive

steel castings. The vessel, which is of steel throughout, is 290 feet

in length by 57 feet beam, and the draught of water is rather over 18

feet. The hull bears an outer plate an inch thick and 9 feet wide,

placed from end to end along the water-line as a further protection

against the friction of the ice. The vessel is also subdivided

extensively into water-tight compartments in addition to the usual

bulkheads. Over the railway deck are large and sumptuous public and

private staterooms. Three sets of triple-expansion engines have been

installed with boilers working at a pressure of 160 lb.; there are twin

propellers at the stern, and a third propeller at the bow.

This vessel is also remarkable as being probably the most rapidly

constructed vessel of her size in existence. Not six months elapsed

from the time the order was received until the steamer was built,

unbuilt, and packed on board a steamer ready for departure to Russia,

this including also the making of the engines. The packages were

conveyed as far as possible along the Siberian Railway and thence by

sledges to Lake Baikal, where the ship was re-erected.

The only sea-going railway ferry-steamer in existence is the _Drottning

Victoria_, launched in January 1909 from the Neptune Works of Messrs.

Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson, Ltd., to the order of the Royal

Administration of the Swedish State Railways. She was built to ferry

trains across the Baltic, between Sassnitz in Germany and Trelleborg

in Sweden, a distance of 65 nautical miles. High sea-going qualities

were necessary as the voyage is occasionally a very rough one. The

vessel is 354 feet in length by over 50 feet beam, and is propelled

by twin-screw triple-expansion engines, supplied with steam from four

large boilers working under Howden’s system of forced draught. The

trains are carried on two tracks on the car deck, occupying nearly the

whole surface of the deck. Above and below this deck is very luxurious

passenger accommodation. The vessel has been designed to be very steady

at sea, and has unusually large bilge keels fitted to minimise the

rolling. Spring buffers and other necessary appliances are arranged

to prevent the cars from moving when at sea. A bow rudder is fitted

as well as the stern rudder, and both are controlled by steam from

the captain’s bridge. The steamer has been divided into a very large

number of water-tight compartments, which, with the bulkhead doors with

which she is fitted, render her practically unsinkable. She is also to

be fitted with a submarine signal installation. The ventilating and

heating are ensured by an installation of thermo tanks, enabling fresh,

warm air to be forced into all the rooms in winter and fresh cool air

in summer. Her speed is over 16 knots per hour, and the journey is made

within four hours.

The performances of this boat are being watched with no small amount

of interest, as it has been suggested that if she should prove equal

to all requirements a modification of this form of steamer might be

successful in the cross-Channel service between Dover and Calais, or

other ports on either side of the English Channel.

[Illustration: _Photo. Frank & Sons, South Shields._

THE “DROTTNING VICTORIA.”]

Ferry-boats of other types exist by the score, from barges upwards,

propelled by an extraordinary assortment of contrivances, some of the

older and quainter of which have been referred to in an earlier portion

of this book. The historic Tyne ferries were withdrawn not long since

for financial reasons, but an attempt is being made to restart them.

The ferries at Glasgow and over the Mersey have each their own special

features, and even the Thames has not always been without penny

steamers. The Thames Steamboat Company and other organisations have

made the experiment. The later effort of the London County Council to

establish a service deserved a better fate, for the boats were well

built and the engines were compact and powerful for their size.

The necessity of keeping open waterways which Nature wishes to close

annually by freezing over, led to the invention of a species of

vessel planned with that object. The most famous ice-breaker is the

_Ermack_, launched in 1899 by Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co. for

the Russian Government, for which she was designed by Vice-Admiral

Makaroff. Many of the harbours of northern Europe are frozen over for

the greater part, and sometimes the whole, of the winter, to such an

extent that the ice attains a thickness of several feet; and navigation

is at a standstill so far as those ports are concerned. The only way of

keeping a channel open is to prevent the ice from freezing too thickly

to permit of the passage of vessels, and this is done by keeping a

vessel moving frequently up and down the channel to break the ice

before it can freeze so thickly as to become impassable.

An ice-breaking ship, to perform its allotted task, must be both

weighty and powerful, and capable of travelling at a speed sufficient

to give her the required momentum so that she may break the ice by the

sheer force of the blow she delivers when she rams it, and she must

be strong enough to inflict and not sustain damage by the collision.

Further, besides cracking the ice into fragments weighing a few score

tons apiece, she must be able to slide upon the ice and crush it by

sheer weight. The _Ermack_ is 305 feet long, 71 feet beam, and 42

feet 6 inches deep. She had three screws aft and, when first built,

had a fourth screw forward, the forefoot being considerably cut away

to allow it to operate between the stem and keel. The idea was that

the forward screw would agitate the water under the ice about to be

struck and thus lessen the support the ice received from the water,

and that it would also prevent an accumulation of ice under the ship’s

bottom by creating a current of water towards the stern where the after

propellers would throw the ice astern of the ship. This screw was found

to be less useful than was expected, or rather it was discovered in

practice that as good results could be obtained without it as with

it in dealing with the massive Arctic ice, or any ice over a certain

thickness, and when the ship was sent back to her builders a few years

later to be lengthened, the forward propeller was taken out and not

replaced. When the alterations were made the bow was severed in dry

dock, and another bow having been built it was launched and floated

into the dock and attached to the vessel. This bow is of a different

shape from the other and has proved to be even more effective than the

old one. Three screws aft are necessary in an ice-breaker of this size

in order to give the power for the proper performance of her duties

and also to enable her to be steered in very limited areas, greater

steering facilities being obtainable by this means than by any other.

The _Ermack_ is fitted with three sets of triple-expansion machinery,

having cylinders 25 inches, 39 inches, and 64 inches diameter, with a

42-inch stroke of piston, working at a pressure of 160 lb. The boilers

are six in number, 15 feet in diameter by 20 feet long, working under

forced draught. The machinery develops about 10,000 horse-power.

One of the _Ermack’s_ feats was to rescue the coast defence armour-clad

_General Admiral Apraxine_, which had got frozen in after stranding in

the Baltic.

She finds no insuperable difficulty in smashing her way through ice 12

or 13 feet in thickness. The first piece of ice she ever attacked was

drift ice about five feet thick, through which she went easily with

her engines giving her little more than half-speed. The most serious

test was against ice estimated at 25 feet thick, consisting of 5 feet

of field ice, 9 feet of pack ice above it, and ice 11 feet thick, and

perhaps more, below the field ice. Thick snow on top of thick field ice

forms the most serious obstacle, the snow forming an immense cushion

or ridge which becomes worse the more an effort is made to get through

it. On another occasion she made her way by ramming through ice 34 feet

in thickness. Another experience was to rescue eight of nine steamers

which were nipped in the ice; the ninth was so badly squeezed by the

ice that she sank before the _Ermack_ could force her way to her.

A smaller ice-breaker, the _Sampo_, built by the same firm for Finland,

has gone through sheet ice 12 inches thick at a speed of 8¹⁄₂ knots,

and frequently through drift ice 10 or 12 feet thick.

