Chapter XVI: The Modern Merchant Ship

The dominating factors which now influenced the development of the Atlantic liner were speed and comfort. Owing to the rapid increase of commerce between the United States and Great Britain, the West had long since taken the place of the Orient as a magnetic attraction for the shipowner. It is the Atlantic and not the route to India which has seen the great improvements in the modern ship, and even if there had been keener competition to the East, it would not have been possible to increase much the size of steamships for the reason of the limitations imposed by the Suez Canal. It is conceivable, however, that some day the route to Australia round the Cape may become a lane of keen rivalry to the advantage of ship development.

[_By courtesy Messrs. T. H. Parker._

S.S. “SPAIN.”

5,000 tons register. Of the National Line (New York to London).]

The struggle for the speed supremacy of the North Atlantic went on. The _City of Paris_ was a flier. She could do her nineteen and twenty knots. But the White Star Line replied with the _Teutonic_ and _Majestic_, both launched in 1889. They, too, were fliers, for the former broke the record by steaming from Queenstown to New York in five days, eighteen hours, eight minutes, while the latter did it in five days, sixteen hours, thirty-one minutes. They were, of course, twin-screw ships, but of only 9984 tons, which in this advanced twentieth century seems quite small for a crack liner. The competition was continued by the Cunard Company launching in 1892 the _Campania_, and in the following year the _Lucania_, fitted with twin screws and triple-expansion engines. Beautiful ships these were, with lovely lines and an amazing turn of speed. Steel had, of course, long since taken the place of iron, and in the building of these two wonderful vessels the plates were made of unprecedented size, and so they required a smaller number of rivets. These were 600-feet ships, and it was their length which helped to give them the 22-knot speed. _Campania_ made the run between Queenstown and New York in five and a half days, and averaged just under twenty-two knots for a whole year’s east-bound voyages. This was a truly remarkable performance, for the real criterion of efficiency is that a ship should be able not merely to make one spectacular hour’s run, nor break the record for one day or one voyage, but to keep on doing this all the time. Here is the test of good steamship management ashore, perfect organisation aboard and the reason for the highest praise to her officers and crew.

The point we have now reached represents the era of keen competition for the best-equipped and speediest steamships in the Atlantic, and therefore of all the Mercantile Marines in the world. In this race the Collins Line, though subsidised by the American Government, had already disappeared, the reorganised Inman Line, which had been absorbed in the American Line, in spite of its fine ships, ceased to be a dangerous competitor. In the end it became a contest between the two British lines, the Cunard and the White Star. The German liners now entered the Atlantic as very serious competitors. It will be more convenient to deal with the German Mercantile Marine in a separate chapter, but it may be said here that it was the wonderful achievements of _Campania_ and _Lucania_ which created such emulation that the North German Lloyd Company scrapped their old-fashioned ships and in 1897 produced the _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_, which by her mean speed of 22·81 knots beat the Cunarders, and thus for the first time Germany won the “blue riband” of the Atlantic, as the expression was in the ’nineties.

In 1899 came the British reply in size though not in speed. This was the White Star _Oceanic_, 13 feet longer than the memorable _Great Eastern_, measuring 705 feet, as against the German’s 648 feet 7 inches. _Oceanic’s_ 28,500 tons displacement showed the extraordinary development which had taken place in the shipbuilding art in the fewest years, and she was able to maintain a speed of twenty knots. The Cunard’s next ships were two, _Ivernia_ and _Saxonia_, each of about 14,000 tons gross—that is to say, roughly the size of the German champion, but with an average speed of fifteen and a quarter knots. They were comfortable and economical rather than record-breakers. But the _Ivernia_ was the first Atlantic liner to break away from the triple-expansion and use the quadruple-expansion system. The White Star Line, in 1901 and 1908, respectively, brought out two enormous but slow ships in the _Celtic_ and _Cedric_, the former being 20,880 tons and the latter 21,034 tons, with an average speed of sixteen knots, and at this time also came their 15,801-ton _Arabic_, with the same speed.

[_By courtesy the White Star Line._

THE “BRITANNIC.”

This White Star liner was built in 1874, and broke the record for speed. She measured 468 ft. long. Speed 16 knots; 5,000 tons.]

