Morning journal and courier., 1890-02-24
OCEAN RACERS NEXT SEASON.
OUEAN HACKAS NNAK SmASONs The Atlantic to be Charged by New Ships of Extraordinary Power.
 IFror, fha Neyr York Suu.1

h0 ASA0AbAC SO UO ONeAASsA - >'~--
 Ships of Extraordinary Power.
 From the New York Sum-
 The North Atlantic will be churnsd by twin propellers this year as it never has been before. The City of Paris of the Inman line will have to defend the ocean crossing record of five days, nineteen hours and eighteen minutes against three brand new competitions of the first-class, built expressly for speed. They are the Normannia of the Hamburg American line, the Majestic of the White Star line, and La Touraine of the French line. The threatened advent of these ships does not disturb the confident serenity of the officials of the Inman line. however. They believe their splendid boat is going to cut down her record by couple of hours at least before the end of the summer. She has made very creditable winter voyage over g long, southerly course from Queenstown of six days, four hours and twenty-three min utes. This, her admirers say, indicates that she is going to do wonders when the ocean race track is clear of ice, and the stormy winds let up @ bit. Just after she estab- lished the record in August last, she made . run of 515 knots in one day. Now that her l engineers have caught on to her mechanical peculiarities and have presumably mastered the science of getting out of her tremendous engines all the power they are capable of developing, it Is not extravagant to expect | her to average nearly 516 knots day from Queenstown to Sandy Hook. If she can do this she may pull the record down to i've | days and fourteen hours. But that is the l conjecture of only her enthusiastic packers. Conservative folk of nautical turn think l she will do better than five days and sixteen l hours. If she does this the new seekers after II kl,-1 1n,. xvsn hov l to be wonderful craft to keep up.
 Nothing very definite is known here about the dimensions of the Normannia and La Touraine. The agents of both lines say that the boats were designed for record smashing. They are constructed on the plan of the Herreschof marvels-that is. they have lots of horse power in proportionately small
 hulls. La Touraine will be launched in
 March and will be running in the autumn.
 She is built on the symmetrical, cutter-sug- gestive lines of the single crew French ships, such as La Champagne and La BourgoRne.
 She measures 6, ,0OO tons, and will have triple
 expansion engines of 12, ,000 horse power;
 that is, she will be only ,000 tons larger than La Bourgogne and will have have 4,O00
 more horse power for that extra ,OOO tons. | There will be about as much perceptible diff ference between La Touraine's hull and that of La Bourgogne as there is between the old
 Normandie (6,300 tons) and La Bourgogne (7,00O tons.) The French line built La Tou-
 raine at it's own yards at Penhoe near St. Nazsire on the Loire. She will be splendidly decorated and will cost over $1, ,500, ,000. La
 Bourgogne and La Champagne have made | the run of over three thousand miles from
 Havre to New York in what would be about l six and one-half days from Queenstown, and 1 the officials of the French line expect La Toursine to reduce this by more than a half l day at least.
 The Hamburg American line has great ex- pectations about the Normannia. She will leave Hamburg on her maiden trip hither on
 May 22 in charge of Captain Hebich, now of
 the Columbia, which has the record between
 this port and Southampton. A gentleman | connected with the companys office here ! says that the Normannia will beat the City
 of Paris, if any credence may be placed in
 the letter of an engineer concerned in the
 construction of the Normannia. Tho letter
 writer says he believes the ship will make 6 run from Southampton equal to about five
 and 8 half days from Queenstown. He
 bases his prediction on the fact that she haf
 greater horse power in proportion to her ton
 mage than any ship afloat. Her agents havt
 not received detailed description of her
 They say that che will be a little more thar | 500 feet long, and will have engines of 16, GOO horse power. The Columbia is a fastel | ship-or was faster ship last season-thaI | either the City of New York or the Teutonia The untried Majestic is a sister ship of thu
 Teutonie, the leviathan of ocean crossers She is 562 feet long, ffty-seven and one
 half feet beam and thirty nine and one- -thirt
 feet deep. The White Star folks are some what shy about expressing an opinion in re gard to her probable speed. Her builders
 no doubt, have not duplicated in her the de l fects which helped to make the Teutoni' somewhat disappointing as . racer. It i: ; ssid that the Majestic will have as much more horse power (about 2,000) than ths Teutonic as the City of Paris has more thar } the City of New York. The Teutonic ane
 the City of New York make about the sam
 time, and if the Majestic is as much superior to the Teutonio as the record holder is t, the City of New York, lovers of transatlan
 tic racing will see some fine sport this aum
 mer. The Majestic will sail from Liverpoo
 on April 2, and from Queenstown on the day
 following, for New York. Captain Parsell
 now of the Teutonic, will command her.