On the other side of the Atlantic, whenever a severe winter is

experienced, many of the Canadian and United States lake and coast

ports are only kept open by means of ice-breaking ferry-steamers. Of

the latter type is the _Scotia_, built by Armstrong, Whitworth and Co.

for the carriage of railway trains across the Straits of Canso to and

from Port Mulgrave, Nova Scotia. She is 282 feet in length, and on

the rails laid on her decks she is capable of taking a load of nine

Pullman cars, and can also accommodate an express locomotive and tender

weighing as much as 118 tons. She has an ice-breaking propeller and a

rudder at each end, and has two sets of triple-expansion engines of

1200 horse-power each. Her speed is rather over twelve knots.

About four years ago the ice-breaking and surveying steamer _Lady Grey_

was launched by Messrs. Vickers, Sons, and Maxim at Barrow-in-Furness

for the Canadian Government, and performed some exceedingly effective

work, particularly in the St. Lawrence River or in duties associated

with the Marine and Fisheries Board. A larger and faster vessel being

required, the builders were asked to provide a steamer which, while

preserving all the qualities of an ice-breaker, should yet be able to

attain a speed of seventeen knots, and be capable of use for a variety

of purposes. The _Earl Grey_ was launched in June 1909, and besides

fulfilling these requirements has been engaged in the passenger traffic

across the Northumberland Straits. She has been fitted with special

quarters, enabling her to be employed as an official yacht by the

Governor-General. Provided with a cut-water or schooner stem with a

short bowsprit, an elliptical stern, and two steel pole schooner-rigged

masts, which rake considerably, and having been designed with a

graceful sheer, she has more of the appearance of a large yacht than

an ice-breaker intended to be able to make her passages in all sorts

of weather and under widely varying conditions. The hull is built with

extraordinary strength; the frames are very closely spaced in order to

take up the thrust of the pack ice which in winter may sometimes be

piled round the vessel; the shell plating is of unusual thickness, and

the outer skin is double right fore and aft along the water-line and to

the bottom of the keel in the fore body, where the friction of the ice

tends in the case of ice-breaking steamers to wear away the material.

The ordinary practice of this and all other ice-breakers, in whatever

part of the world, is to utilise their weight to break the ice by

rising upon it and crushing it. In order to possess as great a weight

as possible, large tanks are built into the fore part of the _Earl

Grey_ which can be filled or emptied at a rate of 250 tons an hour.

The vessel is also equipped for breaking ice when going astern, the

counter having been suitably strengthened to resist the shocks; while

to secure the rudder from injury it has been built into the form of the

ship so that her movements are not impeded by the ice-floes. The _Earl

Grey_ is 250 feet in length, 47 feet 6 inches beam, 17 feet 7 inches

depth, and 3400 tons displacement. She has accommodation for fifty

first-class passengers and twenty in the second class, and under

these circumstances winter ice-breaking excursions may yet become the

vogue among those in search of a new sensation.

[Illustration: THE “ERMACK.”]

[Illustration: THE “EARL GREY.”]

The introduction of steam-propelled vessels was objected to by

sailing-yacht owners, but the advantages of auxiliary power in yachts

intended for cruising overcame all opposition, and in the course of a

few years the number of yachts of all rigs, even cutters, fitted with

auxiliary power, steadily increased. Machine-driven yachts are intended

as cruisers. A few steam-yachts had paddle-wheels, the latter being

specially favoured for all vessels intended for Government or for Royal

use, where sea-going qualities were required. One of the most notable

of this type was the _Victoria and Albert_, built to the order of her

Majesty the late Queen Victoria, which was, at the time of her launch,

one of the finest yachts afloat. Among the earliest of the Royal yachts

was the screw steamer _Fairy_, which was built for the late Queen in

1845 at the Thames Iron Works, Shipbuilding and Engineering Company’s

yard at Blackwall, then owned by Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare. This was

the first iron vessel owned by the British Government. Her dimensions

were: length 144·8 feet, breadth 21 feet 1¹⁄₂ inches, draught 6 feet,

displacement 210 tons, horse-power 416, and speed 13·21 knots.

It is only fitting that the finest Royal yachts afloat intended purely

for pleasure purposes should be at the disposal of the monarch of the

leading maritime nation, and the latest Royal yachts built for the late

King Edward merit this description. They are the present _Victoria and

Albert_ and the _Alexandra_, the latter built in 1908. Other modern

Royal yachts of note are the German Emperor’s _Hohenzollern_, which is

heavily armed and can be utilised as a fast cruiser if necessary, and

the Russian _Pole Star_ and _Standart_.

Amongst the celebrated Royal yachts of the past belonging to foreign

rulers are the iron paddle-steamer _Faid Gihaad_, built in 1852

by Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare for Said Pasha, the then Khedive of

Egypt. She was a flush-decked barquentine, 285 feet in length between

perpendiculars, 318 feet over all, with a breadth of beam of 40 feet

and a tonnage of 2200. Her engines were of 800 horse-power and were

built by Messrs. Maudslay and Field. She was equipped as a war vessel

and carried an armament of two 84-pounder pivot guns, twelve 32-pounder

broadside guns on the upper deck, and fourteen 32-pounders on the

main deck. Like everything else that the Pasha indulged in, the _Faid

Gihaad_ illustrated his taste for luxury. Externally the vessel was

painted white from the water-line, below which she was copper-coloured.

The stern was ornamented with a gold scroll, and each paddle-box had a

crescent and star in gold. Three years before the building of the _Faid

Gihaad_ there was constructed at Alexandria, by order of Said Pasha, a

steam-frigate called the _Sharkie_, which was sent to this country to

be fitted with steam-engines and a screw propeller. She was 220 feet in

length, was rigged as a second-class frigate, and had engines of 550

horse-power by Miller and Ravenhill. These were capable of driving her

nearly 11 knots an hour. Her armament consisted of 36 guns of heavy

calibre. The furniture and panelling of the cabins were richly inlaid

with ivory and mother-of-pearl, which may have admirably suited the

taste of Said Pasha in these matters, but can hardly have conduced to

the efficiency of the vessel as a fighting machine.

[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._

THE ROYAL YACHT “VICTORIA AND ALBERT.”]

[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._

THE IMPERIAL YACHT “HOHENZOLLERN.”]

In the days when the Papal States were a power in the land and his

Holiness was not a voluntary prisoner in the Vatican, the then occupant

of St. Peter’s chair was the possessor of a very fine armed screw

steam-yacht, the _Immacolata Concezione_. She was built by the Thames

Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company, with engines by Messrs. J.

Seaward and Co. of Millwall. She carried eight brass 18-pounder guns,

and was a three-masted full-rigged ship of some 627 tons burden. The

engines were of 160 nominal horse-power and 300 indicated, and were

capable of giving her a speed of 13 knots an hour.

Among other famous iron vessels which were either specially built or

employed as Royal yachts in the middle of the last century may be

mentioned the _Jerome Napoleon_, constructed by M. A. Normand at Havre

for the late Prince Napoleon, afterwards Emperor of the French; the

_Peterhoff_, built by Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare at Blackwall in 1850

for the late Emperor Nicholas of Russia, which was wrecked on her

outward voyage to the Baltic; the _Falken_, built at Deptford in 1858

by Messrs. C. Langley for the late King Frederick VII. of Denmark.