[_By courtesy the Cunard Line._

THE “CAMPANIA.”

Launched for the Cunard Company in 1892. Length 600 ft.]

There was therefore a kind of lull in British enterprise, and in 1903 the Germans caused another sensation by the _Kaiser Wilhelm the Second_, which was able to do her twenty-three and a half knots as an average speed from New York to Plymouth. But a new development was again to take place. Competition was so keen in the steamship world, there was such an impetus to the builder, and so many clever minds were working on the problems of propulsion, that it was inevitable that all these wonderful changes should come about in such rapid succession. In the year 1886 the triple-expansion engine had come into general use. This had been followed by the quadruple-expansion, as already mentioned, and now came a still further change. For some time the turbine engine had been employed for driving electric dynamos on land, for pumping stations, colliery fans and so on. But in 1894 this type was installed experimentally in the 44-ton craft called the _Turbinia_, which was seen racing along Spithead at thirty-four knots. It was a wonderful sight, but it was not until 1905 that this type of engine was introduced into merchant ships, when the Atlantic ships _Virginian_[6] and _Victorian_ of the Allan Line were fitted with Parsons’ triplicate turbines driving three propellers. In the same year the Cunard produced their first turbine liner, _Carmania_, which on her trial attained a speed of twenty knots. She was built of a strength in excess of Board of Trade requirements, no fewer than 1,800,000 rivets being used in her construction, each plate being 32 feet long. But for the excellence of her construction she would never have been able to emerge successfully from her famous duel when she sank the _Cap Trafalgar_ off the South American coast during the first autumn of the recent Great War.

Events happen so quickly, and one sensation follows so rapidly on another, that we are apt sometimes to get quite a wrong perspective. To me the _Carmania_ is one of the most interesting ships afloat. For nine years before the war she did most excellent work as one of the finest passenger ships, carrying many thousands of people across the Atlantic in comfort and luxury. Then came the war, and _Carmania_ became an armed merchant cruiser and was sent into South American waters. She met the Hamburg-South America liner _Cap Trafalgar_, a very similar ship, also armed as a merchant cruiser, off the island of Trinidada, and then fought a terrific duel which lasted eighty minutes, during which the Cunarder was pierced by seventy-nine shells, set seriously on fire and generally made desolate. But she sank the _Cap Trafalgar_, and to-day, and since the war, _Carmania_ has resumed carrying her thousands across to New York in perfect luxury again, with verandah cafés, costly furniture, palm trees and the rest, just as if nothing serious had ever happened. Truly the modern ship is an amazing creature.

[_By courtesy the Cunard Line._

BERTHING A BIG LINER.

The “Mauretania,” assisted by tugs, coming alongside the quay at Southampton.]

During the war 56 per cent. of the Cunard ships were sunk, including the memorable _Lusitania_; and the White Star Line, owing to the same reason, lost close on 150,000 tons. The _Mauretania_ and _Lusitania_ had followed the _Carmania_, and were the outcome of an agreement made with the British Government to produce two ships capable of maintaining a minimum average ocean speed of from twenty-four to twenty-five knots in moderate weather. This has not only been maintained, but surpassed. _Mauretania_ was built in 1907, with turbines, a length of 790 feet, and her tonnage is 31,000 gross. In spite of all her running before the war, during the war, and since, she still holds the record not merely for the Atlantic, but for all seas in respect of merchant ships. The test accepted by most shipping experts is two-fold: the highest average speed for the whole voyage, and the fastest passage in days, hours and minutes. On this reckoning _Mauretania_ still leads, in spite of her younger sisters, for as recently as 1922 she averaged 25·29 knots eastward-bound in June. Her fastest passage in July of that year of five days, eight hours, nine minutes, entitles her still more to possession of the “blue riband” of the Atlantic. But as showing the remarkable consistency in running, if we take her three consecutive passages eastward across the Atlantic in June and July 1922, there are only _five_ minutes difference between the fastest and the slowest. It is superfluous to comment on this achievement. At a time when her fighting sister _Indomitable_ is being broken up, this powerful merchantman still goes on beating records. Recently fitted to burn oil-fuel, this turbine-driven, quadruple-screw, twenty-five knotter will long be remembered in maritime history as _Lusitania_ will in naval history.[7]

