Steamships and their story

by E. Keble Chatterton

THE “ORIENT” (1879).

From a Painting. By permission of Messrs. Anderson, Anderson & Co.

The same builders who had been responsible for the Oregon were commissioned to build two of the most historic Cunarders, whose names are almost as familiar as the Atlantic over which they voyaged for so many years with a regularity and reliability that would be hard to beat. In 1884 the first of this famous couple, the Umbria, was delivered, followed early the next year by the Etruria. An illustration of the former, as she appeared when originally rigged as a barque, will be found [facing this page]. Both ships were identical in their main features, and are interesting in many ways. Their masts were of steel, as well as their hulls. At the stern we can see the idea of the turtle deck, as inherited from the Oceanic, slightly modified so that the upper part has become available for a short promenade deck for second-class passengers, and the graceful overhang at the stern also is indicative of the rapid advance since the clumsy after-end of the steamship gave her a far less yacht-like appearance. There is also a promenade deck extending for nearly 300 feet amidships for the use of the first-class passengers, on which a large teak deckhouse encloses the entrances to the saloon, ladies’ saloon, captain’s room, and chart room. Above this house comes the officers’ lookout bridge and house for the steersman, and over this, again, is the flying bridge. Forward there will be seen the large top-gallant forecastle, which extended for over 100 feet aft from the stern. The engines were, of course, compound, with one high-pressure cylinder and two of low-pressure. These vessels were built to the highest class and to be available for Government service as armed cruisers in the event of war. Their average speed was found to be 18½ knots, although the Umbria reached over 20 knots during her six-hours’ trial on the Clyde. These two ships between them broke up all standing Atlantic records, for in August, 1885, the Etruria crossed from Queenstown to New York in six days, six hours, thirty-six minutes, although in 1892 the Umbria did better still by crossing the Atlantic at an average rate of over 19½ knots. Until the coming of the Campania and the Lucania, the Cunard possessed in these the two fastest ships of their fleet. But it is certain the company never owned two more satisfactory steamships, for they have confessed that “no ships ever gave their owners less uneasiness than these two, and none have done such an extraordinary quantity of good work. They are monuments, that cannot lie, to the skill of the design and the faithfulness of the labour that went to their accomplishment.”

As they got older, they actually became faster instead of slower, and the Etruria made her fastest westward passage in five days, twenty hours, fifty-five minutes, with a highest day’s run of 509 knots. She even maintained an average of 20 knots bound eastward. At the end of 1909 she was sold by the Cunard Company, and a like fate befell her sister, the Umbria, which was sold to the Forth Shipbreaking Company in April, 1910, for the sum, it is said, of £20,000. But the Umbria, right to the end, continued to break records, even when she had been long since outrun in matters of speed. For instance, in the year 1893, two days before Christmas, whilst bound west across the Atlantic, it was discovered that a serious fracture had occurred in the propeller shaft. The engines were accordingly stopped, and after a time the German steamship Bohemia came in sight and took her in tow, but a heavy gale sprang up and the tow-rope parted. The Umbria lost sight of her friend and drifted about the Atlantic for three days and nights, but during this time Chief-Engineer Tomlinson pluckily succeeded in repairing the shaft, and the Umbria, with her engines going half-speed, made New York on the last day of the old year, to the great relief of those ashore who had given her up for lost. Another record of a totally different nature was made by her only a few weeks before she was sold out of the Cunard Line. She reached Liverpool just before midnight on Thursday, February 10th, 1910, and in spite of having only just completed her round trip of the double Atlantic journey, she was got ready at once to sail eastward again on the Saturday, February 12th. We can gain some idea of the magnitude of the task when we realise that in that remarkably brief time she had not only to be overhauled, but to have her stores taken on board, to be supplied with 3,000 tons of coal and 450,000 gallons of water, to say nothing of the many tons of cargo of all kinds. Some of the officers had barely time to make a hurried call to see their wives before rushing back on board to superintend this exceptionally fast “turn-round.” The measurements of these two ships were 501 feet long, 57 feet broad, 38 feet deep, with a gross tonnage of 7,718 tons; their builders were Messrs. John Elder and Company, of Glasgow.

Before we pass on in the next chapter to witness the coming of the twin-screw ship, and the disappearance of sails as the auxiliaries of the steamship, we must glance at the progress which was going on during the ’seventies and ’eighties in the steamships employed running, not across the Atlantic, but to the East. Already we have seen something of the origin of the Peninsular and Oriental Line, and the difficulties which it had to contend with in its early career. Now, in 1877, another steamship service to the East was started by the Orient Line, which began by chartering from the Pacific Steam Navigation Company a suitable vessel which should run from London to Sydney via the Cape of Good Hope. This was the Lusitania—a very different ship, of course, from the modern Cunarder of the same name—but in her own time this Lusitania was also famous. For many years, until, indeed, as recently as 1905, the Orient and Pacific Lines worked together to maintain a service between England and Australia. At first the sailings were only monthly, but from 1880 they were fortnightly. Since 1905 the Pacific Company has withdrawn from this trade.

The pioneer of the Orient Line’s own ships—apart from chartered vessels—was the steamer Orient, of which an illustration is given [opposite to page 158]. She was built of iron, in 1879, by the same firm who turned out the Etruria and Umbria. Her measurements are 460 feet long, 46½ feet wide, 36 feet 8 inches deep, with a tonnage of 5,386, and 5,400 horse-power. She was given four decks, of which two were entirely of iron, and sufficient bunker space was provided to carry enough coals to enable her to steam all the way to Australia round the Cape without having to coal en route. She was also provided with a double bottom, which could be filled with water as ballast, if desired. She was driven by inverted vertical engines having the compound principle—one high-pressure cylinder and two of low-pressure—and had a four-bladed propeller. Amidships, it will be noted, is a white erection, which rises up from the ship’s side and becomes the bridge-deck, extending right across the ship and some distance both fore and aft. The origin of this development in the steamship is as follows: Originally, in some of the early ocean-going steamships, the openings on deck from the engine and boiler compartments were merely protected by means of glazed skylights and coamings, forming a hatch. Perhaps it was not a very seaworthy kind of arrangement, but it is essential for plenty of air to get down below, unhindered, for the proper burning of the furnaces, to say nothing of a supply for the engineering section of the crew. However, during the month of January, 1866, the steamship London, after encountering a heavy gale in the Bay of Biscay, endeavoured to make for Plymouth, but during the night a bad sea broke over her, destroyed her engine-room skylight, extinguished the furnaces, and eventually the ship foundered. From this incident was learnt the advisability of protecting this opening with something more substantial. Its first form was, therefore, to raise the sides of the hatchways from the ship by means of an iron casing so as to be about eight feet above the deck and about level with the captain’s bridge. From this it was a perfectly easy transition from the bridge to the bridge-deck, extending it sufficiently to protect the opening adequately. The same idea in a more elementary form will be seen in the tug Blackcock [illustrated in Chapter IX].

THE “AUSTRAL” (1881).

From a Photograph. By permission of Messrs. Anderson, Anderson & Co.