She was an iron schooner-rigged vessel 127 feet in length, and could

steam at 10 knots an hour. The _Miramar_ was a favourite yacht with

the late Empress of Austria. The Russian Imperial Yacht _Livadia_ was

circular and shallow, and is the only large turbot-shaped yacht afloat.

These yachts, however, have been gradually superseded by vessels of

a thoroughly modern type. As a case in point, the _Princess Alice_,

owned by H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco, and constructed by Messrs. R.

and H. Green at Blackwall in 1891, is built of steel frames with

teak planking, her bottom being covered with copper sheeting. Thus

in her general finish she is one of the finest specimens of marine

architecture on the composite principle which ever took the water.

Unlike most Royal yachts, she is used not merely for pleasure but also

for scientific research, for the Prince of Monaco is well known for his

contributions to the scientific knowledge of ocean depths and all that

pertains thereto. The expeditions which he has organised, and most of

which he has conducted in person, are invariably made on this yacht,

which is splendidly equipped for the purpose. In order that she may be

able to cover a large radius of action, she is fitted with an unusual

coal capacity and can store in her bunkers sufficient to carry her 3700

miles. Under steam alone she can make 9 knots an hour, and with steam

and sail combined she has been known to attain to nearly 12 knots an

hour.

The _Safa-el-bahr_, designed and constructed in 1894 by Messrs. A. and

J. Inglis of Glasgow for his Highness the Khedive of Egypt, is also a

steel-built two-decked yacht. She is schooner-rigged, and is fitted

with three-stage expansion engines with cylinders 18 inches, 29 inches,

and 48 inches in diameter, giving a piston stroke of 36 inches. These

are supplied with steam at a pressure of 160 lb. from two boilers

having a heating surface of 2300 square feet, and give an indicated

horse-power of 1200, with a speed of 14·1 knots per hour. Her tonnage

under yacht measurement is 677 tons. She has a length of 221 feet,

breadth 27·1 feet, depth 17·3, with a draught of 12 feet.

As private yacht-owning is a pastime in which only the wealthy can

indulge, and as almost all private yachts are built to suit the fancy

of their owner, a considerable individuality is displayed by them. They

range in size from vessels not bigger than a ship’s boat to ocean-going

liners. The _Winchester_, the latest boat of her class yet devised, is

a triple-screw turbine yacht, bearing a strong resemblance to a torpedo

boat. Her dimensions are: length 165 feet, breadth 15³⁄₄ feet, depth

9³⁄₄ feet, and displacement 180 tons. She was built in 1909 for Mr. W.

P. Rouss, a prominent member of the New York Yacht Club, by Messrs.

Yarrow and Co. of Scotstoun. The propelling machinery consists of three

Parsons marine steam turbines constructed by Messrs. Yarrow. She has

two Yarrow water-tube boilers, and her furnaces are fitted to burn oil

fuel. The hull is of steel. At her trials at Skelmorlie she easily

maintained a speed of 26³⁄₄ knots, which was ³⁄₄ of a knot in excess

of the speed stipulated in her building contract; and it was believed

that a much higher rate could have been achieved, as 250 lb., the full

working pressure of her boilers, was not reached, the high pressure of

her high-power turbine being only 160 lb.

The _Iolanda_, of about 2000 tons yacht measurement, was built for

an American owner in 1908, and was then stated to be the second

largest privately owned yacht in the world. She was both constructed

and engined by Messrs. Ramage and Ferguson, Ltd., Leith. Her length

over all is about 305 feet; beam 37 feet 6 inches; depth 23 feet. Her

twin-screw machinery is of the triple-expansion four-crank type of

3000 to 4000 indicated horse-power. Her boilers are partly cylindrical

marine return tubular and partly water-tube. This combination, the

first installed in any yacht, affords the advantage of being able to

raise steam and get under way at practically a moment’s notice, or

provides additional speed at short notice when required, while the

bunker capacity of some 550 tons gives the yacht a very extensive

ocean-steaming radius. She is provided with motor and steam launches,

quick-firing guns, electric-lighting apparatus, which is accredited

as being the largest ever installed in a private yacht, and includes

arrangements for manipulating the Marconi wireless telegraphy.

Among eccentricities of design in steamboats may be mentioned cigar

ships, vessels shaped like birds, early submarines, double-hulled

boats, and numerous other extravagances. One of the earliest submarines

was contrived by a Dutchman named Hollar, about 1653, but whether this

wonderful vessel ever got beyond the imaginative or paper stage is

unknown. There is a picture of it in the British Museum. This singular

craft was to be 72 feet in length, 12 feet high, and 8 feet beam, with

a wheel in the centre where it “hath its motion.” The description says

it was built at Rotterdam. The inventor undertook in one day to destroy

100 ships. “It can go from London to Rotterdam and back in one day, and

in six days can go to the East Indies, and can also run as fast as

bird can fly.” “No fire, no storm, no bullets can harm her unless it

please God.” There is no further trace of her.

The first submarine which achieved any measure of success was that of

David Bushnell, an American, who devised it in the hope of blowing

up a British warship and failed egregiously. Bushnell, who was born

at Saybrook, Conn., in 1742, devoted a large amount of attention to

submarine warfare. His idea was to fix a small powder magazine to the

bottom of a vessel and explode it by means of a clockwork apparatus. He

constructed a tortoise-shaped diving boat, made of iron, and containing

sufficient air to support a man for half an hour. This boat, called

the _American Turtle_, was propelled by a sort of screw or oar worked

from inside. It could be immersed by admitting water through a valve

in the bottom, and lightened by pumping the water out again. She was

tried, without success, against the British warship _Eagle_ in New

York harbour, and a later attack on the _Cerberus_ left that frigate

unharmed, but blew up an American schooner and some of her crew.

The _Gemini_ twin steamer, invented by Mr. Peter Borrie, was a

double-hulled boat, launched in the summer of 1850. The keels and stems

were not placed in the centre of the hulls but towards the inside of

them, thus making the water-lines very fine on the inside. This was

intended to diminish the tendency of the water to rise between the

hulls. The inner bilges were much fuller than the outer ones, the idea

being to afford a greater degree of buoyancy on the inside, in order

to support the weight of the deck. The steamer was 157¹⁄₂ feet long

over all, and 26¹⁄₂ feet broad on deck. Each hull was 8¹⁄₂ feet broad,

with a space 9¹⁄₂ feet between them. The frames were of angle iron,

and the keels were formed by carrying the plates downwards, so as to

form channels for the bilge-water inside the hulls. This arrangement

was intended for river craft of this type, but for sea-going vessels

drawing more water the inventor planned keels of iron bars, with the

garboard-strakes riveted upon them in the customary way. The plating

was not carried to the top of the frames on the inner side of the

hulls, except at the space in the middle for the paddle-wheel, but was

carried up to the deck, thus forming an arch between the two hulls,

which were bound together with stays. The hulls were divided into

water-tight compartments. The vessel was two-ended and could travel

in either direction without turning. There was a rudder at each end,

placed in the centre of the opening between the two hulls. It was

constructed somewhat in the manner of the balanced rudder of later

years, as it was affixed, to a vertical shaft in such a way that it was

divided into two unequal parts, and when left free would accommodate

itself to the vessel’s motion. The steamer was estimated to carry from

800 to 1000 passengers.

