The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-12-24
The Great Test of a Ship


4 n the life OF a warship there is no
event always excepting. of course.
the day of battIe-aroundN which so,
great interest, both sentimental and
practical, centres as her trial trip; for
rightly or wrongly, the world has fall
len into the habit OF placing the speed
Of warship as first in value of the
many separate elements that go to
make up the sum total Of her ef-
fieiency.
It was, therefore, with no small
amount Of interest that the editor re-
/ Gently boarded the United States
I armored cruiser Pennsylvania as the
! guest of her builders, the Cramps Of
Philadelphia TO witness the govern
ment speed trial on the well known
Cape Ann course Oft the coast Of Mass
achusetts- Outside of the small party
of Invited guests and the ships trial
crew of 450 efficsrs and men, the per
sons on the ship most Immediately in
! tereStedf in the trial were the govern
ment trial hoard. composed OF eminent
I officers OF the navy, AID the officers
and representatives OF the colN)any
4 that built the ship. To the first named,
a speed trial is an event of profound
4 Importance, since upon it depends the
acceptance by the government OF the
I
! Gated machine which. in the completed
condition, viii represent the expendl-
| ture Of between $5,n00,000 and S. 100000
! from the national treasury. To the
! representatives of the firm, the issue is
4 of even more vital Importance, since it
involves the payment to them of sum
( of nearly $4.0o0.06G, and what is of even
more Importance. the prestige of the
( firm is greatly at stake: for Of ali mis-
] aaf hsar 10 hue
/ shipbuiiding firm there is none that
can give more positive chRgrin than to
know that such and such a great war
! ship constructed by themselves, and
! designed for twenty or twenty-five
( knots an hour, must so down on the
1 official register as having done no bet
1 ter than nineteen plus or twenty-une
| Plus, as the case may be. On the other
! hand. it is always an object of laud-
able ambition and keen competition
among the respective builders of
/ class of sister ships to be able, as in
the case of the Pennsylvania, TO say
that she heads her class in speed and
7 economy of coal consumption.
The performance of the Pennsylvania
/ in exceeding the contract speed by
/ Q.43 of knot, and the contract horse
I power by 5000, is a result that is graft
J flying both TO the government and to
! the builder.
| In the popular mind, the speed trials of
a United States warship are associated
with much that is spectacular. both i'm
the event and in the preparations for
/ it. Although the editor boarded the
ship at the New York navy yard, under
the impression that the reality would
prove considerably less lurid than its
oft-repeated descriptions might lead
the layman to expect, he was not al
! together prepared to find such a cool,
matter-of-fact, everyday air prevail
ing both above decks and below. There
/ We're no chunks of unbuTned coal big
as a mans fist" being thrown crater
like from the "beIehing" smokestacks,
nor were there any exhausted fTemen
brought UP and laid on deck TO be re-
vived before plunging again in that
| inferno" below. Everything was
orderly, methodical and highly scien-
tific. The trial was simply the &C
compliShment Of results that had been
carefully planned and confidently pre-
dicted months and years before they
happened Indeed, just as the vessel
swept over the line at the start. her
, DuUIder predicted her speed to the
writer, with an accuracy which proved
when the trial was over, TO be only
one-tenth of knot too low.
The Cape Ann course is selected
mainly because it affords deep water
al important eitnlcllI III OBTAINING eSll-
mated sDeeds-and because the course
is sufficiently near TO the shore TO ad-
nit of the buoys by which 4 is marked
OF being accurately located by triangu-
lation from thsF shore. The. total
length of forty-four knots IS divided
into seven approximately equal lengths
of about six knots each. Near each
buoy. and on the landward side of il,
Is anchored United States warship,
which does the double duty of afford
ing A large, conspicuous object to as
sist the captain Of the vessel on trial
in steering a true course, and also af-
fording a means Of gauging the speed
of the tide ut each particular mark at
the time when the ship passes. The
vessel runs the full length of the
course, then makes wide turn, and
steams back over the same course In
estimating her average speed over each
leg of the course, the speed of the tide
at the two buoys are taken, and their
mean is added or deducted. according
as the tide is adverse or favorable. to
the speed of the vessel over that leg.
The average of the fourteen speeds
thus arrived at gives the average speed
Of the ship for the whole Lightweight
knots.