The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-05-01
LIFE ON A TORPEDO BOAT.
War Is No Froic But Frghtful Reality In Such Craft

The life at sea on a schooner may be
trying, it may be cold and cherries
and limited, but to thoroughly grasp
the full significance of being cribbed,
cabined and confined one should serve
on board a torpedo boat, says the New
York Herald.
A torpedo boat is a long, low, narrow
vessel, in the designing of which the
one element of speed has been made to
dominate all other features. There
fore, every qualification that makes for
this end is given the highest develop
ment to the almost total suppression
of every other warlike and seagoing
essential. For instance, a boat of 100
tons displacement, similar to the three
boats Spain sent to the Cape de Verde
islands, is usually from 100 to $50 feet
long. Slows twenty-five tons of coal,
carries four tcrpedoes, two for each
tube. and has a complement Of about
twenty men.
In dividing such a craft up internal
ly. usually the sharp knife edge bow is
shut off six or eight feet abaft the stern
from the remainder of the boat by the
collision buikhead. This division is
made, first, because nothing could be
far forward, and second, to insure the
safety of the boat in case her bows set
stove. To stave in the bows of a tor
peelo boat is really quite as easy as
rolling off a log, for the boat in all her
parts is made as light as possible. The
skin plating is of the thinnest steel,
the frames are of light weight, the lon
gitudinalS are mere strips of metal. SO
thin and frail is the construction of
the boat that if she bumps or runs into
anything she viii be bent out of shape,
and should her bow strike any hard OBJ
ject-like floating spar or the Spite
of a deck-it would be turned back on
itself and twisted all out of shape, in
much the same way as a stiff piece of
paper would be after being crumpled
up in the hand. Next abaft the COLI
sion bulkhead comes the torpedo room.
where the torpedoes are manipulated
either to be fired out of the bow tube
or hoisted up to the deck tube, accord
ing to which way the boat may be
fitted. Next come the mems quarters
a small compartment, where the eigh-
teen or twenty sailors are packed in
like sardines.
TORPEDO BOAT MACHINERY.
Then comes the boilers and engines.
The former are of the tubular type, in
which water circulates through an al
most infinite number of tubes. Steam
up, but men, in order to keep these
fiery maWs aglow with all the fuel they
can eat, must be able to stand heat
with nearly as much impunity as did
the three Israelites. Meshach, Shadrach
and Abednego, of the Old Testament
The engines Of the torpedo boat are
OF the five cylinder triple expansion
class or of the Quadruple expansion
type. They are the lightest, most care
fully adjusted and the most perfect and
delicate specimens of mechanism afloat.
AS a consequence they must be handled
with consummate skill. Usually there
are two sets of engines, occupying the
entire waist of the ship and part of
the after body. Every part is as COM
pact as possible there is not an inch of
waste space-pipes, cylinders, pumps,
levers and other parts of the apparatus
are here presented to the view of the
uninitiated in seemingly endless confu-
sion
Indeed. it is hard work for an expert
tc know at first where to find the valve
he must shut, or the cock he must
open, or the wheel he must turn. And
the heat thrown out by the whirling
cranks, the leaking steam, the hot
slides and the lively pistons is as great !
and overpowering as the heat in the
boiler room. Yet here, as there, the !
Inachinist and his assistants stand to /
their work, almost stripped to the buff, !
TiVuietS OF sweat rolling down their |
faces and off their bodies, with never
thought of the danger surrounding |
them, for let any part of that swiftly |
moving. delicate machinery break-and /
often it does break-or let our fireman ]
miss his fOoting-which unfortunately !
sometimes happens-and the chances /
Rre a hundred to one that he will never /
touch lever or fire furnace again.
Abaft the engine room is usually a I
small compartment, where the engineer /
and petty officers sleep. Four hunks is :
about all there is TO it. Abaft it is an
other quite like it. This is the ward
room. ca bin. mess room and state room
for the three officers usually attached
TO & torpedo boat. Not infreouently
the distance from the deck to the top
of the room is so low that men under
six feet have to be selected for duty
on board. On some of our boats a tall
man can only stand erect when in his
quarters, by letting his head go I'D
through the wardroom hatch.
An imaginative reader might, per