Whether in the sailing days or since, the crossing of the Channel

between Dover and Calais has been attended with an amount of misery

altogether disproportionate to the shortness of the voyage. It is

therefore not surprising that inventors have at one time and another

attempted to design vessels which should give the maximum of speed and

comfort and the minimum of sea-sickness. The English Channel Steamship

Company, Limited, was formed in 1872 to adopt the plan of a steam-ship

designed by Captain Dicey, and construct the steam-ship _Castalia_.

His idea was that two large hulls should be used, and placed at such a

distance apart that each should act as an outrigger to the other, and

the whole structure should remain comparatively steady. The _Castalia_

was built by the Thames Iron Works Company. She was 400 feet long, and

each hull had a beam of 20 feet, with a depth of hold of 20 feet. The

distance between the two hulls was 35 feet, and they were united by

strong girders. The hulls were very sharp at the ends, and flat in

the floors, and the draught of water was only 6 feet. The inner sides

of the hulls had a freeboard of 14 feet, and the uniting girders were

slightly arched, but a difference in the methods of fixing them to the

hull was made, compared with previous experience with double-hulled

vessels. In former attempts to solve the problem of the navigation of

twin steamers, the connecting beams had usually been placed in such

a way that their ends extended under the decks of the hulls. This in

the case of wood was manifestly a plan which did not permit of a very

large vessel or of a certain limit of strength being exceeded. Captain

Dicey’s scheme in adopting the arched form of girder was to utilise to

the utmost the strength of the iron, and bind with the utmost rigidity

the whole structure together. Where the girders entered the hulls the

upper part was just under the deck; the girders were carried right

across to the outer sides of each hull, additional strength being

provided by bolting every girder to a bulkhead. The space between the

hulls was decked over, and allowed ample accommodation for passengers.

Each hull carried a powerful engine for driving a large paddle-wheel,

the wheels being placed with a space between them amidships between the

two vessels. The vessel could be steered at either end, thus obviating

the necessity of turning, and a navigating bridge extended across the

tops of the two paddle-boxes. It was even claimed that the ship would

be large enough to carry railway trains across the Channel, but this

does not seem to have been tried. As she drew only a trifle over 6 feet

of water she could enter the harbours on either side of the Channel at

any state of the tide, and though she was steady enough as a sea boat

she was too slow, and was withdrawn from service.

A double-hulled boat of a somewhat different type, and from which great

things were expected, was the _Calais-Douvres_. Her principal features

were to be an increase in speed and stability, and by means of the

steadiness of her double hull, the abolition of sea-sickness. She was

an enlarged _Castalia_. The expectation of her owners on these points

was not realised and after a few trips she was withdrawn from service

and replaced by another and more efficient vessel of the ordinary type.

To the category of magnificent failures there should be added the

steam-ship _Bessemer_, launched at Hull in 1874 and designed by and

named after Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Bessemer. The object her

designer had in view was to mitigate the horrors of the cross-Channel

passage, and to accomplish this he fitted his boat with a spacious

saloon which, by means of a series of pivots and a gyroscope, would

remain in a level position without oscillation, no matter how much the

vessel might roll or how rough the weather might be. These arrangements

worked perfectly in theory, but immediately the _Bessemer_ went to sea

for her trials and the test became a practical one, it was discovered

that she must be relegated to a conspicuous place among the successes

that might have been. Everything about her was on a lavish scale.

A peculiarity was that she had four paddle-wheels, two a side, an

experiment that has never been successful. Her form also was against

her, and in dirty weather she would have been a wet ship, difficult to

steer, and almost helpless.

On her private trial trip the _Bessemer_ attained a speed of eleven

knots in crossing from Dover to Calais, but was thirty-five minutes in

getting alongside the French pier.

One of the most extraordinary vessels ever designed was that known as

the _Connector_. She was not rigid, but was built of sections which

could be joined together, so that she would bend in accord with the

motion of the waves. The joints were constructed by giving to the

after end of all sections (but the last) a concave form so that it

would overlap the convex bow of the adjoining section. These were

joined and hinged by massive iron bolts resting in stout wrought-iron

sponsons built into the ship’s sides and framework. If necessary one

of the sections could be disconnected and the other three joined up.

As each section was fitted with a fore and aft rig, like a cutter,

it could make its way under sail alone if necessary. The engine was

contained in the hindmost section, which really pushed the other three

along. She was intended to be used as an iron screw collier in the

London and North-East coast coal trade. Each section was to act as a

lighter, and could be left where desired, while the others were sent

to their respective destinations, to be picked up again in turn when

it was desired to reunite the vessel, and send her for another cargo.

The advantage claimed for this peculiar system was that vessels of very

light draught, and of length far greater than hitherto and carrying the

largest cargoes, might be used without the danger of breaking their

backs, or even straining, the yielding of the joints neutralising that

liability; also that their great length, light draught, and narrow

midship section, permitted unprecedented speed, while the facility

for detaching part of the vessel in case of collision, fire, sudden

leakage, or grounding with a falling tide, would afford a means of

saving life and a portion of hull and cargo, when otherwise all would

be lost. A company called the Jointed Ship Company was formed to

exploit this novelty in ship construction. Like other experimental

schemes it was not a success, the theory of the designers and the

practice of Father Neptune not being in accord.

The _Winans_ cigar ship, as her name indicates, was shaped like a huge

cigar. Messrs. Winans began experimenting in the ’fifties at Baltimore

with a view to ascertaining the amount of water-friction sustained

by surfaces of differing smoothness at various speeds, the relative

resistance of proportions and speeds, and whether any advantages were

to be gained from spindle-shaped vessels as compared with ordinary

vessels. These experiments resulted in the launching in October 1858

at Ferry Bay, Baltimore, of a spindle- or cigar-shaped vessel having

about its middle a ring bearing flanges set at an angle calculated to

strike the water and propel the vessel. She had four powerful engines

placed amidships, and rudders at both ends measuring 4 feet by 3 feet.

She was 16 feet in diameter at the widest part and 180 feet long, and

it was expected she would cross the Atlantic in four days; she belied

those expectations. The owners stated that she was designed “to obtain

greater safety, despatch, uniformity, certainty of action, as well

as economy of exportation by sea.” They believed that “by discarding

sails entirely, and all the necessary appendages, and building the

vessel of iron, having reference to the use of steam alone, these most

desirable ends may be even still more fully attained than by vessels

using both sails and steam.” They continue: “The vessel we are now

constructing has no keel, no cutwater, no blunt bow standing up above

the water-line to receive blows from the heaving sea, no flat deck

to hold or bulwark to retain the water; neither masts, spars, nor

rigging.” The plan and position of the propelling wheel were supposed

to be such that its minimum hold of the water would be much greater in

proportion to tonnage than the maximum hold of the propelling wheel

or wheels in ordinary steamers. The engines were high pressure with a

cut-off variable from one-sixth to full stroke; combined, they were to

exert threefold more power in proportion to displacement of water than

those of the most powerful steam-packets then built. Her boilers were

of the locomotive type, consuming 30 tons of coal in twenty-four hours,

the smoke, &c., being carried away by two funnels. She was divided

into several water-tight compartments. With 200 tons of coal on board

she was to displace about 350 tons of water, and accommodate about

twenty first-class passengers and the United States mail, with room to

spare for small valuable packages, specie, &c. The same principles and

properties which were to adapt the vessel to high average speed were

claimed to be also adapted to the cheap, safe and sure transportation

of freight as compared with vessels using sails only or sails and steam

combined. There was a railed-in space on her upper surface for the deck.

