The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-03-26
CONCERNING OCEAN rRAMPs.
More Than Half of Them Fly the Brit
iSl LNlot


More Than Half of Them Fly the Brit
ish Flag.
For the benefit of the reader unfamil-
lar with the lingo of shipping men, it
may be well to define what constitutes
tramp steamship. Briefly, it may be
said that a tramp is a merchant steam
vessel that runs on no regular route,
and is ready for the service Of any
body who wants to pay her owner
reasonable sum to take a cargo to any
port, remote or near, in the world. The
owner of tramp finds 1t more protita-
BILE sometimes to charter her for year
to line that needs her pending the
building of a new ship than to rem the
chance of getting a series of paying car
goes within that period. Some of the
old, slow, singe-screw liners have de-
generated into tramps, and even few
of the transatlantic record-holders of
twenty years ago or less have gone car
go seeking in many ports. That might
have been the fate of the old Guion
steamship Alaska (Which astonished the
world in 1883 by covering the sea space
between Queenstown and New York in
81 days and twenty-one hours IL she
had not been greedy coal consumer,
and therefore too expensive for tramp
service. Above all things, the tramp
must be economical in the use of coal.
AS the Alaska was not fit to be tramp,
and was too old, and, comparatively too
slow for a first-class liner all that her
owners could do was to sell her for old
junk, which they did last June. Pre-
vious to that she had been used for some
time as a tenement in an English har-
Dor.
The tramp tonnage runs into the mil
lions, and over half Of 1t is under the
omnipresent red merchant ensign of
Great Britain. More than three-quarterS
of the tramps are Of British build.
They fly the flags of all nations but the
flag does not always indicate the ma
tionality of the owners of the ships.
Many tramps over whose taffrails the
Norwegian flag floats are owned by
Americans. and some of the old sea no.
MAIDS Of British registry are the proper
ty of speculative Yankees. Next in or
der of number to the British tramps
are the Germans, with the Norwegians
a close third. There are, comparatively,
a small number of French Russian,
Italian, Austrian, Swedish Spanish,
Chinese and Japanese tramps. Nearly
all tramps flying the flags of the last
three nationalities are of British con-
struction. There are very few Ameri-
can tramps. The pioneer Yankee craft
of this sort was launched only a year
ago. She is the Winfred, and is now
doing service as a coaster for the Nor
gan line, plying between New York and
New Orleans. She is the first steam
boat designed in America especially for
carrying cargo anywhere. There are
other, but not many, tramps flying the
stars and stripes. They are merely nat
uralized Americans however. Some
acquired American registry during the
Spanish American war, when they were
purchased by the government for use
as transports After the war they were
sold, and their purchasers being most
ly Americans put them under the en-
sign of Uncle Sma. The Winifred be-
longs to Miller, Bull e. Knowlton of
New Xork, who run line of passenger
and freight ships between New York
mad Porto Rico. She was built by the
Bath jron-works company of Bath, Me.
1t was expected that she would do most
IF her 'tramping" between ports of the
United States and those of the West In
lies and Central and South America.
She Is a steel vessel of twenty-six hum
lred tons gross measurement, and Is
three hundred and five feet long over
I'll. She is capable Of carrying about |
hundred tons dead weight, |
and is equipped with triple-expansion
engines that were expected to give her
speed of about ten knots an hour |
when loaded She did not develop this |
speed by more than two knots, and her |
,Wners have sued her builders for nom |
ulfilment of contract She is a very |
lot ship in the stokehold One effect |
If the requirement by the United States |
If new territory in the West Indies and
he Pacific, American steamship men
confidently declare will be the building |
" large fleet Of modern tramps, the /
leels of some of which are already laid
Samuel |. Wood in Ainslee's Maya
line.