Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post Part 2

To answer the question, "What is the cost of high, adequate mail speed?" requires something more than an inquiry into the quant.i.ty of fuel consumed; although this is the princ.i.p.al element of its cost. We must consider that the attainment and maintenance of high speed depend upon the exertion of a high power; and that,

I. High speed and power require stronger parts in every thing: in the s.h.i.+p's build, the machinery, the boilers, and all of the working arrangements:

II. High speed and power require a larger outlay in prime cost, in material and building, for the adequate resistance required by such power:

III. High speed and power require more frequent and costly repairs:

IV. High speed and power require more watchfulness, a more prompt action, and consequently more persons:

V. High speed and power require more fuel, more engineers, more firemen, and more coal-stokers.

1. These propositions are nearly all self-evident to every cla.s.s of mind. That a high speed attained through the exertion of a high power will require stronger parts in every thing that exerts a force or resists one, is as manifest as that a force necessary to remove one ton of weight will have to be doubled to remove two tons. In the prime construction of the hull this is as requisite as in any other part.

The resistance to a vessel, or the concussion against the water, at a low rate of speed, will not be very sensibly felt; but if that speed is considerably increased and the concussion made quicker without a corresponding increase in the strength of the frame and hull of the s.h.i.+p generally, we shall find the s.h.i.+p creaking, straining, and yielding to the pressure, until finally it works itself to pieces, and also disconcerts the engines, whose stability, bracing, and keeping proper place and working order depend first and essentially on the permanence and stability of the hull. If the resistance to a vessel in pa.s.sing through the water increases as the square of the velocity, and if in addition to this outward thrust against the vessel it has to support the greater engine power within it, which has increased as the cube of the velocity, then the strength of the vessel must be adequate to resist without injury these two combined forces against which it has to contend.

The same increased strength is necessary also in the engines and boilers. It is admitted by the ablest engineers, and verified by practice, as will be shown in another part of this Section, that to increase the speed of a steamer from eight to ten knots per hour, it is necessary to double the power, and so on in the ratio of the cubes of the velocity. Suppose that we wish to gain these two knots advance on eight. It is evident that, if the boilers have to generate, and the engines to use twice the power, and exert twice the force, they must have also twice the strength. The boiler must be twice as strong and heavy; the various working parts of the engine must be twice as strong: the shafts, the cranks, the piston and other rods, the beams, the cylinders, the frame work, whether of wood or iron, and even the iron wheels themselves, with every thing in any way employed to use the power, overcome the resistance, and gain the speed. There is no working arrangement in any way connected with the propulsion of the s.h.i.+p that does not partake of this increase; every pump, every valve, every bolt connected directly or indirectly with the engine economy of the s.h.i.+p.

2. In the second place, seeing that much greater strength of parts is required to overcome the increased resistance, it is equally evident that this high speed and power thus require a larger outlay in every point of the prime construction of the vessel and engines by which the speed is to be attained. The hull's heavier timbers cost a higher price according to size than the direct proportion of size indicates.

Large and choice timbers are difficult to get, and costly. The hull must also be strengthened to a large extra extent by heavy iron strapping and bracing, which, unlike the rest, cost in the ratio of the material used. So with the engines. The shaft, which weighs twice as much, does not cost only twice as much, but frequently three or four or five times as much. This arises not from the weight of the metal, as is evident; but from the difficulty of forging pieces that are so large. The persons engaged in the forging and finis.h.i.+ng of the immense shafts, cranks, pistons, etc., used in our first cla.s.s steamers, frequently consider that the last and largest piece is the _chef d'oeuvre_ of the art, and that it will never be transcended, even if equalled again. They have expended all of their skill and ingenuity in the task, and have not succeeded sometimes until they have forged two or three new pieces. When a great work of this kind is done, it may be discovered in the turning, polis.h.i.+ng, and fitting up, that it has at last a flaw, and that it will not do for the service intended. As a matter of course, it must be thrown aside and a new piece forged. This was but recently the case with one of the shafts of the "Leviathan," in England. So with the shafts of the new Collins'

steamer "Adriatic." They were forged in Reading, Pennsylvania, and in addition to their enormous prime cost had to incur that of s.h.i.+pment from the interior of Pennsylvania to the city of New-York. In all such cases the prime cost increases immensely, and to an extent that would hardly be credited by those not practically familiar with the subject.