Messrs. Winans’ first cigar ship, though not fulfilling all the hopes

formed of her, was, on the whole, sufficiently successful to encourage

the continuance of the experiments, for in the two following years

she was severely tested both for speed and seaworthiness in all sorts

of weather. Another vessel was built at St. Petersburg in 1861 with

a submerged screw propeller at the stern, which gave so much more

satisfactory results than the revolving belt apparatus that Messrs.

Winans were encouraged to order a third spindle ship. This was built

by Mr. John Hepworth of the Isle of Dogs, and was named after her

inventor, Mr. Ross Winans. This boat was 256 feet in length with a

diameter and depth of 16 feet, and was circular in form throughout.

The top of the vessel was strengthened for 130 feet amidships by four

longitudinal ribs of steel which supported the deck, and also rendered

the top as strong to resist tension and other strains as the bottom.

Internally there were iron ribs running round the vessel 4 inches deep

and 3 feet apart in the engine and boiler room, and 7 inches deep and

spaced 6 feet elsewhere. The bottom and side plates were of iron,

were thicker amidships than at the end, while the bottom was further

strengthened and protected outside the skin plates by a plate of iron

1 inch thick and 33 inches across at its widest and diminishing to a

point at the ends. The skin plates of the top were of toughened steel

³⁄₈ inch thick amidships. The two screw propellers, one at either

end, were 22 feet in diameter and were only half immersed in the

water, though it is difficult to imagine what advantages were supposed

to be gained by incomplete immersion, seeing that the exposed part

represented so much dead weight to be carried, to say nothing of the

other drawbacks. A space 48 feet 6 inches long amidships was devoted

to the engines and boilers. Each of the four boilers had a fire-box,

and was surmounted by two vertical cylinders containing vertical

tubes; while the centre portions of the boilers were tubeless to allow

of more ready cleaning and a better circulation. A fan increased

the draught and also the ventilation of the ship. The engines were

surface-condensing. The problem of allowing the longest possible

stroke was ingeniously solved. Above each of the three jacketed steam

cylinders was a shaft, carrying two cranks and working by the sides of

the cylinder, the piston-rods passing the shaft and connecting with a

cross-head above, which was connected with the cranks by two rods. The

three engines were joined by a system of return cranks and a peculiar

coupling, which prevented cross-strains from the transmission of power

from engine to engine, and from the shafts of the different engines

getting out of line. The ship could carry coal for twelve days at

normal consumption. On deck it carried two masts and two funnels, all

having a considerable rake aft.

In 1860, Captain George Peacock, F.R.G.S., formerly a London merchant,

and then residing near Exeter, invented a yacht in the shape of a

swan. Her title, the _Swan of the Exe_, was displayed on a banneret,

the brass rod of which was held in the swan’s beak. This mechanical

bird was 17 feet 6 inches in length, with a maximum beam of 7 feet 6

inches, and its height from the keel to the top of the back was 7 feet

3 inches. Its neck and head, which were gracefully curved, rose 16 feet

above the water. Its long neck had to do duty as a mast for supporting

by means of halliards the two wings, each of which consisted of a

double lateen sail. The halliards passed through gilt pendant blocks,

attached to a ring, fastened round the neck just below the head. The

vessel itself consisted of twin boats beneath the water-line, there

being an oblong compartment in the centre, though viewed from the

front or side it appeared to consist of one hull only. She had two

powerful webbed and feathering feet, constructed of steel, to propel

her. These were placed between the keels or hulls, and worked by a

lever attached to a contrivance such as is seen on old-fashioned

hand fire-engines, operated by two or four persons as required. With

two oars which she could also carry, her fishtail-shaped rudder, her

feet, and her wings, she could get up a speed before the wind of five

miles an hour. She was only intended for ornamental waters or inland

lakes. Her interior fittings suggested those of a first-class railway

carriage, with plate-glass windows at the sides, &c. Her centre table

was big enough for ten persons to dine comfortably at, and at night

it could accommodate a mattress upon which to sleep. A description of

her at the time adds: “In the table are small apertures which open

to the water underneath, and thus afford the opportunity of fishing

while sitting at table. Any aquatic prey thus obtained may be dressed

in a multum-in-parvo cooking apparatus on board, the smoke from which

is conveyed through the bird’s neck, and out at its nostrils. In the

breast of the bird is a ladies’ cabin fitted up as a boudoir.” The

_Swan_ was of about 5 tons register, and when fully stored and carrying

15 persons, only drew 17 inches of water. About the only thing of which

the inventor had not thought was to make one eye green and the other

red, to represent ship’s lights.

The only ship of her kind ever built with a hot-air engine was

the _Ericsson_, named after her inventor and generally called the

_Caloric_, because of her peculiar engines. These had four immense

cylinders which drove paddle-wheels 32 feet in diameter, the energy

being transmitted by a contrivance Ericsson invented and termed the

“regenerator.” The shape of the furnaces and the small amount of fuel

they required, together with the absence of boilers, enabled a greater

amount of space to be devoted to the accommodation of merchandise and

passengers. The vessel was 250 feet long, 40 feet broad, 31 feet deep,

and had a gross tonnage of 1920. She was built in 1852, of wood, and

was asserted to have made a speed of 12 knots an hour on her trial

trip, but she never came anywhere near this subsequently.

The absence of funnels and the presence of two large paddle-boxes made

her one of the most extraordinary vessels ever seen. She made one slow

journey across the Atlantic to Liverpool and back to America, and after

another set of caloric engines had been tried in her with about as much

success, in regard to her speed, as the first, she was fitted with

engines of the ordinary type.

Three other inventions which have not yet passed the experimental stage

are the Hydrocurve, the Hydroplan, and the Hydroplane.

The hydroplan is a motor-boat carrying two enormous propellers, one

above the stem and the other above the stern, which revolve in the air

and not in the water. The vessel is said to have been invented by a

gentleman named Fortanini, and with a 70-horse-power motor is claimed

to have attained, on Lake Maggiore, two or three years ago, a speed

of 40 miles an hour. For all practical purposes the hydroplan may be

described as a “skimming dish” hull gliding on the surface of the

water, its draught being a few inches only.

For some time past some attention has been directed to the trials,

on the Illinois River, of a curious type of aquatic motor, named the

hydrocurve. Instead of ploughing through the water, the hull of the

hydrocurve displaces the water, not sideways as with an ordinary type

of vessel, but downwards from the surface, each particle of water

being moved in one direction only. According to a report published in

the _Popular Mechanic_ of Chicago, this curious vessel on her first

trial made a speed of 35 miles an hour. In a further test she achieved

1¹⁄₈ mile in 1 minute 30 seconds, or, roughly speaking, 45 miles an

hour. She is 40 feet in length and carries an 80-horse-power motor. The

bottom of the boat is concave, lengthways and across.

