The Hawaiian gazette., 1905-12-29

The naval auxiliary Saturn which
sailed for Midway Islands yesterday
afternoon is the only vessel of her kind
on the Pacific coast. Captain Newell
talked very interestingly of the matter
on board his ship yesterday.
The Saturn is the old name of the
boat when she was the property of the
Boston Towboat Co from whom she
was purchased by the Navy depart
ment. She was built in 1898, and is
fitted to carry supplies and stores for
the warships of the fleets. She does
not usually carry ammunition or ord
nance as the war vessels themselves
are supplied with sufficient space for
such cargo. Occasionally the auxilia-
ries do carry such freight but only for
short runs.
The naval auxiliary is a new thing in
the American navy and dates back on
ly TO the Spanish-American war. The
experiment was then tried and It was
found to be so successful that the boats
have been kept in the service On the
Atlantic Coast there are five or six
of these auxiliaries and they are kept
going all the time. There are navy
mouth, Boston, Narragansett and New
London and then there are no more
which the auxiliares have to do with
until Port Royal S. c., is reached. Key
West and Pensacola also have coaling
stations which are supplied from the
auXiliaries.
Whenever it is cheaper to send coal
by one of these boats than by rail or
merchant vessel, an auxiliary is used
Such vessels also carry the stores for
the ships in the neighborhood of the
coalins stations and as soon as they
have unloaded they are sent back for
more. AS there are three squadrons
in the North Atlantic fleet, it keeps
these little boats busy.
The auxiliaries are fitted for coaling
at sea, but in actual practice this is
seldom done. When it is done. the
warship takes the auxiliary in tow and
a wire cable is fastened to both vessels
and the coal is transferred in much the
same manner that is used on the plan
tattons on Hawaii for transporting SUI
gar to vessels lying off the landing or
to bring fl eight from them to the shore.
On the cable runs a carrier on wheels
to which is attached a lighter cable
used to pull the carrier back and forth.
The proposition is much more incon-
venient at sea, however than when
one end of the cable is fixed on land,
for the elevation of the respective ves-
sells is constantly changing, one being
sometime in the trough of the sea while
the other is on the crest of a wave. If
heavy sea is rolling, it is easy to see
that sometimes the relative positions of
the vessels may change as to elevation
while the load of coal is in transit and
1t may be sent flying back to the ship
from which 1t came. Another bad fea-
ture about the matter is that 1t is al
most impossible to keep the proper
strain on the cable. This strain does
not want TO be too great nor does the
cable want to be too slack and, al
though the warship steams ahead at
about four or five knots when coaling
Mt sea, the strain on the cable is almost
an unmanageable quantity. The result
is that while "coaling at sea" sounds
nice and is a possibility, the loss of coal
and the slow means of transferring the
fuel makes it hardly a practicable prop
osition except under great stress of cir
cumstances. o.
In time of war, the Admiral orders
the auxiliaries TO rendezvous at con-
venient point where they unload their
stores and return home for more, again
meeting the fleet at the fixed rendez-
vous In case of battle. the auxiliaries
remain in the rear as they are not in
tended for either fighting or fleeing
purposes. They are not. to be confound-
ed with the auxiliary cruisers, the lat
ter being merchant ships of very fast
steaming speed that can be employed
as scouts, which the auxiliaries proper
can not, as they are not much faster
than n sailing vessel.