Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1899-07-15
Growth IN Speed and Sic Of Ocean
Liners.


Liners.
1t is an extremely rare occurrence for
new transatlantic liner to be
thrown upon her builders hands be-
cause Of her failure to come up to
contract requirements as to speed; in
deed, in the past twenty-five years,
there have been only two instances
one in the case of the "City of Rome, -
and the other in the case of that
splendid ship, completed only last
year, Kaiser Friedrich" which has
now been rejected because of her slow
speed The Kaiser Friedrich" is one
of two vessels oruered by the North
German Lloyd Company for their fast
line. The first of these was the very
successful Kaiser Wilhelm der
Crosse" built by the Vulcan Company
at Stettin. She is 694 feet long, and
her engines of $4,000 horse power
have driven her across the Atlantic at
an average speed of 1913 knots an hour
The order for the "Kaiser Friedrich"
was placed with Schichau, of Elbing,
whose fast yachts and torpedo boats
have won for him worldwide fame
She is 600 feet long, and her engines of
$4,000 horse power were to have driv-
en- her at one half a knot higher speed
than the Kaiser Wilhelm" AS a
matter of fact, the contractors have
never been able to get better average
out of the boat than 20 knots for the
whole passage. The fault is attributed
to the location of the engines amidships
and the unusual length of shafting
which this necessitates. During our
first visit to the ship on her maiden
trip we were struck with the fact that
Schichau appeared to have simply re-
produced the standard torpedo-boat
design of engine on very big scale.
The valves of the ordinary side pat
tern were very large and heavy and
cut badly on the maiden voyage.
Following closely upon the an
nouncement of her rejection is anoth-
er to the effect that the North German
Lloyd people have ordered another
vessel from the Vulcan works, which
is to exceed the "Kaiser Wilhelm" in
size and speed. The new ship is to be
40 feet long, 20 feet in beam. and is to
make twenty-three and a half knots
with engines of $4,000 horse power.
The new ship will thus be slightly
larger and faster than the "Deutsch-
land" building for the Hamburg
American line, Illustrations of which
appeared in the Scientific American of
July l, 1899. Although the new ship
will be of practically the same length
and of two feet more beam than the
Oceanic" of the White Star line, her
displacement, on account of the fine
ness of her lines, will be less.
The American line, the total loss of
whose fine vessel the Paris" was an
nounced in our LAST issue, evidently
considers that smaller ships of a
slower speed are more profitable in
vestments, while seventeen knots an
hour is fast enough for the average
transatlantic passenger. This comp
any has recently ordered from the
Clyde yards four 12,000-ton ships, of
seventeen knots speed and two some
what smaller ships from the Cramps
of Philadelphia. In respect of speed
the company are following the lead of
the White Star line, who are satisfied
with 20 knots in the Oceanic" and
about fifteen knots in the "Cymric"
AS to whether the high speed or mod
crate speed ship is to be the type of
the future time will tell. With the
Parsons turbine demonstrating its
possibilities and speeds of 80 and 40
knots promised on half the weight of
motive power per horse power, he is
bold prophet wno will say that the
era of the ocean fier" is drawing TO
a close.-Scientlfic American.