The next famous Atlantic ships were the two White Star liners _Titanic_ and _Olympic_. The tragic end of the former, when she foundered during her maiden voyage, is too well remembered to need relating again. The _Olympic_ left Southampton on her maiden voyage in June 1911. She is a triple-screw vessel of 46,489 tons gross register, and thus much bigger than _Mauretania_, but not quite so fast. Those of us who remember passing _Olympic_ at sea during the war, zigzagging through the submarine zone with 5000 soldiers on board and the ship’s boats swung out, will never forget the sight. One hears many impossible yarns about certain claims, but apart from her magnificent work in bringing armies from America to Europe safely, this ship did definitely sink a German submarine. This may be regarded as some compensation for the loss of that new triple-screw White Star _Britannic_, a vessel of 48,158 tons gross register, which was destined never to cross the Atlantic, for which she had been constructed. The reader will remember that on November 21, 1916, after much excellent service as a hospital ship, she was sunk by enemy action in the Zea Channel, Ægean Sea.

[_By courtesy the Cunard Line._

MODERN NAVIGATION.

Captain Sir James Charles, K.B.E., C.B., R.D., R.N.R., and officers of the “Aquitania” taking the sun’s altitude.]

_Olympic_ came out as the world’s biggest ship, and she is one of the fastest. On one occasion coming up Channel she recently touched 27·82 knots for a brief spell, but her best average speed for a whole voyage is 22·55 knots, and her quickest passage is five days, nineteen hours, 12 minutes. For the consideration of the big German liners who were competing with these efforts the reader is referred to the chapter dealing with the rise and fall of the German Mercantile Marine, but the next British mammoth was the _Aquitania_, which was put into the Cunard service just before the war began. She is over 900 feet long, she can steam at a little more than twenty-three knots, and her best passage, east-bound, has been five days, nineteen hours, forty-one minutes. Her gross tonnage is 47,000.

I watched _Aquitania_ being built, from the time when she was a mere mass of steel, and finally saw her take the water in the Clyde, and walked all over her half an hour before this impressive event took place. She was barely ready for her intended work than she was turned into an armed merchant cruiser and joined Admiral Phipps Hornby’s Cruiser Squadron on the Atlantic trade route. But it was rather like putting a race-horse to do the work of a cart-horse. _Aquitania_ was then, like other merchantmen, coal-burning, and her endurance was only six days, for she was built for the purpose of rushing across the Atlantic, then filling up and returning as fast as she could. She was thus not suitable for patrolling, and after colliding with a Leyland liner, whilst under the command of a naval officer, _Aquitania_ terminated her engagement as a warship, and then did far more useful work during the time of hostilities, until she again took up her peaceable service.

This was the last British-built merchant ship to be constructed of mammoth size that is still afloat. The White Star _Homeric_, which joined the Atlantic service in the spring of 1922, is an ex-German vessel. This ship is neither as big nor as fast as _Aquitania_, but she is the largest twin-screw steamer afloat. Her best average speed for a whole trip is 18·69 knots, and her best voyage is six days, nineteen hours, twenty-two minutes. But the slump which followed the war and the depression which came over the shipping trade made it undesirable to lay down any more of these leviathans for the present, and there was still another reason.

In Germany were two such vessels, one of which was already built and had been running for a year or two, and the other, a still bigger ship, was not yet finished. These two ships were handed over to Great Britain, the former being the _Imperator_, 52,022 tons, launched in 1912, which used to call at Southampton on her way from Germany to New York. The other ship was the 56,551-ton _Bismarck_, whose keel had been laid by the Kaiser in the year 1914. The _Vaterland_, as mentioned in another chapter, measuring 950 feet and 52,282 tons, was acquired by the United States. The _Imperator_ now became the _Berengaria_, and was taken over by the Cunard Company; the _Bismarck_ became the _Majestic_, and was put into the White Star service in the spring of 1922. She was built at the Blohm and Voss yard, Hamburg, and with her enormous tonnage and length of 956 feet is the biggest ship in the world.

[_By courtesy the Cunard Line._

S.S. “BERENGARIA.”

This Cunarder is the ex-German “Imperator,” 52,022 tons, launched 1912. She measures 919 ft. long.]

