CHAPTER X

THE BUILDING OF STEEL SHIPS As early as 1853 mild cast steel had been suggested for shipbuilding, and in 1855 Howell introduced it as “homogeneous metal,” but shipbuilders took little notice of the suggestion for some years. Robert Napier and Sons received orders in 1858 for some high-pressure boilers and marine machinery where lightness combined with strength was of the utmost importance, and it was proposed to use “homogeneous metal” for the one and puddled steel for the other instead of the wrought iron which was ordinarily employed. Steel as then made was very brittle and many attempts were made to remedy this defect. David Kirkaldy made a series of important experiments which lasted three and a half years and attracted the attention of the Scottish Shipbuilders’ Association. His principal service was the discovery and placing on record of the effects of oil hardening upon the properties of steel. The _Ma Robert_ is said to have been the first steel steamer ever built; she was constructed by Laird’s for the Livingstone expedition to the Zambesi. High tensile steel was used with a limit of elasticity of about twenty-three tons, which is very similar to the metal used in the _Mauretania_ and _Lusitania_ where stresses are to be met. Strength and lightness were essential in the _Ma Robert_ and therefore the new material was used. The little vessel was 73 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 3 feet deep, and was flat-bottomed and of very little draft. But the hull corroded badly and leaked very much, and the steamer came to grief on a sandbank in the Zambesi. The _Rainbow_, built of steel plates in 1858, was a smart, handsome paddle-boat, schooner-rigged, and carrying two very tall masts. She had a high-pressure engine and her steam-pipe emitted the energetic snort which was peculiar to the locomotive of the time. Indeed her high-pressure machinery made such a noise that she could be heard from one side of the Mersey to the other. She was intended for the Niger Exploration expedition, and on her trial attained a speed of between twelve and thirteen miles an hour. She was 130 feet long by 16 feet beam. Although her plates were only one-eighth of an inch thick she had the stiffness and rigidity of a strong ship, and there was almost an entire absence of vibration from the engines. Her boilers, which were of puddled steel plates, were proved up to 200 lb. on the square inch, though they were only worked at 50 to 60 lb. The engine was of 60 nominal horse-power, working up to 200 indicated. The hull was divided athwartship and longitudinally by bulkheads into ten or twelve water-tight compartments. It must be remembered that these experimental steel boats were intended for inland navigation, and being taken to Africa were withdrawn from the observation of practically every one who was competent to judge of the relative merits of iron and steel. Certainly no one attempted to build a steel boat for the ocean for some years afterwards, and it was not until 1875, when the Admiralty, acting upon observations made in the dockyards of France where steel was being used, represented to British manufacturers the importance of improving the quality of steel, that the Siemens-Martin process was brought out, and in consequence two cruisers were constructed of steel produced in this way. [Illustration: THE “BRITANNIC” (WHITE STAR LINE, 1874).] [Illustration: THE “UMBRIA” AND “ETRURIA” (CUNARD).] With the launching of the _Rotomahana_, an ocean steel steamer of 1777 tons gross built by W. Denny and Bros. in 1879 for the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, the iron age of the steamer may be said to close and the age of steel to begin. It has been shown how iron slowly but surely replaced wood in construction; when the superiority of steel to either had been practically demonstrated the change from iron to steel was rapid. In 1891 over 80 per cent. of the steam-ships under construction were of steel. The _Rotomahana_ was followed in 1881 in the transatlantic trade by the Allan liner _Buenos Ayrean_. The Allan Line has always been to the fore in the provision of first-class steamers. They were the first to have a steel ocean steamer; the first to adopt bilge keels on vessels, the _Parisian_ in 1884 being fitted with them; and they were the first to make the experiment with turbine-driven steamers for ocean traffic in the _Victorian_ and _Virginian_ in 1903. These two vessels are 540 feet in length by 60 feet in breadth, and 40 feet 6 inches in depth. They are of 12,000 tons register, and have a speed of 17 knots. Besides these, the company has five twin-screw boats of tonnages ranging from 9000 to 11,000 tons, and twenty-two screw boats from 3000 to 5395 tons. The Cunard Line’s first steel steamer was the _Servia_, built by Messrs. J. and G. Thomson, and completed in 1881. She was 515 feet in length, and of 7392 gross tonnage, and her engines, of 10,000 indicated horse-power, gave her a speed of 17 knots. Incandescent electric lamps were fitted in her, she being the first of the fleet to carry them. The _Aurania_, of slightly less length, but of equal speed, and also of steel, was built in 1883. After her came the _Umbria_ and _Etruria_, steel single-screw steamers, with engines of 14,500 indicated horse-power, giving them a speed of 20 knots. The sisters _Campania_ and _Lucania_, steel twin-screw vessels of 12,952 tons, were added for the New York trade, and later the _Caronia_ and _Carmania_. They were sisters except in their engines; the latter being the company’s first turbine experiment, and having triple propellers. They are each 675 feet in length by 72 feet 6 inches