3. Again, high or increased power and speed require more frequent and more costly repairs. Friction arises from the pressure of two bodies moving in opposite directions, and pressure results from the exertion of power, and in the ratio of the power applied. The amount of friction, therefore, is in the ratio of the power expended and of the extra weight of parts required for that power. But the effects of friction require a higher ratio when the power is greatly multiplied, as in the case of high speed. An immensely heavy shaft exerting an unusual force is certain to greatly heat the journals and boxes, and thus wear them away far more rapidly. Also a rapid motion of heavy parts of machinery, and the necessarily severe concussions and jarrings can not fail destroying costly working parts in the engine, and necessitating heavy and expensive repairs and subst.i.tutions. An ordinary engine working at a slow and easy rate, will not require one tenth the repairs necessary if it were working up to a high power and accomplis.h.i.+ng a high speed. With any little derangement the engines can stop and the injury can be repaired before it reaches any magnitude. But with rapid mail packets the engines must run on, and the derangement which at first is small, will amount in the end, when the voyage is completed and the mails are delivered, to a sum probably ten or twenty times as great as in the case of the vessel that stops and makes her repairs as she requires them. The exertion of a high mail power causes many costly parts to burn out from unrelieved pressure and friction, which would not be the case under other conditions. It is also nearly impossible for the best built engines in the world to make fast time without breaking some important part at every trip or two, or so cracking and injuring it from the continued strain, that a wise precaution requires its removal to make the steamer perfectly sea-worthy. Every practical man knows these difficulties, and every steams.h.i.+p owner estimates their importance according to the immense bills they occasion month by month, or the delays and losses which they cause unless he has expended large amounts of capital in providing other s.h.i.+ps to take their place on such occasions of derangement.

Nor is the burning out of heavy bra.s.s, and composition, and steel pieces, or the breaking of large and troublesome parts in the engine the only source of repairs on a steams.h.i.+p. The boiler department is particularly fruitful in large bills of repairs, especially if it be necessary to attain a good mail speed. It stands to reason that if the whole s.h.i.+p can not be filled with boiler power, which with reasonably high fires, would give enough steam, then the boilers which are used must be exerted to their highest capacity, or the rapid speed can not be attained. Many suppose that the boilers may generate twice the quant.i.ty of steam without any appreciable difference in the wear and tear; but this is a decided error. For high speed, and what I mean by high speed is simply that which gives a sufficiently rapid transit to the mails, the fires must be nurtured up to their highest intensity and every pound of coal must be burned in every corner of the furnaces which will generate even an ounce of steam. This continued heat becomes too powerful for the furnaces and the boilers, and they begin to oxidize, and burn, and melt away, as would never be the case under ordinary heat. When the s.h.i.+p comes into port it is found that her furnaces must be "overhauled," her grate bars renewed, her braces restored, her boilers patched, sometimes all over, several of their plates taken out, thousands of rivets removed and supplied, and probably dozens of tubes also removed and replaced with new ones. But this is not all. The best boilers can not long run in this way. After six to seven years at the utmost, they must be removed from the s.h.i.+p altogether, and new ones must be put into their place. This is also a most expensive operation. The boilers const.i.tute a large share of the cost of the engine power. To put a new set of boilers in one of the Collins steamers will cost about one hundred and ten thousand dollars, and this must be done every six years. The boilers of the West-India Royal Mail Steamers, which run very slowly, last on an average, six years.[A]

[A] Statement by Mr. Pitcher, builder, before the Committee of the House of Commons. Murray on the _Steam Engine_, p. 170, Second Edition.

