The Washington times., 1901-08-04
LAUNCHING LAKE VESSELS
Ingenious Scheme Devised to Over
come Natural Difficulties.
ships Are Sent Into the Water side
ways Owing to Narrow Space
Great Danger Accompanies the
PIunge-HuIIs Rightcd by Ropes.

Shipbuilders on the Great Lakes have
devised the most ingenious scheme in
use anywhere for showing great, pom
derous. steel vessel into the water. when
she is well nigh completed. These in
land vessel constructors who turn out
craft as big as ocean liners in the very
heart of the country. and most of whose
employees never saw salt water, did not
devise this method of giving a ship its
initial baptism because they considered
it superior to the plan which has al
ways been in vogue on the coast; they
merely made a virtue out of necessity.
The ship yards of the Great Lakes are
not located upon the banks of the fresh
water seas, but upon contributory riv-
ers or artificial slips. None of these
waterways are more than half as wide
as a modern lake cargo carrier is long,
and so, instead of sliding the vessel
into the water endwise, as is the GUS
tom all over the world, these giant
leviathans toboggan down monster
slide. and take the water broadside on.
To say that the launch of a. big vessel
on the Great Lakes is more hazardous
than similar event at a ship yard on
the seaboard would seem, perhaps,
rather a rash assertion, but assuredly
it is attended with dangers far great
er. Only the workmen are allowed on
board, and they have plenty to do in
caring for their safety. First one sees
the broad. high wall of the steel slip
ping with accelerating speed downward,
then comes the crash Of splintering
timber as the ponderous mass tumbles
from the easy incline, followed by the
ing under its hull.
The impetus of the plunge from the
launching ways" which look for all
the world like a bather's running board
masnified thousand times, hurls the
top heavy vessel over with tremendous
force. Often it would turn completely
over, turn TURTLE as the marine men
say. were it not for the ropes, as large
around as a mans arm, which extend
from the shore to stem and stern and
bring the rampant ship up short when
gravity would cause her to overstep the
bounds of safety. Then, with sudden
revulsion of energy the new mistress
of the seas pitches violently in the other
direction, and thus she remains for a
time rocking heavily this way and that,
as II chatting under the bondage of the
creaking cables which bind her to the
shore.
The original plunge of the vessel into
the water has an effect such as. might
be expected were a gigantic hand of
berculean strength to suddenly scoop
the liquid and hurl 1t forward in the
form of great tidal wave. Very fire.
quently the breastwork of water, which
a big lake vessel throws up at launch
ing will climb the opposite bank to
point from thirty to, sixty feet beyond
the regular water boundary. The re-
ceding wave plays the same prank, of
course, on the opposite bank, and as
the vessel rocks to and fro in mid
stream, billows are pushed alternately
TO one shore and then the other with
gradually diminishing force. People
who have miscalculated the force of the
on-rushing water or have not been in
formed of the prospective invasion are
often drenched, and sometimes injured
by the sudden flood.
IL is the custom at the launching of
great ocean-going vessels, to make a
gala occasion of the event. and usually
a large number of guests are invited
to take their places on board in order
to so down to the sea with the ship
when she takes her first dip. Not SO on
4.
permitted on beard save a few work
men necessary to the carrying out of
the operation and an occasional VEN
turesome individual of Enthusiastically
reckless prcpensities.
No person who has ever witnessed
lake launching at close range will be
at all surprised at these precautions
The performance of the individual on
board lake carrier as she takes her
maiden plunge very resembles that of
the man tossed by the catapult in the
circus, except that instead of being
thrown forward into the air the man
clinging to a post on the vessels deck
must hang on for dear life while the
vast mass beneath him jerks and bucks
and rolls as if Economically resolved to
fling him into space. Should the man
lose his hold and be hurled forth he
would almost surely be instantly dashed
to death against the sides of the ship.
There appears to be no limit to the
size of the vessel which may be success
fully launched in the manner followed
in the plants along the northen bound
airy of the United States. A dozen years
ago, when the largest ships on the in
land seas We're not 300 feet in length,
many wiseacres declared that the acme
of lake shipbuilding had been reached.
since it would be impracticable to
launch broadside vessels of greater
length and weight. but now steamers
800 feet in length are placed in thewater
by this ingenious method as satisfac-
torily as were the craft not more than
half as long.
Many of the vessels which are set
afioat on the Great Lakes in accordance
with the practice outlined are tumbled
into the water when they are not more
than two-thirds completed, and when
none of the machinery has ben placed
aboard. but others are launched with
OF equipment complete, so that the ves-
sci may sail away on her maiden voy-
age within a very few hours after she
first touches the water.
That this is possible might appear
all the more strange when there is
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