Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-01-14
Written for The Ereninr Star.


breakfast next morning.
Every beauty or board looked enthusiasm
at the big captain. Every passenger of the
rich crowd beamed admiilng congratuia-
tions at him. Not a millionaire of the lot
in the gold and white dining hall could
have commended one-tenth Of the fattery
that was offered to the King of the Bridge;
for the days mileage that is posted every
twenty-four hours on big ships told that
she was making record speed. and might
even break a record If she could manage to
clip off Just few fractions of kno,s in the
fraction Of day that remained to com
plete the race.
But the admired fatter5d, ed king
returned the smiles with less enthusiasm
than was shown by the poor6s. waiter. I'm
der his replies to the rapid-tire gunnery of
questions. his mind turned formula over
and over again:
zone ton and n quarter an hour, twenty
four times, and five times. ard eighteen and
three-quarters of a ton more to come. makes
16S$, tons at So % ton which makes Si2l
and odd cents"
On the hour when the twin screws kicked
their white and green rollers in haughty
farewell at the graceful obelisk of the Ed
dystone the formula had begun its reign.
With every turn of each 2I0-ton propeller
shaft it had grown in Importance. The
big captain of the big record max ng ship
was worrying over fuel like housewife.
No Gold Lace in This.
Every day, and mostly many times every
day, he and the chief engineer had studied
and compared and investigated, When the
captain left his glittering dais of navi-
eating bridge and disappeared in his chart
room he did not take little siesta, as his
pretty passengers suspected when they
sought unavailingly TO tempt him forth
with fiuttering gowns and wind-blown curls.
He was looking over rows of figures-linear
feet and yards of figures. He was looking
over abstruse tables of combustion statis-
tics. He was dipping into chemistry. Dur
Ing the five days of smashing sea race
grimy men had made complex reports of
their examination of the two and one-quar-
ter acres of heating surface under the nine
teen thunderouS boilers. a square foot of
figures gave his chief engineer and him
steam pressureS, hour for hour. A sweat
ing engine-room staff had written down fol
them mighty report showing the results
of painful examination of the condenser
tubes-forty-fiye miles of them.
The electrician had brought in a report of
the LOO ncandescent lights of the ship,
telling the power consumed and the candle
power produced by each. For hours they
had pored over the sets of tables that told
mathematical and geometrical and alge-
bralcal history of four monumental steel
thingS-the four towering sets of quadruple
expansion engines that bulied 10000 horse
power out of the steam. Every engine of
the stxty-eight aboard his ship had been
probed and reported. But minute after
minute. hour after hour, day after day the
112 furnaces had gorged the coal-eaten a
ton and quarter an hour more than their
average. and nobody aboard had discovered
the reason.
So the man on whom the passengers
looked as the very master of the day, the
arbiter of the ocean flight. had before him
only the dismaying fact that somehow the
voyage was going to cost mis- owners close
to $500 more than it ought to cost-$5O0 clear
waste.
A ''Black Eye" Ahead.
There was no way to beat it. Had he
slowed down, he might have come near to
running the voyage at the usual cost in
coal. But his ship would have blackened
sher speed record which was worth many
times $500 in dollars and cents. In addi-
ton. day or even half day delay with
$500 people aboard would mean almost as
much in food. There was no way out of
1t. He was going TO get black eye.
Then there was the bonus coal saw
ing that the company paid to him and the
chief engineer. That was gone. too.
And there was another little bunch of
figures in his head 1t dealt with minutes
and seconds of degree of latitude. When
he caught the sun that day at noon
those figures made him order the course of
the ship swung just a mite northerly. 1t
was tiny change-but it meant that he
was little shy of his bulls eye
Such a little, little swing of the wheel
wouldn't have meant anything to a sailing
ship or a slow tramp or freight steamship.
To the captain of the IOO-foot ship. jump
ing along at twenty-five land miles an hour
IL meant that while his ship had made
grand daily runs, some ocean drift or I'M
calculated wind had drifted him south
broadside, and now ne would have to go
twenty-five miles more than usual to make
port. Twenty-Five miles extra distance in
means an hour extra time. That means not
only an Imperfect speed record but an
hours extra expense at the rate of a thou
sand dollars a day In coal alone that ex-
ira hour was going to mean nearly $50.
How the passengers would have wonder
ed had they known, when they disembarke1
with cheers and laughter after passing the
usual resolution of ferVent gratitude to the
captain. how little attention he paid to their
emotion, and how his mind was taken up
with violent distaste of the interview with
the owners!
"a Few Tons of Coal"
WHAT" they would have asked. Both
ering about few tons of coal more or less
and ridiculous twenty-five miles extra,
after he has taken us vastly important $50
first-class passengers and almost as i'm
portant 100 second-class passengers and
LOO steerage passengers, not TO forget the
small army of COO crew. safely over one
eighth of the world circumference, snap
ping us like a bolt through gales and
smashing seas. and never losing rivet not
TO mention life?"
Yes. He was botheriing about the few
tons of coal and the few extra miles of run
and a host of other things. The safe COM
pletion OF the voyage didn't raise his spir-
its to any seventh sea-heaven. He had
made two hundred such safe voyages be-
fore. The running of a big ship is not a
sea adventure any more and the owners
look over it's books with the cold calculat-
ing commercial eyes of business men. A
difference of a few hundred dollars in the
cost OF "A voyage means a lot TO a company
that owns almost two hundred steamships.
as his line does. 1t wouldn't take long TO
run annual expenses up appallingly if the
counting room sakore didn't demand mi
mute accounungs from each vessel.
Inc passengers on liner see only the
show sice-the gold lace side-of their cap
tain. To them he is the romantic mariner
His real work is the work which they never
see His first officer could probably navi-
gate the ship thoroughly well If the captain
didn't show his face on the bridge between
ports.
The Business Man of the Sea.
The thing that makes the liner captain
supremacy important to his owners is that
he Is business man of the highest type
a who can he int with tho aa,,f,.