THE “VICTORIA” (1887).
From the Painting by Frank Murray in the possession of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co.
THE “MAJESTIC” (1889).
From a Photograph. By Permission of Messrs. Ismay, Imrie & Co.
The Austral shows another early steamship of the Orient Line. Constructed by the same builders as the Orient and Umbria, she was launched in 1881, and it is a sign of those later times that the yards have now disappeared, though she was schooner-rigged and could set 28,000 square feet of canvas on her four masts. Her gross registered tonnage worked out at 5,524. Built of mild steel with a double bottom, the latter being subdivided into nineteen water-tight compartments with thirteen water-tight bulkheads in her hull, the Austral was specially constructed to act as a cruiser, and to carry guns in case of war. The year after she was launched the Austral was lying in Sydney Harbour with her port-holes left open, when, owing to a heavy list, caused through unequal coaling, the water poured in, and she sank in fifty feet of water, but was refloated again several months after.
The four-masted steamship shown [opposite page 162] is the Victoria, one of the P. and O. boats of this period. Launched in 1887, the Victoria belongs to the company’s “Jubilee” class, and is now one of the oldest boats in this line’s employ. Both at the bow and stern there will be seen a modification of the turtle deck. A sister ship was launched under the name of the Britannia. Their tonnage is, in the case of the Victoria, 6,522, but the Britannia comes out at three tons more, the length being slightly over 465 feet, with a beam of 52 feet, and a depth of over 26 feet.
We have thus seen the liner in a condition of change, and it is only from the close of the eighth decade of the nineteenth century that she begins to take on a form more in accordance with a steamship able to pursue her way totally independent of auxiliary sails. The experience which we recorded as having happened to the Umbria clearly marked the way for the coming of the twin-screw ship. It was patent to anyone that by this means an efficient safeguard would be obtained in the event of a fractured shaft befalling the ship. If it was likely that one should come to grief, it was highly improbable that the other would not be available for getting the ship into port, and so enabling the owning steamship line not merely to preserve their reputation for carrying passengers, mails and cargo with safety, but to avoid the very costly possibilities of having to pay salvage claims to the rescuing ship that should happen to fall in with the injured liner and to tow her home. As soon as the twin-screw became established there was virtually little use for the sails, and so it was not much longer before they disappeared altogether from the crack liner.
CHAPTER VI
THE COMING OF THE TWIN-SCREW STEAMSHIP
During the ’eighties the competition for the Atlantic “blue ribbon” had become very keen indeed, until the Umbria and Etruria began to shatter existing records and to show their undoubted superiority. But their turn to be eclipsed was not long in coming, and the Inman Line were determined to make a bold bid for supremacy once again. A year or two before the launch of the Umbria they had made a spirited effort with the City of Rome, a large vessel with a displacement of over 11,000 tons. But she did not prove successful.