The theory that with an increase in speed the tendency of a ship is to

rise, so that when travelling at a fast rate she will draw less water

than when going slowly, and consequently will have less resistance and

less skin friction, has attracted the attention of naval architects

for many years. So far as theory is concerned, there is nothing to

prevent a vessel being built on this principle, but when it comes to

considering stability, it is another question altogether. The principle

is based upon the well-known theory that if the hull of a vessel be

made flat in the bottom and inclined slightly, so that it forms an

inclined plane, the vessel will rise to an extent governed by the

speed at which it travels. The Rev. C. M. Ramus, of Rye, Sussex, in

1872 improved on this theory by making a flat bottom in two inclined

planes, one behind the other, so that each should have an equal lifting

power. The Admiralty tested several models made by him, but without

satisfactory results, probably due to the comparative inefficiency of

the screw-propelling machinery of the period. An American engineer,

named Fauber, taking advantage of improved propelling machinery,

designed a vessel on these lines with hydroplanes attached directly to

the bottom, and a year or two ago it carried six persons at a speed

of 35 miles per hour. If a vessel of this size can be constructed and

retain its stability, there is no reason why one of much greater size

should not be built. The development of the principle is that the

planes should be placed at some distance below the bottom of the hull,

so that when the vessel travels at a considerable speed, it shall

rise out of the water and be supported by the planes, which shall skim

along the surface. This, however, can only be achieved at present by

sacrificing stability to speed. An improvement in construction is to

shape the bottom of the hull like a very wide letter =[V]=, with a

series of planes underneath. It is claimed that an ocean liner can be

built on this system, carrying six propellers arranged in three pairs,

and that the necessary air would be pumped under the vessel by the

action of the propellers as she travelled along.

A steamer on wheels, but intended to travel on the water, was invented

a few years since by a Frenchman named Bazin. He constructed a model,

which worked well and was on the scale of one-twenty-fifth of the liner

he hoped to see built some day. The model consisted of four pairs of

hollow wheels or discs, each wheel being in appearance like two immense

soup-plates set face to face and set on edge. These wheels were caused

to revolve, thereby reducing the friction of the water to a minimum,

and the vessel was propelled by a screw. The decks, being built on a

framework over the axles, had space for ample accommodation, and in

order that the speed of the ship should not suffer it was intended to

carry no cargo. A vessel on this plan was constructed and launched

on the Seine. The platform was 126 feet long by about 40 feet wide,

and each wheel was about 32 feet in diameter and about 10 feet at its

greatest width. The total weight of the boat was about 280 tons. The

boat proved her utility when tried. The inventor estimated that an

ocean-going liner constructed on this system would easily cross the

Atlantic at a rate of thirty knots an hour.

It is impossible to say what the development of the steam-ship will

be in the future. The piston engine has probably reached its utmost

development, or very nearly so, and much more in that direction is not

to be expected. Naval architects are already considering whether the

existing lines of the steam-ship are the best for speed, and a design

has been brought out for a steamer constructed on what are known as

tetrahedral lines. There has recently been described in the _Scientific

American_ a vessel, a model of which has been constructed, designed

upon this tetrahedral principle. It is contended that this form for

ships offers less resistance than any, and that by it alone can the

greatest attainable speed at sea be reached. Yarrow boilers with

Schultz turbines are recommended for vessels of this type.

A proposal for fast Atlantic travelling, which has not gone beyond the

paper stage, is that three long narrow hulls should be built parallel

to each other and supporting the main body of the hull. The inventor

claims that the method would enable a greater speed to be attained

than by any existing liner, and at a less cost; but readers who have

followed the development of the steam-ship will recollect that this

suggestion provides a curious parallel to the experiments of Patrick

Miller with his triple-hulled boats in the eighteenth century.

Few, however, will doubt that, great as have been the changes in

shipbuilding and steam-propulsion during the last hundred years, there

will be changes as great in the present century.

[Illustration:

C. WATSON’S DOCK AT ROTHERHITHE, LIFTING H.M. BRIG “MERCURY.”

_From Watson’s Specification.--A.D. 1785._

THE BERMUDA FLOATING DOCK, LIFTING A 15,000-TON IRONCLAD OF THE

“MAJESTIC” CLASS.

_From the Contract Drawings.--A.D. 1900._

THE VULCAN CO.’S FLOATING DOCK FOR HAMBURG, LIFTING A 36,000-TON SHIP

OF THE “MAURETANIA” CLASS.

_From the Contract Drawings._

THE EVOLUTION OF FLOATING DOCKS, 1800-1910.]

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MAGINNIS, A.J., M.Inst.C.E. The Atlantic Ferry: Its Ships, Men, and

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MARVIN, W. L. The American Merchant Marine.

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MECHANIC’S REGISTER.

MORRISON. American Steam Navigation.

MORSE, J. T., jun. Benjamin Franklin.

MURRAY, ROBERT, C.E. Rudimentary Treatise on Marine Engines and Steam

Vessels; together with Practical Remarks on the Screw and Propelling

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“NAUTICAL GAZETTE.”

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ORIENT LINE GUIDE.

PALMER’S Shipbuilding and Iron Company. Some Account of the Works of.

4th edition, 1909.

PARSONS, HON. C. A. The Development of the Marine Steam Turbine.

(Paper read before the Institute of Marine Engineers. Sept. 29, 1906.)

P. & O. COMPANY’S HANDBOOK.

“PENNY MAGAZINE.”

PHILLIPS, SIR R. A Million of Facts.

RENWICK, JAMES. Robert Fulton. 1845.

SEATON, A. E. A Manual of Marine Engineering. 1890.

“SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.”

SEMMES, CAPTAIN RAPHAEL. Voyages of the _Sumter_ and _Alabama_.

SENNET, R., and ORAM, H. J. The Marine Steam-engine. 1898.

SHAW, SAVILL AND ALBION CO.’S GUIDE.

“SHIPBUILDER,” THE.

“SHIPPING.”

“SHIPPING ILLUSTRATED.”

“SHIPPING WORLD,” THE.

SINCLAIR, A. Two Years on the _Alabama_.

SMITH, J. RUSSELL. The Ocean Carrier.

SPARKS’ Library of American Biography.

“STANDARD,” THE.

“STEAM-SHIP,” THE.

STEVENS, FRANCIS B. The First Steam Screw Propeller Boats to navigate

the Waters of any Country. (Reprint from the Stevens Indicator, Vol.

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INDEX

(N.B.--All vessels are indexed under Ships named.)