Though built in Germany, which learned the art from Great Britain, these two ships are now the pride of the British Merchant Fleet, and they are, together with the _Mauretania_ and _Aquitania_, consumers not of coal, but of oil. The _Berengaria_ measures 919 feet long, is practically 100 feet in beam, and represents an enormous amount of capital; but she was laid aside for six or seven months so as to have a complete overhaul and to be converted from coal-burning. With that fuel she had been able to do a little over twenty-three knots, and her best average speed has since been 23·38 knots for the whole voyage; her fastest trip being five days, eighteen hours, forty-seven minutes. You can imagine the responsibility of her captain, handling such an enormous steel island. Let us forget for a moment such things as her new ballroom, able to accommodate 250 dancers. Let us forget, too, the cafés, gymnasia, palm courts, Turkish and swimming-baths and the numbers of private suites, the velvet carpets, and baronial halls; let us just think of her as a ship.

Eighty-five feet above the water is the sun-deck promenade, and away above that again rises the bridge. Here are all sorts of gadgets, such as a bell that rings automatically when the temperature of the sea drops below a certain degree, and so the warning is made to the officer of the watch that icebergs are about. Tell-tale lamps act as fire-indicators, and another bell rings to call attention to the fact that there is smoke in some section of the ship. Steam pressure is then made to drive water down a pipe to spray around the particular compartment. There are telephones galore, from the bridge to the engine-room, boiler-rooms, baggage-hold, purser’s office, engineer’s office and, via the ship’s central exchange, to all parts of the ship.

_Berengaria_, like _Vaterland_, had a good deal of trouble with her water-tube boilers, which were similar to the German naval pattern, but in _Majestic_ British engineers introduced some modifications whilst she was still being completed at Hamburg. The point is this. Whereas these water-tube boilers are all right for a man-of-war, which normally steams at fifteen knots and only occasionally is whacked up to twenty-one and above, the liner is driven hard all the time, and has to maintain her full speed day and night until she gets across the ocean. The amount of oil-fuel required for _Berengaria_ to cross the Atlantic once is about 6000 tons, and this is carried in side or wing-bunkers. A hundred tons an hour can be supplied to each of the four boiler-rooms, and the engines are, of course, turbines.

It is said that £1,000,000 was the price the White Star Line paid for the _Majestic_, and she was a great bargain at that, for she would cost four times that amount to be built to-day. There are forty-eight boilers, and she can carry enough oil-fuel for the round voyage Southampton-New York-Southampton. This means not merely greater efficiency in regard to steaming, but saves time and expense in bunkering and cleaning ship, for it takes only six hours and very few men to get the 7000 tons on board. Her best average speed in a passage is over twenty-four knots, and her quickest voyage five days, nine hours, forty-two minutes. When she was handed over to the Reparations Commission under the terms of the Peace Treaty her speed was returned as twenty-three knots. But the White Star officials were not a little surprised to find, while bringing the ship to Southampton from Hamburg, that her turbines would develop much more power than they were credited with, and that she was really a 25-knot ship. In fact, on one occasion she did an average of twenty-seven knots for over five hours eastward-bound.

[_By courtesy the White Star Line._

S.S. “OLYMPIC.”

This 46,439-ton White Star liner was completed in 1911. During the war she sank a German submarine.]

[_By courtesy the White Star Line._

S.S. “MAJESTIC.”

This 56,551-ton White Star liner is the ex-German “Bismarck,” and is the biggest ship in the world. The illustration shows her coming out of dock at Southampton.]

It is significant that more than half the length of the ship is taken up with the propelling machinery. Never were such large machinery and boiler plant installed in one vessel. If you think of an eight-roomed house and multiply this by 400, you get some idea of her interior space. She is practically a floating town, with its smart hotel, suites, clubs, and so on located on her nine steel decks; and four propellers to keep this town hurrying across the Atlantic. Swimming-bath, two royal suites, 1245 state-rooms, a restaurant, palm court, foyer, lounge—there is no end to her luxurious internal arrangement. And yet there are all sorts of cunning devices to ensure safety. To guard against fire, the steel bulkheads have been coated with fireproof material; the main staircases are so arranged that they can be isolated and thus ensure a means of escape to the upper decks. There are 450 fire alarms distributed throughout the ship, which indicate automatically to the officer on the bridge.

