Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-09-25
THE BIGGEST SHIP
Five Hundred Men Required to Bun
the Oceanic.
Two THOUSAND SOULS ABOARD her
Tremendous Stores of Foo d and a
Great Refrigerating Plant.
FLOATING OCEAN CITY

While the reading public has been toll
erably informed as to the size and speed
of the great ocean liners and knows by
how many feet each would overtop the
Washington monument or how many city
blocks it would fill, there is one feature
of the immensely of these ships of which
very little is known even by the most eX-
perienced travellers. This concerns the
business management of these vessels,
which in the case of the largest liners has
grown to be an enterprise of vast proper
tons, requiring the services of hundreds
of men,
For example. the operation of the Ocean
ic, the If ~gest steamer ever built, which
arrived in lew York on her maiden trip
last week, involves a multitude of activi-
ties and is managed on a scale that seems
almost incredible to the landsman. An
inkling of their proportions may be gain
ed from the fact that it would take miner
twenty-five years of steady work to get
out the coal required to fill the bunkers
of the Oceanic for single trip, while the
food supplies that she demands for each
voyage would more than support the miner
and his family during the whole of that
time.
operations connected with the greatest
ocean liner it is necessary to rid ones mind
of the idea that she is ship our fathers
understood that term. She is not manned
by sailors, and the seamen form an incon-
siderable number In the makeup of her
crew. Nor is she a floating hotel, as the
magazine writer Is fond of calling her.
There is no hotel that compares with her
in the extent and variety of its activities.
The Oceanic is an ocean city-nothing less.
When she is at sea she has a population Of
2,oO0-aS great as many a town with coun
ty seat aspirations can claim. A score Of
different trades and occupations are prac-
ticed or board her. She has independent
lighting, heating and refrigerating plants,
machine shops, printing office, carpen-
ter shop, in short, almost all the equip
ment of an up-to date community, together
with much that is peculiar to herself.
What u Single Voyage Means.
To all practical purposes each voyage rep
resents. complete business venture. All
accounts are rendered separately for each
voyage. The crew. from the captain down,
are engaged at the European port for each
round trip. They are technically discharged
at the conclusion of the voyage and must
sign new articles before they are shipped
again.
AS soon as the liner ties up at her pier
at the end Of one voyage the preparations
for the succeeding one begin. While cargo
is being discharged from one side great
barges are pouring coal into her bunkers
from the other. The Oceanic has a coal
carrying capacity of 300 tons and ourns
upward of 1000 tons on each voyage 1t
requires the service of sixty men working
steadily for forty hours to coal her, and the
operation costs about $1,000. The coal
itself costs about five times that amount.
In other words. the coal bill of vessel like
the Oceanic while she is at sea amounts to
the tidy sum of 81 900 per day.
While this operation is going on the ship
hot
her shine like q new dollar. Painters, re-
pairerS and cleaners swarm over her.
Truck loads of provisions, amounting in the
aggregate to half hundred tons, are put
on board. Every piece of her machinery,
every plate and rivet is carefully inspected,
and by the time the cargo is shipped and
passengers come aboard a matter Of $1,000,
aside from the cost of coal and provisions,
has been expended in preparing her for her
voyage
The Men Who Do This Marvel.
While the captain is, Of course, the su-
preme authority, the actual management is
conducted by three separate departments.
The first of these concerns itself with the
sailing of the vessel, and is presided over
by the chief navigator, under the directions
of the captain himself. The second is the
engineers department. This is under the
direction of the chief engineer, with
whom the captain seldom interferes. 1t Is
all important to the welfare and progress
of the ship, but the passengers see prac-
tically nothing of its operations The third
department looks after the wants of the
passengers, and is under the direction of a
chief steward.
The first of these three departments in
cludes the only men on shipbOard who can
properly be called sailors. Their duties.
however, are not those of the traditional
Jack Tar but consist largely of scrubbing
decks and operating lifts and machinery.
hon he mi hgi
that recalls the Old time duties of the sailor
is I'm the drill for manning the boats which
they are compelled to GO through at reg
uar intervals. The men under the direc-
ton of the navigators and their subofhcers
number about 100 in all.
In the engineering department fully 200
men are employed. The officers include,
besides the chief engineer score of as
sistants hydraulic engineers, refrigerator
engineers, water tenders, StorekeeDers and
clerk. There are siXtyfive stokers, di-
vded into three shifts, whose duty 1t is to
shovel into the twelve furnaces the 800
tons of coal required to Keep the ship at
full speed during each twentyfour hours.
AS many more "trimmers" pass the coal
from the bunkers to the furnace doors and
thirty-five greasers look after the machin-
cry of the engine rooms.
The stokers, who perform the most ardu-
Gus labor it is possible to conceive of, are
paid SO per month, while the trimmers and
greasers receive a little less than this
amount. The men are all employed in
European ports, as it is possible to secure
them there more cheaply than in America.
Most of them are Scandinavians or Irish,
while the engineers as rule are Scotch
and the sailors English
While the principal activities of the ship IS
company are comprised within those de-
partments presided over by the chief nav
igator, the chief engineer and the chief
steward there are number!ess smaller en-
terprses that go on more or less indie
ppndently There is a vast amount of aux