The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-09-14
THE ENGLISH NAVY.
American Naval Officers Get
Much Consolation
OUT OF THE RECENT MANEUyERs
OF the British Fleet-None Of the Vessels
Developed Their Nominal Speed
The Coil Boiler.

WASHINGTON, Sept 13.-Naval officers
here and others who have had to do with
the construction of naval vessels find
much TO encourage their faithin the Ameri-
can navy and console them for what ap-
peared to be bad failures in marine
architecture, in the report of the
latest English naval maneuvers which
has just reached parliament. This report
is entitled to weight, as it was made by
four admirals commanding squadrons.
The first is as to torpedo boats.
They find these boats are of
great value to blockades, but i'll
adapted to blockading work. Their ma
chinery is constantly in need of repairs,
and they require frequent attention in the
matters of water and coal, and the deteri-
Grafton of their machinery soon took away
from their speed, which constituted their
principal value.
Touching the larger vessels the report
says that ON all sides during the
manuevers came complaints of defective
machinery. The squadrons were constantly
impeded in their speed and movements by
''lame ducks'' needing repairs to realize
the speed at which the ships were
rated from 10 to II knOts) and this
of the manIevers. The best spec
the Rupert could make at the very begin
ming was knots. She kept up Q knots
with difficulty and the iron clad dropped
astern. making less than the Inaexible,
which also fell behind from break in her
engine The old ship was steaming easily
at the time under two boilers. The other
ships in fact seem to have done very well.
The vessels that appeared to travel with
Black Prince, built in 1881; the Hercules,
built in 1886 and the Devastation built in
1871. The Hotspur and Northampton,
rated at 16 knots, had difficulty
in keeping up 10 knots. Almost every
one of the fast cruisers failed
to steam up to their nominal
or to maintain the maximum steam pres
sure when it was reached. The Merry, an
1S-knot ship, steamed at AZ knots, but
had to slow down for several hours to
clean tubes. The Mercury was the only
cruiser in the first squadron capable of
making 16 knots for forty-eight hours.
This ship was built to compete with the
Wampanong and other fast boats built by
the United States at the close of the war.
The Mohawk class failed in boilers and
tubes and the Raccoon practically broke
down.
The Archer and Cossack had their boilers
retuDed before Jney nau Deen on Jnree
months in commission. These are the types
for our new 2,0OO-ton vessels, but the ma
chinery has been improved in design and
durability. The Serpent was almost con
stantIy under repairs in port. An unsuc-
cessful effort was made to introduce like
machinery into the new practice ship for
Annapolis.
The Rattlesnake class proved to be en-
tirely too delicate for rough work. ''In
point of fact" says a correspondent, ''we
are in this position. The least imanuevers
may be rendered abortive by inefficiency
in our steam power. Whatever
else the campaign brings out
it viii demonstrate to a certainty that
there is not an officer of either of the four
squadrons that feels the least confidence in
his ship to steam in an emergency,
winding up their criticism on the ships
trials. 1t may be that in view of
the failure of ordinary boilers at
high steam pressure, inquiries and
experiments as to the practical employ
ment of tublous or coil high pressure boil
ers will be followed with increased inter
est Our own navy department has already
begun to make trials of these boilers at the
instance of Chief Engineer Melville, and
upon his recommendation they are to be
placed in the new coast defense vessel,
New York.