The daily Gate City., 1914-03-19
DAY OF WOODEN
HULL IS PASSING
That Craft on the Mississippi
River Hereafter be Built #
With Steel Bottoms.
SAME RADICAL CHANGES
Compound Engines viii Take the
Place Of the Time-Honored type
Upper Works to be Built
at keokuk.

Wooden hulls for government boats
on the Mississippi river will soon be
a thing of the past. In aceordance
with a policy announced some time
ago by the engineers in charge of tbs
river improvement work and the war
department that no more wooden hull
steamboats, shall be built for the gov-
ernm5nt on the Mississippi, and that
all towboats should be built of steel,
contracts have just been let for four
new steel hulls for towboats on the
upper Mississippi for use by the gov
ernment. This steel hulls are to be
built at Jeffersonville, Ind, and will
be ready for delivery to the govern
ment by next fall before navigation
closes.
Der and the others not later than No
venber.
Changes Radical.
This change in type Of boats will
be more radical than merely changing
the material of the hull. Contracts
ars about to be let for the machinery
for these boats and they are to be
equipped with compound engines,
which are expected to reduce the fuel
cost by about par cent from that Of
the ordinary towboat now in use The
new craft will also be equipped with
steam steering gear, making the boats
easy to handle and in many other re-
spects nsw features will be installed.
The lower or boiler deck of the new
towboats will be fitted up with bunk
rooms for the crew, mess room for
the crew and another for the officers,
kitchs en-, storeroom and showers for
both the officers and men. The cabin
OF the new boats will be reduced in
size to provide bed rooms for the Off
GERS only, and there will be no cabin
room outside of that. The pilot house
twill be smaller than ordinarily and
the boat will be built with view to
economizing on space on the cabin
deck.
The wheels of the new boats have
been specially designed, after care
ful study OF the matter, and will be
constructed to give the greatest eff
cheney with the least expenditure of
lpowsr. The arrangement Of the buck
cts, the number of buckets and the
diameter of the wheel, all have been
/ figured by experts and it is expected
the new boats will develop great
speed and power.
| The new hulls will be 35 fset wide
and the length Of the hull exclusive
of the wheel, will be 125 feet. The
length has been limited to allow OF
/ their using the locks in the Henepin
canal. The hull is divided into ten
airtight compartments with cross sec
tions, and 1t is estimated that the
new boats, fully equipped, will not
tdraw more than two feet Of water. In
this respect they are also of a type
that may cause many changes in the
construction of river craft in the
future.
Build Upper Works at keokuk.
Only the steel hulls are to be con
structed at Jeffersonville, the machin
fery will be shipped to one of the gov.
ernment boat yards along the river
and the upper works will be con
tstructed by day labor by the govern
fment, either at the Milan boat yards
on Rock river, or at Keokuk.
The upper works will be built next
fall and winter for launching year
! from this spring.
In addition to the steel hull steam
boats, the government has had con
structed this winter three steel hull
4 ed dipper dredges which have been
building at Moline this winter and
which will be ready for work this
season on the river. Another hull fol
a steel dredge is about to be launch
ed at the Rock Island iron works
where they have been constructed
and several steel hulled barges are
being constructed.