But this is not all. To restore the boilers, a s.h.i.+p has to be torn literally almost to pieces. All of the decks in that part must be removed and lost; the frame of the s.h.i.+p cut to pieces; large and costly timbers removed, and altogether an expense incurred that is frightful even to the largest companies. To insure perfect safety and to gratify the wish of the public, this is generally done long before it is strictly necessary, and when the boilers are in a perfectly good condition for the working purposes of ordinary speed. But precaution and safety are among the prerequisites of the public service, and must be attained at whatever cost. On slow auxiliary freighting steamers this would be by no means necessary. But the extent and cost of these repairs on steamers far exceed any thing that would be imagined. They are supposed to be twelve per cent. per annum of the prime cost of a vessel of ordinary speed, taking the whole s.h.i.+p's life together at twelve years at the utmost. Atherton in his "Marine Engine Construction and Cla.s.sification," page 32, says of the repairs of steam vessels doing ordinary service in Great Britain, where all such work is done much cheaper than in this country: "By the Parliamentary evidence of the highest authorities on this point, it appears to have been conclusively established, that the cost of upholding steams.h.i.+p machinery has of late years amounted, on the average, to about 6 per horse power per annum, being about 12 per cent. per annum, on the prime cost of the machinery, which annual outlay is but one of the grand points of current expense in which steams.h.i.+p proprietors are concerned." Now, if these were the repairs of the slow West-India Royal mail steamers, which ran but 200 days in the year, and that at a very moderate speed, and in the machine shops of England, where at that time (previous to 1852) wages were very low, they can not be less in this country, on rapid mail steamers, where wages and materials are very high, and where marine engineering was then in its infancy.

There are some facts on this subject which prove the positions here taken. The Collins steamers have been running but six years, and yet their repairs have amounted in all to more than the prime cost of the s.h.i.+ps, or to about eighteen per cent. per annum. They were as well and as strongly built originally as any s.h.i.+ps in the world, as appears from the report which Commodore M. C. Perry made to the Department regarding them, and from the fine condition of their hulls at the present time. Their depreciation with all of these repairs has not been probably above six per cent. per annum. They will, however, probably depreciate ten per cent. during the next six years, and at the age of twelve or fourteen years be unfit for service. The steamers Was.h.i.+ngton and Hermann, which had strong hulls, have been run eight years, and are now nearly worthless. Their depreciation has been at least ten per cent. The steamers Georgia and Ohio, which Commodore Perry and other superintending navy agents p.r.o.nounced to be well-built and powerful steamers, (_See Report Sec. Navy_, 1852,) ran only five years, and were laid aside, and said to be worthless. With all of the repairs put upon these s.h.i.+ps, which were admitted to be capable of doing first cla.s.s war service, as intended, they depreciated probably seventeen per cent.; as it is hardly possible that their old iron would sell for more than fifteen per cent. of their prime cost. These steamers paid much smaller repair bills than the Collins, and were not so well constructed, or at so high a cost. American steamers do not, upon the average, last above ten years; but if they reach twelve or fourteen, they will pay a sum nearly equal to twice their cost, for repairs and subst.i.tutions. Nor is this all. The life of a steamer ends when her adaptation to profitable service ceases. She may not be rotten, but may be so slow, or of so antiquated construction, or may burn so much more fuel than more modern compet.i.tors, that she can not stand the test of compet.i.tion.