beam, and 43 feet 9 inches moulded depth. The _Etruria_ was sold in 1909 to the shipbreakers for £16,750, and with her there ended another chapter in the history of the navigation of the North Atlantic. She was a “flyer” only a few years before being disposed of, her record passage from Queenstown to New York being 5 days 20 hours 55 minutes, and her eastward passage 6 days 37 minutes. She was built to outstrip the _Oregon_, a vessel built for the Guion Line in 1883 by John Elder and Co., and known from her speed of 18 knots as “the greyhound of the Atlantic.” The same builders were ordered by the Cunard Company to eclipse her, and constructed two steamers, the _Etruria_ and _Umbria_, which for many years were the fastest ships afloat. Before they left the builders’ hands, however, the _Oregon_ was acquired by the Cunard Company. The two Cunarders had the largest compound engines in existence. These boats were 500 feet between perpendiculars, 57 feet 3 inches beam, and 40 feet moulded depth. They were each of 8127 tons gross, and had engines of 14,500 indicated horse-power, giving them an average speed of 19 knots. It was stated of them at one of the meetings of the Cunard Company that “no ships ever gave their owners less uneasiness than these two, and no ships have done such an extraordinary amount of good work. They are monuments that cannot lie to the skill of the design and the faithfulness of the labour that went to their accomplishment.” [Illustration: THE “MAURETANIA” (CUNARD, 1907).] [Illustration: THE “CAMPANIA” (CUNARD, 1892).] The Cunard express steamer _Mauretania_, sister ship to the _Lusitania_, launched at Clydebank, was constructed on the Tyne by Messrs. Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson, Ltd., who were already represented in the Cunard fleet by the _Ultonia_, _Ivernia_, and _Carpathia_. A description of the _Mauretania_ given by the builders and the Cunard Company states that the flat keel-plate is five feet wide and three and three-quarter inches thick, and forms a portion of the bottom of the ship. Associated with this flat keel is a vertical keel, five feet high and one inch thick, and to this vertebra are attached, directly or indirectly, the frames and beams which make up the skeleton. The double bottom is divided by this vertical keel and the transverse frames into compartments in which water-ballast may be taken. The tops of these tanks are carried well round the turn of the bilge, so that should the bilge keels be torn away and the hull pierced, the entering water would be confined between the inner and outer bottoms. As a further precaution towards securing insubmersibility, the lower deck is made completely water-tight. Below it are the orlop and lower orlop decks, and above are the main, upper, shelter, promenade, upper promenade, and boat decks--nine decks in all. Automatically closing water-tight doors are fitted in the bulkheads, and can be closed from the navigating bridge in a few seconds. The _Mauretania_ has 175 water-tight compartments, so that it is claimed for her that she is as unsinkable as a ship can be. “The steel plates which cover the ribs or framing of the vessel or are used for the decks, bulkheads, and casings, or in other ways, number 26,000, the largest being about 48 feet in length, and weighing from four to five tons. To secure these plates to each other and the structural framework of the ship, over 4,000,000 rivets have been used, aggregating in weight about 500 tons. The largest rivets are used in the keel-plate, and these are eight inches in length and weigh 2³⁄₄ lb. The main frames and beams placed end to end would extend thirty miles; the rudder, which has two sets of steering gear, both of which are below the water-line, weighs 65 tons, and the diameter of the rudder stock is 26 inches. The castings for the stem, stern-post, shaft bracket and rudder together weigh 280 tons. Her ground gear is, with that manufactured for her sister ship, the _Lusitania_, the strongest yet made. The three anchors each weigh ten tons, while the 1800 feet of cable is composed of 24-inch links, the iron in which is 3³⁄₄ inches in diameter and the weight of each link about 1¹⁄₂ cwts. This mighty harness has been vigorously tested, sample links and shackles emerging successfully from a test strain of 370 tons. “The principal measurements of the _Mauretania_ are: Length 790 feet. Breadth 88 „ Depth (moulded) 60 „ Gross tonnage 32,500 tons. Displacement tonnage 45,000 „ Load draught 37 ft. 6 ins. Height of funnels 155 feet. Diameter of funnels 24 „ Height of masts 216 „ “Figures, however, convey but a bare idea of the great size. A favourite standard of comparison in shipping is the leviathan of Brunel, the _Great Eastern_, the mammoth steamer, which, born before its time, yet solved in her construction many of the most difficult problems with which the modern builders of big ships have to grapple; yet the _Mauretania_ quite dwarfs the gigantic _Great Eastern_, as the following figures show: _Great Eastern._ _Mauretania._ Length 692 feet. 790 feet. Breadth 80 „ 88 „ Displacement 27,000 tons. 45,000 tons. Paddle, screw, and sail. Quadruple screws. Speed 13 to 14 knots. 