The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-01-17
AN ICE-BREAKER.
One of the oueerest Ships Ahoat.

oiiC VI lle NyutSIeSJ ISulIJS AIIDdl.
At Newcastle-on-T Tyne there has been
launched the pioneer ship of pelaeic
ice breakers. The employment of
large ice breakers had been confined to
| the great lakes of Canada until the di-
rection of the Siberian railroad ordered
I a powerful vessel of this class, which
is being on the shores of Lake Baikal,
in Siberia. Admiral Makaroff drew the
attention of the Russian government
to the experience gained in these in
lands seas, and induced it to place an
order for an oceans going vessel larger,
heavier and more powerful than any
ice breaker yet built. The work which
she is to undertake is much more am
bilious than anything that has hitherto
been considered practicable, and it is
held by many men of experience in
navigation amid frozen waters that
there will be nog reat difficulty in keep
ing open many, If not all, of the prin-
cipal trade routes of the world which
are now impossible every winter. The
ice-breaking ferry steamers of the
Canadian lakes success in maintaining
practically unbroken connection be-
tween their stations through ice four
LCCL III liilChutsS anu llty are OlltIl
called upon to face what are actually
known as windows, when the drift ice
has been piled up by the effect of the
wind to a height of sometimes twenty
feet. The greatest thickness of field ice
reported by DIR. Nansen is twelve feet,
and this was in ATTITUDES where even
commercial enterprise has not yet made
for itself an outlet. Within the limits
to which trade has hitherto been con-
fined no such thickness of ice is to be
found.
1.-THE dimensions and appearance of
the vessel would suggest a battleship,
were it not that the bow is cut away
and forms an exceedingly long over
hang, which serves the double purpose
of breaking the ice with which it comes
in contact, by concentrating the wis
viva" of the vessel, and of projecting
the forward propeller. The earlier ice
breakers were designed on the principle
of breaking the down ice by brute
force. The cutaway bow enabled the
vessel to be run partially up on to the
ice, and if the weight thus applied was
not sufficient to break the ice, the ice
breaker went astern until she came off,
an dtried 1t again. The principle upon
which the new vessel attacks the ice
is also brute force, but it is augmented
by science. The forward propeller by
disturbing the water under the ice, de-
prives it of it's support and thus rend-
ers it a comparatively easy task for the
heavy vessel to break through it,
The principal dimensions Of the ship
are: Length, 305 feet; breadth, II feet,
and depth, AZ feet inches. When fully
loaded the draft will be rs feet, and
the corresponding displacement about
5000 tons The propeling machinery has
been divided into four sets, of which
three sets are aft, each driving its own
propeller, and one set forward. The
combined power of these four sets of
machinery will be 10000 horses. There is
accommodation for thirty first-class
passengers, ten seCond-class and fifty
third class passengers, besides that for
the captain, officers, engineers and crew
of the vessel There is ample capacity
for cargo; so that the vessel, in addi-
ton to conveying merchant vessels
through the ice, is capable of carrying
heavy cargo herself
The stern Of the ice breaker is cut
to form a recess. into which the stern
of another vessel can be securely dashed
and thus obtain the utmost protection
from her powerful cousort. Admiral
Makaroff has also in view the POSSIBLE
ity of ugmenting the ice-breaking ca
pability of this vessel by having the
assistance Of the second vessel pushing
her, as to which he has already ade eX-
periments. The conveying of merchant
steamers is, of course, the primary OBJ
ject of the ice-breakng steamer, and it
is confidently expected that in q very
short time the principal trade routes
which depend on Baltic ports will be
kept open in winter and thus provide |
continuous employment for large
community.
1.-THE hull is divided into no less than
forty-eight compartments, each one of |
which is absolutely watertight. Water
tight bulkheads are, of course, COM
monty talked of, but no water-tight |
bulkheads have been subjected to such |
severe test as those in this vessel, Ev !
cry compartment has been filled with
water and put under a pressure due to |
a column of water extending to the up. |
per deck. In the case of the large COM |
such as the engine and boil |
err rooms, this represented very serl-
Gus operation, as the capacity of each |
boiler room is nearly 1000 tons.-New |
York Press.