Aberdeen Line, Rennie’s, 183; Thompson’s, 296

Aberdeen schooners, 85

Accidents, steam-ship, inquiry into, 77

Adelaide Steamship Co., 347

Admiralty, the, steam packet, 102; vessels, 176; and floating docks,

356, 362; and private shipbuilding yards, 319; and twin screws, 325;

and wooden three-deckers, 316

Æolipile of Hero of Alexandria, 9

Africa, West, mail service, 261

African Steamship Co., 261, 299

Ailsa Shipbuilding Co., 99

_Alabama_ claims, the, 176

Albany Line, 48

Albion Co., 298

Alexandria-England, carriage of mails, 178

Alexandria-Suez, travel between, 167

Algiers, U.S.A., floating dock, 358

Allaire Works, 173

Allan Line, 254-255, 281

Allen, Dr. John, and jet-propeller, 12

Allison, Messrs. M. A., New Jersey, 50

Altona floating dock, 355

Alvarez, Don José, Chilian Agent, 128

America, steam vessels in, in 1817, 45

America, South, West Coast of, 263

American Civil War, vessels in the, 90, 98, 175, 329;

blockade-runners, 327

American ice-breaking steamers, 369-371

American Line, 256, 291

American mail service, 150, 188

American Navy, the, 329, 339

American pioneers in steam navigation, 19

American river steamers, design of, 46

American Shipbuilding Co., 54

American steam-ships and foreign trade, beginnings of, 153

American subsidy to steam-ship service, 155

American train ferry-boats, 363

Amherst, Lord, 164

Anderson, Anderson & Co., 294

Anglo-French Co.’s fleet, 118

Animal-driven paddles, 2

Apcar, Messrs., Calcutta, 264

Appleton’s “Cyclopædia of American Biography,” 19, 23

Armour plates, 331 _et seq._

Armstrong, Mitchell & Co., 212, 364

Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., 336, 367, 369

Armstrong, Sir William, and cupola vessels, 330

Aspinwall, C. H., 188

Atlantic cable-laying by _Great Eastern_, 277

“Atlantic Greyhound” title won by _Alaska_, 250

Atlantic Liners. _See_ Allan, American, Beaver, Collins, Compagnie

Générale Transatlantique, Cunard, Dominion, Donaldson, Galway, Guion,

Hamburg-Amerika, Inman, National, Norddeutscher Lloyd, Red Star,

State, and White Star Lines

Atlantic records, 241, 250, 282, 288

Atlantic routes adopted, 241

Atlantic service. _See_ Transatlantic

Australia, Cape route to, 291; discovery of gold, 232; first steam

voyage to, 94; prize for fastest voyage to, 263

Australian mail service, 185, 295

Australian Royal Mail Steam Navigation Co., 263

Australian service of P. & O. Co., 180

Australian steamers, the coaling of, 256

Australian trade cargo carriers, 294, 297

Austria, Empress of, yacht of, 373

Austrian-Lloyd Steam Navigation Co., 267

Babcock and Wilcox boilers, 359

Baikal, Lake, ferry, 365

Baltic, Swedish railway ferry, 365

Banana trade, West Indies, 299

Barclay, Curle & Co., Ltd., 206, 294

Barnes, Joseph, 20

Barrow-Belfast service, 121

Barrow-Isle of Man service, 96, 121

Barrow Steam Navigation Co., 121

Batteries, floating, 312, 320

Bazin, M., invents steamer on wheels, 387

Beard, Mr., Scotch ironmaster, 115

Beaver Line, 253, 299

Bell, Henry, of Helensburgh, 61; relations with Fulton, 61; designs a

steamboat, 62

Bell indicator for steward, 143

Belt conveyors, 349

Berlin, service to, 117

Bermuda floating dock, 355-357

Bernoulli, Daniel, 207

Bessemer, Sir Henry, and gyroscope boat, 379

Bilge keel, 281

Binney, Capt, L. & N.W.R. Marine Superintendent, 120

Bird-foot propellers, 7, 27, 207

Birmingham, Eagle Foundry, 4

Bishop’s disc engine, 313

Black and Saxton Campbell, Quebec, 134

Blackett, Capt., R.N., 214

Blockade-runners, 90, 98, 174, 175, 327

Blohm and Voss floating dock, 362

Blue Anchor Line, 297

Boats driven by animals, 2

Boats for safety, 78

Boilers, 229-230, 306; without water, 39; pressure, 210; tubular,

209; in warships, 337

Bombay floating dock, 363

Bombay, steamer launched at, 202

Borrie, Peter, 376

Boston-Liverpool trade, 288

Boulton and Watt engines, 30, 66, 81, 134, 311

Bourne, Messrs., 176

Bourne, William, proposition (1578), 6

Bows of steamers, shape of, 71

Branca, Giovanni, and steam (1629), 9

Brazil trade, 183

Bremen-New York service, 305

Bremen floating docks, 362

Brent, Mr., Deptford, 131

Bridgewater, Duke of, 61

Brighton, 106

Bristol-Waterford trade, 75

British and African Steam Navigation Co., Ltd., 299

British and American Steam Navigation Co., 138, 148

British and Foreign Steam Navigation Co., 110, 111, 177

British and Irish Steam Packet Co., 97

British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. _See_ Cunard

Line

British India Steam Navigation Co., 181, 185

British Queen Steam Navigation Co., 138

British steam-ships, beginnings of, 56

Brown, John, & Co., Clydebank, 337

Brown-Curtis turbine, 337

Brown, Mr. W. H., New York, 158

Brownne, Charles, builder of the _Clermont_, 36

Brunel, Isambard K., 78, 208, 236, 263; designs the _Great Britain_,

221; and the _Great Eastern_, 269-278

Brunel, Sir Mark, 224

“Bulk freighter,” 82

Bulkheads, 230, 235

Bunker, Captain Elihu S., rivals Fulton, 36, 39

Burmese War, 165

Burns, Mr. John, and Mr. S. Cunard, 150

Bury, Curtice, and Kennedy, Liverpool, 231

Bushnell, David, designs submarines, 206, 276; and applies screw

propeller, 206

Caird, Messrs., of Greenock, 119, 241, 293, 294, 305

Calcutta and Burmah Steam Navigation Co., 181

Calcutta, steamers to, via the Cape, 184; and Suez service, 178; to

Spithead, length of passage in 1840, 167

Calcutta Steam Committee, 166

California gold rush, 188

Californian trade, 188

Callao floating dock, 360

Calliope, the, musical instrument, 50

Caloric engines, 384

Cameron, T., & Co., Messrs., 100

Cammell, Laird & Co., 338

Campbell, Johnston & Co., floating dock at Bermuda, 356

Canada, mail steam-ship line to, 254; lines to, 255

Canadian-built lake steamers, 55

Canadian claims for first steam crossing of Atlantic, 135

Canadian ice-breaking steamers, 369-371

Canadian Pacific Railway, 299

Canadian trade, 289

Canso, Straits of, railway ferry, 369

Cantilever-framed steamers, 346

Cape route to India, 167

Cape to Spithead, length of passage (1840), 169

Cape of Good Hope mail subsidy, 183

Cape Town-Durban mails, 183

Cargo-boats, 342-352

Carron Shipping Co., the, 85-87

Carron Works, 56

Cartagena floating dock, 363

Cattle steamers, 345

Caus, Salomon de, 10

Ceylon-Hong-Kong mails, 179

“Chambers’ Journal,” account of the _Great Eastern_, 271-275

Channel Islands service, 109-112

