The North German Lloyd Company.
This company, founded in 1857, has its headquarters at Bremen, and is also a very large concern, owning a fleet of eighty steamships, with a total tonnage of over 225,000 and 200,000 indicated horse-power. Among these are a number of very fine express steamers, mostly Clyde-built and fitted up with all the latest improvements in machinery and decoration. The Kaiser Wilhelm II., the Havel, Spree, Lahn, Trave and Fulda are all well-known and favourite ships on the Atlantic route. Besides maintaining a weekly service between Southampton and New York, this company has a regular line running direct from New York to Genoa, Naples, Alexandria and other Mediterranean ports, and also lines running to India, China, Japan and Australia. A sad disaster was that which overtook the Elbe of this line in January, 1895, when she was struck amidships by a trading steamer, the Crathie, and sank in a few minutes, with the loss of 332 lives, only twenty-seven of the whole ship’s company being saved. In December, 1896, the Salier, of this line, while on her voyage from Bremen to Buenos Ayres, foundered off the coast of Spain, when every soul on board perished, numbering about three hundred persons.
“PENNSYLVANIA,” HAMBURG-AMERICAN LINE.
The largest cargo steamer afloat.
“KAISER WILHELM DER GROSSE,” NORTH GERMAN LLOYD LINE.
The largest passenger steamer afloat; holds the Blue Ribbon for the fastest
voyage from Southampton to New York, the highest average speed,
and the greatest day’s run.
Eight gigantic steamships are being added to the already numerous fleet. Some of these have already been launched at Stettin, Germany. The largest of these leviathans is the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, which arrived in New York on September 26th, 1897, having made her maiden voyage from Southampton in 5 days, 22 hours, 45 minutes, the fastest on record. Her average speed was over twenty-one knots an hour, and her daily runs as follows: 208, 531, 495, 512, 554, 564, 186; the total distance run was 3,050 knots. Not only has the biggest ship beaten the Southampton record, but on her maiden trip she has made the fastest single day’s run. This she did on the nautical day ending at noon on the 26th, when she reeled off 564 knots. At times she developed twenty-two knots. Her coal consumption, however, was heavy, being nearly five hundred tons a day. She was commanded by Captain H. Englebart. Her return voyage to Plymouth was made in 5 days, 15 hours, 10 minutes; her average speed was about 21.40 knots, and her daily runs were 367, 504, 500, 507, 510, 519, 55; total, 2,962 knots.[24]
The Kaiser der Grosse is 649 feet in length, 66 feet in width, and 43 feet in depth. She is rated at 14,000 tons burthen and 30,000 horse-power. She has quadruple expansion engines, working at a steam pressure of 213 lbs., and turning her mammoth twin screws at the rate of seventy-seven revolutions per minute, and is otherwise conspicuous by her four funnels. Even the Pennsylvania is thrown into the shade by this new-comer. She is designed to carry 20,000 tons of cargo, and from 1,500 to 2,300 passengers. She is the largest steamship afloat at the present time, having larger carrying capacity than the famous Great Eastern; but her supremacy will be short-lived, for the new Oceanic, of the White Star Line, is still larger, and may prove faster. To load this great ship entirely with wheat would require the produce of a field of 40,000 acres, at sixteen bushels to the acre; and to supply her full complement of passengers would depopulate a good-sized town. The Kaiser is essentially a new type of ocean steamship—a magnificent experiment, which will be watched with great interest in shipping circles everywhere, and one that is not unlikely to set the fashion for ships of the next decade.