The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-04-30

l oithiioiili anu tliC otNoiiA StCVA iiie
gear. Besides, most of the boats have
passed under the control of single cor
lporation. How do / like working for Q
big corporation? 1t is all right in my
business. In the old days, when eacf
line was controlled by one man or lit
tie knot of men, when there came a timi
for promotion, favoritism was very
generally shown, and it wasn't always
the best men who filed the best places
by good deal. But now 1T Is differ
emit 1t is simply a question to-day as
to whether or not a man can hold down
a job when it comes his turn to take it.
If he can, he is all right, no matter
what anybody says about him. It's
business nowadays.
How do we manage to get around
the Battery 50 successfully in he
crowded rivers? Well sometimes
don't know myself. The New York riv-
ers grow worse and worse In the matter
of being crowded with vessels, and big
and unwieldy vessels, too. OF course,
we steer just as fine as we can, signal
with Our whistle, and If we see that we
are getting into trouble we slow down
to get the boat under control and begin
to back If necessary. The general rule
followed in running the Sound steam
boats about New York city Is to make
for the first favorable opening you see
and put the boat through it. And many
times when it looks as though you were
getting into a bad mess, before you
really reach the spot the danger has
cleared away and it has become straight
sailing for you once more. Rut don't
know Of any man who is In love with
the job of running big steamboat
about the New York rivers.
There is one thing that Is worth
talking about and that is the difference
there is In handling the sdewheel boats
and the new twin-screw craft. The
former you can stop much more quick
| ly than the latter. The minute you
stop the paddles of a slde-wheel boat
| they drag In the water and they reduce
her speed rapidly. And hence when you
back the wheels you can quickly bring
her to standstill. This is not so with.
the twin-screw boat. 1t takes much
longer to get such boat to backing,
and hence a collision Is not speedily
averted In this way with this kind OF
vessel. But instead of shutting Off
steam and backing on both engines at
such time, syou let one screw keep on
pushing ahead and yon turn the other
backward, swinging your htlm over In
the proper direction at the same time
BY this means you will steer the boat
out of harms way in one-quarter the
time it would take you to get her back
ing.
al fn ct6nuhnnnf
again, she is not half so handy boat
to handle in docking and the like as the
other. The moment sidewheeler loses
her Roadway her eteerage way Is gone,
and you cannot do anything with her
until you have, rlln her good distance
and got way on her again. 1t is for
this reason that / consider the twin
screw boat the safer craft for she can
work out of much narrower hole than
the sidewheeler. Even when lying per-
fectly still she can work one screw
ahead and reverse the other. and In this
way turn about quickly and completely
in her own length Besides the twin
screw Is the safest proposition in the
world for craft that has no sails. If
one Of the engines break down you have
the other to fall back on.
do think steamboat plotting ner-
vous work? Why know it is. And it
is now coming the very season of the
year that is calculated to make the av-
erage steamboat man grow gray-headed
before his time-the season of snow
storms and gales. / don't care how
strongly nervedp a man may be- nor how
good Judge of running distances in a
certain time--for the day of the old
time pilot with sounding lead covered
with eoft tallow to give him cast Of
the bottom of the Sound has passed
away to very large extent-just let |
him take one of the fine steamboats, of |
the present day and put her into one of
these storms and he Is on his mettle at
once. There are hundreds of lives de-
pending on him, he can see nothing, |
ard. worse than all the rest, he can |
hear nothing, for a snow-storm in a
gale Of wind Is almost certain to shut |
you off from getting hold Of any sort of |
signals correctly. Now, the great dan
ger lies in meeting something a. such |
time.
Meeting another vessel, mean. The |
pilot cannot slow down his speed too
much, or he will lose his dead reckon
ing, by means Of which he runs from
light to light along the Sound. Nothing
Is gained by running slowly and there
s danger of being too careful. Some Of
the unuckiest of the Sound steamboat
captains have owed their ill-luck to too
much caution In running the Sound.
And the man who is charged with the
care of the boat, no matter how great
The uncertainty and how great his
speed, knows better than any one else
he danger of head-on collisions In thick
weather Some of the worst steamboat
,atastrophes of the Sound have hap
oened from this cause The Stoning-
ON Narragansett collision in the fog
,ff the Connecticut river in 1880 cost
more lives than any other steamboat
horror on the Sound except the burn
ng Of the Lexington forty years before.
''These things worry the steamboat
when he Is going to encounter such
rouble. DO think the business a.
dangerous one Not bit Of 1t. Look at
he hundreds and thousands we carry
without accident. And as for the pilot,
Why, if anything does happen in the
way of disaster, he is right on the scene
# the accident and can leap to place
# safety if there Is one. AS for the
LANCER of the steamboat mans life, I
egard it as far less dangerous than
and vet / have railroad |