Chester and Holyhead Railway Co., 103; absorbed by L. & N.W.R., 119

Chili, 189

Chili coal mines, 187

Chilian Revolution, The _Rising Star_ and the, 126

China, P. & O. Co. service to, 180; ships for, 206

China trade, 173; ships in, 265

Chinese paddle-wheels, ancient, 4

Cigar (shaped) ships, 375, 380

City of Dublin Steam Packet Co. _See_ Dublin

Clark, Edwin, and floating docks, 363

Clark and Standfield and floating docks, 355, 361

Cleopatra’s Needle, 341

Clippers, Yankee wooden, 194

Clyde, Bell’s steamboat on the, 62; first Cunarders built on the,

151; first steamer on the, 28; steamers on the, in 1818, 76. _See

also_ Glasgow

Clyde ferries, 366

Clyde to Liverpool, first passenger-steamer, 95

Coach fare, Scotland to London, 85

Coal at Suez, 166

Coal consumption, 229; of turbines, 309; in early voyages across

Atlantic, 142

Coal, difficulty of carrying, for long voyages, 169

Coalfields, Midland, 213

Coaling for steamers, 256

Coastal steam-ship service, development of, 80; British, 71

Coasting trade of the United Kingdom in 1822-39, 76, 77

Cochrane, Hon. William E., 127, 129

Cockerill (Belgian firm), 321

“Coffin brigs,” 149

Colden, Cadwallader D., on Robert Fulton, 26

Coles, Capt., and cupola vessels, 330; tripod masts, 332; drowned, 334

Collier belt conveyors, 349

Colliers, screw, 214

Collier, steam, with a screw, first, 213

Collingwood Shipbuilding Co., Ontario, 55

Collins, Mrs., and children drowned, 160

Collins, Mr. K. Edward, New York, 155

Collins Line, 153, 155 _et seq._; construction of ships, 158; secures

premier position, 159; extravagances and losses, 159; subsidy reduced

and line ceased, 161; service, 240

Collisions, intentional, 53

Colon, service to, 191

Commercial Steam Packet Co., 111

Compagnie Belge Maritime du Congo, 299

Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, 267

Compañia de Vapores Correos Interinsulares Canarios, 299

Confederate States of America, steamers, 90, 98, 174; commissioners,

262

Connecticut River, Morey’s steamboat on, 24

Continental passenger traffic, 105

Cootes, Mr., Walker-on-Tyne, 211, 213

Cork Steamship Co., 97, 139

Corrugated steam-ship, 349

Craggs, R., & Sons, Ltd., 348, 349

Cramp, Messrs., Philadelphia, 256, 291, 340

Crimean War, 98; iron vessel in the, 316; and shipbuilding yards,

319; floating batteries, 312, 320; P. & O. steamers employed, 180;

steam-ships in the, 312; transports, 183, 239, 262

Cruisers, armed mercantile, 287, 291

Cunard Line, 281-287; first Cunarder based on Manx steamer, 87;

beginnings, 150; sizes, &c. of first steamers, 151; increase of

business, 152; builds iron ships, 153; rivalry with Inman Line,

240; first iron steamer, 243; last paddle-steamer, 246; adopt

screw-steamers, 246

Cunard, Mr. Samuel, 134, 149

Curling, Young & Co., Messrs., 138, 146, 187

Curtis turbines, 338

Cutters in Channel Islands service, 109

Cutwaters, straight, 158

Dalswinton, 58

Davey, Mr. W. J., 299

Dawson’s steamer, London-Gravesend, 70

Day Line, 49, 51

Day, Summers & Co., 114

Decks for passengers, 42

Delaware River, early steamboats on the, 25, 29

Dempster, John, 299

Denny Bros., Dumbarton, ships by, 96, 105, 281, 310

Dent & Co., 203

Destroyers, 336

Dewey floating dock, 362

Dicey, Capt., 377

Dickenson, Robert, and iron ships, 195

Dieppe-Honfleur route, 108

Displacement, theory of, 30, 193

Ditchburn and Mare, Blackwall, ships by, 233, 234, 260, 313, 371, 372

Dixon, Sir Raylton, & Co., Ltd., 346

Docks, dry, difficulties of, 353; floating, 352-363

Dod, Daniel, 123

Dodd, Capt., of the _Thames_, 67

Dominion Line, 243, 288

Donaldson Line, 255

Dover-Calais service, 72, 105; designs to prevent sea-sickness,

377-379; race, paddle _v._ screw, 259; proposed railway ferry, 366

Doxford, Messrs., and the rolling of ships’ plates, 345; and shifting

cargo in bulk, 346, 351

Dramatic Line, 155

Dublin and Liverpool Steam Navigation Co., 73, 74

Dublin and London Steam Packet Co., 176

Dublin, City of, Steam Packet Co., 72, 74, 89; service to London, 97;

Irish mail service, 102-104; and transatlantic service, 144

Dublin-London service, 97

Dublin-Wexford service, 98

Duck-foot paddles, 7, 27, 207

Dudgeon, Messrs. J. & W., ships and engines by, 108, 184, 186, 234,

264, 265, 322; expansion engines and screw propellers, 256; first

apply twin-screws, 325

Duncan, R. (shipbuilder), 151

Dundas, Lord, 28, 57, 59

Dundee, Perth, and London Shipping Co., 87

Dundonald, Lord, 127, 129

Dundrum Bay, _Great Britain_ ashore, 225

Dupuy de Lome, M., 320

Durham, Capt., 264

Dutch steamers, 76

Dynamite gun, 339

East, communication between England and the, 164

East India Co. and steamers to India, 166; inefficiency of service,

176; services, 180, 181; iron ships for, 317

East Indiamen with auxiliary steam, 167

Eastern Archipelago Co., 235

Eastern Navigation Co., and the _Great Eastern_, 270 _et seq._

Eckford, Henry, naval architect, 42

Edinburgh and Leith Shipping Co., 84

Edinburgh-London service, 81; by sea, 84

Edward VII., yachts of, 371

Egyptian royal yachts (Khedive’s), 372, 374

Elbing-Schichau Works, 303

Elder, Alexander, 299

Elder, Dempster & Co., 262, 298, 299

Elder, John, 229

Elder, John, & Co., Govan, 108, 109, 249, 250, 251, 282, 306

Electric lighting on steamers, 242; incandescent lamps, 281

Ellerman Line, 291

Ellice, Mr. Edward, and Chilian independence, 128

Emigrant traffic to America, 238

Engines: compound, 185, 187, 261; of earliest boats, 199 _et seq._;

gas vacuum, 211; Ogden’s, 219; multiple-expansion, 229, 256, 306;

reciprocating, 286; triple-expansion, 296; high-pressure, 306;

turbine, 307; reciprocating and turbine, 310; hot-air, 384; piston

engine development, 387

English Channel Steamship Co., 377

English river steamers, construction of, 46

Ericsson, John, hot-air engines, 384; screw propellers, 170, 215, 218

Ericsson Shipping Co., 349

Ericsson’s _Monitor_, 329

“Etoile” engine, 210

European and Australian Steam Navigation Co., 184, 185

Excursions in early steamboats, 43

Exhibition of 1851, extra traffic from, 107

Fairfield Co., Govan, 96, 109, 301

Fall River Line, 46, 47

Falmouth-Mediterranean service, 176

Fares, passenger, under competition, 74

Faron, Mr., 158

Farragut, Admiral, 175

Fauber (American engineer) and hydroplane, 386

Fawcett & Preston, engines by, 144, 148, 177

Ferguson, Mr. John, 206

Ferry steamers for railway trains, 363-366