The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-01-01
coAsrwIsE SAILING scHooNERs,

People living in the states or New
York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, and Maine are
the principal owners of the large three
and four-masted schooners engaged in
the Atlantic coastWise carrying trade.
For more than decade these vessels
paid such dividends that managing
owners and captains found little diff
Guilty in raising money to put into the
construction of new schooners. The
property was considered to be ofarisky
character, but so long as the vessels
paid for themselves in five years, as
very many of them did, there was not
much trouble in finding owners for
them. Now, however, their usefulness
is threatened from the gulf to the Britt
ish provinces by the aggressive policy
of the owners of the new class of large
ocean-going barges and tug-boats. 1t
seems likely that this policy will drive
the canvas-winged schooners out of
business.
About three years ago coastwise
freight rates began to fall off so rapid
ly that the building of schooners in this
and the neighboring states was
GlopptI. IINCI III Tie
state of Maine only one or two schoon-
ers have been built this year, while the
construction of sea- going barges and
tugboats has gone steadily on. Freight
rates have finally reached such figures
that this year many of the New Haven
and New London fleet of schooners,
and they are types of those along the
entire coast, have not paid cent of
dividend. An illustration of the ire
mendous cut in freights is given by the
case of the two thousand ton four
masted schooner Bayard Barnes of this
port. Last year she brought coal here
from Newport News under charter for
seventy-fve cents a ton. This season,
her charter having expired, she has
brought coal here over the same route
for fifty cents a ton, and an attempt
has been made to cut the price from
Norfolk to forty-fve cents a ton.
The barges are now invading the
southern lumber trade, after having
established themselves in the coal-car-
rying trade. The large ocean going
barge Forest Belle recently made a
voyage from Fernandina to Boston in
tow of the ocean tug George w. Pride
of Philadelphia, with a cargo of 1,400.-
900 feet of lumber. On previous trip
she carried thirty-two thousand yellow
pine railroad ties from Brunswick to
Now York. That is said to have been
the first time that lumber was ever
brought by a barge from the south.
The cargoes in both cases We're unusu-
ally large ones. The Forest Belle Is
owned by Captain II. w. Besse of New
Bedford, who has such faith in big
barges and tugboats that he has put
another new barge, the Ocean Belle,
into the trade. She has just been
launched and Will carry three thousand
tons of coal on eighteen and one-half
feet of water. She had been chartered
to load coal at Baltimore for Calves
ton and for number of trips will car
ry coal from Pensacola to Galveston.
The tug George w. Pride will tow her
to the gulf and remain as her consort
all winter
An attempt is being made to intro
duce barges into the Savannah lumber
trade in particular. Concerning this
| the Savannah News says:
1.-THE scheme of using barges in the
| transportation of lumber was the dis
covery of New Bedford capitalists. IT
is believed that the time is not far dis
| tant when barges in the coastwise
trade will drive out the hundreds OF
schooners engaged in this particular
business. Not only has the coal trade
been ruined for the schooners by the
| ~, I,,t Lo ba,
| troll of the coastwise oil trade, and are
now competitors for the lumber trade.
In carrying out the Savannah under
taking a tug will await the loading oil
one barge, and as soon as it is ready
will tow it north. BY the time another
is loaded the tug will return and be in
readiness for another cargo. Southern
| lumber dealers say that barge will
carry more than twice as much lumber
as an ordinary schooner. and that
harges can be run much cheaper thar
schooners and consequently can Offer
lower rates for freight. On the other
hand, the schooner is better fitted thar
the barge to encounter storms and tht
perils of the sea. But such perfection
has been reached in the building OF
tugs, barges, towing apparatus ant
steel hawsers. that it is probable the
southern towing will be made as muci
of a success as the short towing from
| Philadelphia to Boston. in which thert
| is no question but that the schooner
men have already beer badly beaten
Larger barges and tugs are being buil
by the coal-handling corporations eve
ny year. Many of the finest tugs in thu
| world are now in the service. The coz
business has reached a point where the
seller in many cases delivers the car
goes. He can use his own tugs an(
| berges at an expense below that o.
paying living freights to the schooners
The schooner men say that the seller
does not expect return in 'freigh
money from his tows. He simply use!
! the lows as a. means to an end, to de-
liver his coal at as low a. cost as posi-
| BILE Hence 1t is impossible for tht
coasting schooners to compete.
| An illustration of the work done thi!
season by one of the new class of ocear
coal towing tugs may be given a:
showing how the schooners fail in com
petition with them. The Philadelphia
and Reading railroad company's stee
tug Tamaqua was completed last Feb
ruary and is said to be the largest ant
most powerful tug on the Atlantic
coast. She was built to tow outside o
= MI el.I-, l..