"The accommodation for passengers was on an unprecedented scale. There were no less than five saloons on the upper, and as many on the lower deck, the aggregate length of the principal apartments being 400 feet. There was accommodation for 800 first-class, 2,000 second-class, and 1,200 third-class passengers, and the crew numbered 400. The upper deck, which was of a continuous iron-plated and cellular structure, ran flush from stem to stern, and was twenty feet wide on each side of the hatchways; thus two spacious promenades were provided, each over a furlong in length. The capacity for coal and cargo was 18,000 tons.
"The attempts to launch this vessel were most disastrous, and cost no less than £120,000, an expense which ruined the company. The original company was wound up, and the great ship sold for £160,000 to a new company, and was completed in the year 1859. The new company very unwisely determined to put her on the American station, for which she was in no way suited. During her preliminary trip the pilot reported that she made a speed of fully 14 knots at two-thirds of full pressure, but the highest rate of speed which she attained on this occasion was 15 knots, and on her first journey across the Atlantic the average speed was nearly 14 knots, the greatest distance run in a day having been 333 nautical miles. The great value of the system adopted in her construction was proved by an accident which occurred during one of her Transatlantic voyages. She ran against a pointed rock, but the voyage was continued without hindrance. It was afterwards found that holes of the combined length of over 100 feet had been torn in her outer bottom; but, thanks to the inner water-tight skin, no water was admitted."
Between the years 1860 and 1870 great improvements were made in marine engines, and screw-steamers very generally replaced side-wheel boats for ocean traffic. The improvements in the engines consisted largely in the use of higher pressures, surface condensation, and compounding of the cylinders, which resulted in a saving of about half the amount of fuel over engines of the older type. As a result steamers were able to compete successfully with the sailing ships, even as freighters for long voyages, such as those between Europe and Australia.
During the reactive period in France immediately following the Franco-Prussian war, when there was great activity in shipbuilding, the use of mild steel plates in place of wrought iron was tried. The superiority of this material over iron was quickly demonstrated, and as the cost of steel was constantly lessening, thanks to the newly discovered methods of production, steel practically replaced iron in ship construction after this time.
It was during this same period that a new type of passenger steamer was produced—the "ocean greyhound." The first of these was the Oceanic, built by the White Star Company in 1871. This ship was remarkable in many ways. Her length, four hundred and twenty feet, was more than ten times her beam; iron railings were substituted for bulwarks; and the passenger quarters were shifted from the position near the stern to the middle of the vessel. All these changes proved to be distinct improvements, and the Oceanic became at once the most popular, as well as the fastest ocean liner.
Like all the other boats of the seventies and early eighties, the Oceanic was a single-screw vessel. The advantage of double propellers in case of accident had long been recognized, but hitherto twin-screws had not proved as efficient as a single screw in developing speed. But in 1888 the City of Paris (now the Philadelphia) a twin-screw boat, began making new speed records, and the following year her sister ship, the New York, and the new Majestic and Teutonic, entering into the ocean-record contests, cut the time of the passage between Europe and America to less than six days.
The advantages of the double-screw over the single are so many and so manifest as to leave no question as to their superiority. The disabling of the shaft or screw of the single-screw steamer, or the derangement of her rudder renders the vessel helpless. Not so the twin-screw ship; for on such ships the screws can be used for steering as well as propelling. And it has happened many times that twin-screw ships have crossed the ocean with the steering gear disabled, or with one screw entirely out of commission.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE TURBINE
In recent years the greatest revolutionary step in steamship construction has been the invention and development of the turbine engine, the mechanism of which has been described elsewhere. Since the day of the little Turbinia, whose speed astonished the nautical world, the limit for size and speed of ships has again been materially advanced, and no thinking person will venture to predict restricting limits without a modifying question mark.
At the beginning of the twentieth century a keen rivalry had developed between England and the Continent for supremacy in transatlantic traffic, America having dropped out of the race. The Germans in particular had produced fast boats, such as the Deutschland and Kaiser Wilhelm II, which for several years held the ocean record for speed. But meanwhile the turbine engine was being perfected in England, the land of its invention, and presently turbine "greyhounds" began crossing the ocean and menacing the records held by the boats equipped with the older type of engine.