4. We thus see that not only are the requisite repairs most extensive and costly, but of such magnitude as to greatly reduce the earnings of any cla.s.s of steam vessels. But this is not the last costly consequence of mail speed. It requires more cautious watchfulness of the engines, the boilers, the deck, and of every possible department of the navigation, even including pilotage. It requires also more promptness and dispatch in every movement, and hence a much larger aggregate number of men. More men are necessary to keep up high fires; twice as many men are necessary to pa.s.s twice as much coal; twice as many engineers as under other circ.u.mstances are necessary for the faithful working of the engines, and any accidents and repairs which are indispensable on the ocean; and a larger number of sailors and officers is necessary to all of the prompt movements required of the mail steamer. The Havre mail steamers, the "Arago" and "Fulton," never carry less than six engineers each, although they could be run across the ocean with three under a hard working system. But this number insures the greater safety of the s.h.i.+p under ordinary circ.u.mstances, and is absolutely necessary in any case of accident and danger. It is the same case with the firemen. When, in a heavy storm, the fire department may be imperfectly manned, the s.h.i.+p has taken one of the first chances for rendering the engines inefficient, and being finally lost. And all of these extra and indispensable _employees_ make an extra drain on the income of the s.h.i.+p, and add to the extreme costliness of a high adequate mail speed.

5. It is clear, then, that an adequate mail speed requires more fuel, more engineers, more firemen, more coal-stokers, and more general expense. The question of fuel is, however, alone the most important of all those affecting the attainment of high speed, and the item whose economy has been most desired and sought, both by those attempting to carry freight, and those who carry the mails and pa.s.sengers. The princ.i.p.al points of interests concerning it are, the enormous quant.i.ty which both theory and practice show to be necessary to fast vessels; the large sum to be paid for it, and the steadily increasing price; and the paying freight room which its necessary carriage occupies. In fast steaming, the supply of coal to the furnaces frequently arrives at a point where many additional tons may be burned and yet produce no useful effect or increase of power. The draft through the furnaces and smoke stacks is so rapid and strong as to take off a vast volume of heat; and this, coupled with a large quant.i.ty of heat radiated from the various highly heated parts and surfaces, requires a consumption of fuel truly astonis.h.i.+ng. If we reflect that at the twelve princ.i.p.al ports of Great Britain in the year of 1855, the tonnage entered was 6,372,301, and departed 6,426,566, equal to 12,798,867 total, and this during the war, that a large part of this was steam tonnage, and that the total imports and exports of Great Britain for 1856 were 1,600,000,000 dollars, we can somewhat appreciate the present and future uses of coal, and its inevitably large increase in price. The two hundred and seventy steamers in the British Navy, with about 50,000 aggregate horse power, consumed in 1856, according to a report made to a Committee of the "British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science," this year, by Rear-Admiral Moorsom, 750,000 tons of coal.

The difficulty and cost of mining coal, its distance from the sea-sh.o.r.e, and the multifarious new applications in its use among our rapidly increasing population, as well as its almost universal and increasing demand for marine purposes, all conspire to make it more costly from year to year; while, as a propelling agent, it is already beyond the reach of commercial ocean steam navigation. Coal has gone up by a steady march during the last seven years from two and a half to eight dollars per ton, which may now be regarded as a fair average price along our Atlantic seaboard. And that we may see more clearly how essentially the speed and cost of steam marine navigation depend upon the simple question of fuel alone, to say nothing further of the impeding causes heretofore mentioned, I will now present a few inquiries concerning

THE NATURAL LAWS OF RESISTANCE, POWER, AND SPEED,

WITH TABLES OF THE SAME.

The resistance to bodies moving through the water increases as the square of the velocity; and the power, or coal, necessary to produce speed varies or increases as the cube of the velocity. This is a law founded in nature, and verified by facts and universal experience. Its enunciation is at first startling to those who have not reflected on the subject, and who as a general thing suppose that, if a vessel will run 8 miles per hour on a given quant.i.ty of coal, she ought to run 16 miles per hour on double that quant.i.ty. I think that it may be safely a.s.serted that in all cases of high speed, and ordinary dynamic or working efficiency in the s.h.i.+p, the resistance increases more rapidly than as the squares. The _rationale_ of the law is this: the power necessary to overcome the resistance of the water at the vessel's bow and the friction increases as the square; again, the power necessary to overcome the natural inertia of the vessel and set it in motion, increases this again as the square of the velocity, and the two together const.i.tute the aggregate resistance which makes it necessary that the power for increasing a vessel's speed shall increase as the cube of the velocity. But whatever the _rationale_, the law itself is an admitted fact by all theoretical engineers, and is proven in practice by all steams.h.i.+ps. In evidence of this, I will give the following opinions.