There are three wireless stations. The largest enables her to maintain permanent connection with both the Old and the New World during the whole voyage. The second is for use over a distance of 800 miles, and the third is for emergency. There are anti-rolling tanks, submarine signalling gear, and indeed every ingenious device that the wit of man could invent for the safety and welfare of the 4000 passengers she takes care of each trip. During Cowes week 1922 King George V paid to her, and through her to the British Mercantile Marine, a singular honour in going aboard to inspect her. His Royal Standard was broken out at the main, and this is one of the very few occasions during the last four hundred years when a merchant ship, serving as such, has legally hoisted this flag. It did occur in the year 1913, when His Majesty inspected the _Mauretania_ at Liverpool; and on that day a Harbour Board tug while taking the King to and from the liner flew the Royal Ensign. But prior to that I think we have to go right back to the year 1495, when Henry VII granted to John Cabot and his sons the right to fly the royal banners and flags during their voyages of discovery.

From the _Majestic_ to the earliest merchantmen of the Mediterranean, even looking back a hundred years to the time when the old East Indiamen of 1000 tons were wallowing along, or the Falmouth packets were braving the Atlantic, seems to us a period of time that is hardly believable. In spite of wars and every kind of crises, never has the merchant ship so utterly and marvellously transformed herself within such a few years. It is a triumph of man over matter that he can build up such a creation as a 50,000-ton ship, but there are just two things which always seem to me more wonderful still. The first is that you can ever launch such a mass of steel safely from the land down the ways into the water; and the second is that, having fitted her out for sea, she can be made obedient to the mind of her commander—checked, spurred on, controlled and moved about across the sea at will, with confidence and remarkable regularity. It is an interesting experience to control finance, it is a great task to control men, and it is a responsible task to control the ship of State. But to control the biggest ship in the history of the world, costing over £1,000,000 sterling and containing several thousands of travellers, from quay to quay, through any kind of weather that may come along—this to me seems, above all, a full-sized man’s job. It is one that brings forth everything that is best and noble in the calling of a sailor—courage, coolness, organising ability, leadership, self-reliance, dependability, tact, discipline.

[_By courtesy the White Star Line._

ON THE BRIDGE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SHIP.

Captain Sir Bertram Hayes (third from the right), with the Second Captain and other officers of “Majestic”.]

Below are the saloons, orchestra, dancing, laughter, luxury and thousands of brilliant lights. On the bridge the silent darkness of a black, starless night; just the glimmer from the bowls of the gyro-compass repeaters, the quartermaster at the wheel, a couple of messengers standing by, and the officer of the watch. And always the wild roar of the wind as the ship tears on her way at twenty odd knots; while forward is the swish of the sea as the fine bows throw each bursting wave aside. It is a study in contrasts, just that immeasurable gulf which has always existed between the life of the landsman and the sailor from the earliest days of history until the present-day. To the former “the wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor,” as Emerson put it. But it was the same philosopher who admitted that “the sea is masculine, the type of active strength.”

And, happily, there is such a contagion as sea-fever. Without it there would have been no Phœnician, Venetian, Spanish, Portuguese, Norse, mediæval or later mariners; no new worlds to discover—nothing but a very restricted communication and the minimum of progress. It would have been a very stunted, dull existence. There would have been no fine merchantmen of the sea and none of that glorious breed of seamen, virile, strong and masculine. Let us be thankful for all that the sea has taught us.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Now owned by the Swedish-American Line and named the _Drottningholm_.

[7] The speeds given for _Mauretania_, _Majestic_, _Berengaria_, _Aquitania_, _Olympic_ and _Homeric_ are from New York to Cherbourg Breakwater or to the Eddystone Light. The passages quoted are really not faster than what was previously accomplished on the Liverpool to New York route before these big liners were transferred to the Southampton to New York route. Thus the fastest Atlantic voyage ever made was by _Mauretania_ when she steamed from Queenstown to New York in four days, ten hours, forty-one minutes. _Lusitania_ accomplished this in only sixty-one minutes longer. The best average speed ever made by a liner for one day was 27·10 knots by _Lusitania_, eastward-bound; but the best average speed for a whole voyage was made by _Mauretania_, before being converted to oil. She kept up 26·06 knots.