25 knots. “The _Great Eastern_ was an experiment, but there is nothing of the experiment about the _Mauretania_ and her sister, the Clyde-built ship _Lusitania_. The valuable data obtained from the running of the 20,000-ton turbine Cunarder _Carmania_ has afforded a valuable object-lesson in adapting the turbine method of propulsion to liners of the leviathan class, demonstrating the suitability of the steam turbine to the largest type of vessel. “The _Mauretania_ is propelled by turbine engines of about 70,000 indicated horse-power, driving four shafts, each of which is fitted with one three-bladed propeller of manganese bronze. The outermost shafts are each connected with a high-pressure turbine, the inner shafts being rotated by the low-pressure turbines. “The boilers and turbine engines of the _Mauretania_ were constructed by the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company, Ltd., of Wallsend-on-Tyne. There are twenty-three double-ended and two single-ended boilers, and one hundred and ninety-two large furnaces. The boiler plates are the largest yet made. The steam is conducted from the boilers into the turbines, of which there are four.” The turbines contain about 3,000,000 blades, rotating four shafts, the united length of which is close upon 1000 feet with a weight of about 250 tons, each shaft carrying 17,000 or 18,000 indicated horse-power. Under the covenant with the Government made at the time she was arranged to be built, she is fitted for an armament of 12 six-inch guns. Her rudder and both sets of steering-gear are below the water-line, and in the way of the engine and boiler rooms there are side bunkers which, filled with coal, are equivalent to an armour-belt round the vulnerable portion of the ship. Although the _Mauretania_ and _Lusitania_ are usually spoken of as sisters, there are some differences in the design. They are the same length, but the former is six inches deeper, which adds about 500 tons to her registered tonnage. Special high tensile steel was used to a greater extent in the construction of the _Mauretania_, making that vessel something like 1000 tons lighter. Her lines are slightly finer, and it has been claimed to account for her speed that there is some superiority in her engines. In regard to the structure of the _Lusitania_, it is stated that with the whole structure of mild steel Lloyd’s accepted a stress of ten tons to the square inch, and that in view of the strains thrown upon the upper works a high tensile steel of less scantling was adopted for those parts; a material having been discovered with a tensile strength 20 per cent. greater than mild steel, a reduction of 6 per cent. in the scantlings was allowed from those for mild steel. The Cunarders were not the first vessels by many years in which high tensile steel of a strength of thirty-six tons was used, as it was introduced twenty-three years ago in the steam-ship _America_. Whether the great Cunarders pay in the financial sense is known only to the management of the line, but there is no denying that they are a great national asset. A detailed estimate, published at the time they were about to make their first voyages, placed the expenditure at £17,990 per voyage, and the income, allowing for a full passenger list, at £31,350.[91] But this did not profess to be more than a general estimate and in no sense official. The question has been raised in various quarters whether an equal speed could not have been obtained from reciprocating engines with a less consumption of coal; as a reply to this view it has been pointed out that the sizes that would have been required for the ingots, &c., for the machinery were beyond the capabilities of our steel manufacturers, and thus, as so often has happened, the new set of conditions was met by the new development of invention. [91] _Liverpool Courier_, November 18, 1907. KAISER CAMPANIA. OCEANIC. BALTIC. WILHELM II. LUSITANIA. Displacement 20,000 26,100 33,000 26,000 41,500 Draught 30 30 30 30 32 Speed 22 20 16¹⁄₂ 23¹⁄₂ 25 I.H.P. 30,000 29,000 16,000 38/40,000 65,000 Consumption } of coal, tons } 485 400 260 660 840 per day } Length, b.p. 598 685 709 684 760 Breadth 65 68·3 75·6 72·3 88 Depth 43 49 49 52·6 60·5 Gross tonnage 12,950 17,274 23,800 19,360 28,830 Number of } {12 double} boilers } 13 16 8 { 7 single} 24 Total cost £615,000 £739,000 £800,000 £927,200 £1,250,000 “The above table shows at a glance the ships that have come between the _Campania_ and the _Lusitania_. The _Baltic_ shows the type of steamer that pays the best, going across at a moderate speed sufficient for most people while at the same time carrying an enormous amount of cargo.”[92] [92] _Shipping World_, January 2, 1907. Alterations have been made in the propellers of both these steamers with a view to finding the size, pitch, number of blades, material, weight, and number of revolutions per minute and the other details upon which efficiency depends, but the result is carefully guarded. Such tests are expensive. In 1889 the White Star Company built the _Teutonic_ of 10,000 tons, which, like her sister ship the _Majestic_, was intended to be an armed mercantile cruiser. These two vessels, which each took nearly three years in building, were at that time the finest the world had seen, and the speediest, and were regarded with such wonder that at the naval review in 1889, one of them was visited by the German Emperor and the late King Edward (then Prince of Wales) and many distinguished officers of the Navy. The _Majestic_ soon brought the record from Queenstown to New York down to 5 days 18 hours 18 minutes, but this was reduced by the _Teutonic_ to 5 days 16¹⁄₂ hours. The second _Oceanic_, also of steel and a twin-screw boat, was placed in the Liverpool and New York service in 1899. She was 704 feet in length and was the first vessel to be built longer than the _Great Eastern_, but in other respects she was smaller, her beam being 68·3 feet, her gross tonnage 16,900 and her displacement tonnage 26,100. The indicated horse-power of the _Oceanic_ was 29,000 as against the 11,000 of the _Great Eastern_, and her speed was 21¹⁄₂ knots as compared with