In his treatise on "The Marine Engine," Mr. Robert Murray, who is a member of the Board of Trade in Southampton, England, says in speaking of the "Natural law regulating the speed of a steamer," page 104: "These results chiefly depend upon the natural law that _the power expended in propelling a steams.h.i.+p through the water varies as the cube of the velocity_. This law is modified by the r.e.t.a.r.ding effect of the _increased resisting surface_, consequent upon the weight of the engines and fuel, so that the horse power increases in a somewhat higher ratio than that named." It must be understood that when he speaks of power, horse power, etc., it is simply another form of representing the quant.i.ty of coal burned; as the power is in the direct ratio of the quant.i.ty of fuel.

Bourne, the great Scotch writer upon the Screw Propeller, in his large volume published by Longmans, London, page 145, says, in concluding a sentence on the expensiveness of vessels: "Since it is known that the resistance of vessels increases more rapidly than the square of the velocity in the case of considerable speeds."

Again, at page 236, on "the resistance of bodies moving through the water," he says: "In the case of very sharp vessels, the resistance appears to increase nearly as the square of the velocity, but in case of vessels of the ordinary amount of sharpness the resistance increases more rapidly than the square of the velocity."

Again, on page 231, in speaking of the folly of a company attempting to run steamers sufficiently rapidly for the mails at the price paid for them, he says: "At the same time an increased rate of speed has to be maintained, which is, of course, tantamount to a further reduction of the payment. In fact, their position upon the Red Sea line is now this, that they would be better without the mails than with them, as the mere expense of the increased quant.i.ty of fuel necessary to realize the increased speed which they have undertaken to maintain, will swallow up the whole of the Government subvention. _To increase the speed of a vessel from 8 to 10 knots it is necessary that the engine power should be doubled._" This work of Mr. Bourne is now the standard of authority on the subject of which he treats, the world over.

Again, Mr. James R. Napier, of London, known as one of the largest and most skilled engine-builders in Great Britain, in the discussion of the dynamic efficiency of steams.h.i.+ps in the proceedings of the "British a.s.sociation" in 1856, page 436, says: "_The power in similar vessels, I here take for granted, at present varies as the cube of the velocity._" The power simply represents the coal; in fact, it is the coal.

Mr. Charles Atherton, the able and distinguished Chief Engineer of Her Majesty's Royal Dock Yard, at Woolwich, has published a volume, called "Steams.h.i.+p Capability," a smaller volume on "Marine Engine Cla.s.sification," and several elaborate papers for the British a.s.sociation, the Society of Arts, London, the a.s.sociation of Civil Engineers, and the Artisans' Journal, for the purpose of properly exposing the high cost of steam freight transport as based on the law above noticed, and the ruinous expense of running certain cla.s.ses of vessels of an inferior dynamic efficiency. When but a few weeks since in London, I asked the Editor of the "Artisan," if any engineer in England disputed the laws relative to power, on which Mr. Atherton based his arguments. He replied that he had never heard of one who did. I asked Mr. Atherton myself, if in the case of the newest and most improved steamers, with the best possible models for speed, he had ever found any defect in the law of, the resistance as the squares, and the power as the cubes of the velocity. He replied that he had not; and that he regarded the law as founded in nature, and had everywhere seen it verified in practice in the many experiments which it was his duty to conduct with steam vessels in and out of the Royal Navy. I think, therefore, that with all of these high authorities, the doctrine will be admitted as a law of power and speed, and consequently of the consumption of coal and the high cost of running steamers at mail speeds.

It is not my purpose here to discuss this law, or treat generally or specially of the theory of steam navigation. It will suffice that I point out clearly its existence and the prominent methods of its application only, as these are necessary to the general deduction which I propose making, that rapid steams.h.i.+ps can not support themselves on their own receipts. The general reader can pa.s.s over these formulae to p. 69, and look at their results.

I. TO FIND THE CONSUMPTION OF FUEL NECESSARY TO INCREASE THE SPEED OF A STEAMER.

Suppose that a steamer running eight miles per hour consumes forty tons of coal per day: how much coal will she consume per day at nine miles per hour? The calculation is as follows:

8^3 : 9^3 :: 40 : required consumption, which is, 56.95 tons. Here the speed has increased 12-1/2 per cent., while the quant.i.ty of fuel consumed increased 42-1/2 per cent.

Suppose, again, that we wish to increase the speed from 8 to 10, and from 8 to 16 miles per hour. The formula stands the same, thus:

Miles. Miles. Tons Coal. Tons Coal.

8^3 : 10^3 :: 40 : _x_, = 78.1 8^3 : 16^3 :: 40 : _x_, = 320.

II. TO FIND THE SPEED CORRESPONDING TO A DIMINISHED CONSUMPTION OF FUEL.

Murray has given some convenient formulae, which I will here adopt.

Suppose a vessel of 500 horse power run 12 knots per hour on 40 tons coal per day: what will be the speed if she burn only 30 tons per day?

Thus:

40 : 30 :: 12^3 : V^3 (or cube of the required velocity,) Or, reduced, 4 : 3 :: 1728 : V^3, Equation, 3 1728 = 5184 = 4V^3, Or, 5184/4 = Cube root of 1296 = 10.902 knots = V, required velocity.

Thus, we reduce the quant.i.ty of coal one fourth, but the speed is reduced but little above one twelfth.

III. RELATION BETWEEN THE CONSUMPTION OF FUEL, AND THE LENGTH AND VELOCITY OF VOYAGE.

The consumption of fuel on two or more given voyages will vary as the square of the velocity multiplied into the distance travelled. Thus, during a voyage of 1200 miles, average speed 10 knots, the consumption of coal is 150 tons: we wish to know the consumption for 1800 miles at 8 knots. Thus:

150 tons : C required Consumption :: 10^2 knots 1200 miles : 8^2, Knots 1800 miles.

Then, C 100 1200 = 150 64 1800,*

Or, C 120,000 = 17,280,000 Reduced to C = 1728/12 = 144 tons consumption.

Suppose, again, that we wish to know the rate of speed for 1800 miles, if the coals used be the same as on another voyage of 1200 miles, with 150 tons coal, and ten knots speed:

We subst.i.tute former consumption, 150 tons for C, as in the equation above, marked *, and V^2 (square of the required velocity) for 64, and have,

150 100 1200 = 150 V^2 1800, Or, 120,000 = 1800V^2, Reduced, 1200/18 = V^2, And V = square root of 66.66 = 8.15 knots.

From the foregoing easily intelligible formulae we can ascertain with approximate certainty the large quant.i.ty of coal necessary to increase speed, the large saving of coal in reducing speed, as well as the means of accommodating the fuel to the voyage, or the voyage to the fuel. It is not necessary here to study very closely the economy of fuel, as this is a question affecting the transport of freight alone.

When the mails are to be transported, economy of fuel is not the object desired, but speed; and, consequently, we must submit to extravagance of fuel. This large expenditure of coal is not necessary in the case of freights, as they may be transported slowly, and, consequently, cheaply. But one of the princ.i.p.al reasons for rapid transport of the mails is that they may largely antic.i.p.ate freights in their time of arrival, and consequently control their movements.

I recently had an excellent opportunity of testing the large quant.i.ty of fuel saved on a slight reduction of the speed, and give it as ill.u.s.trative of the law advanced. We were on the United States Mail steamer "Fulton," Captain Wotton, and running at 13 miles per hour.

Some of the tubes became unfit for use in one of the boilers, and the fires were extinguished and the steam and water drawn off from this boiler, leaving the other one, of the same size, to propel the s.h.i.+p.