In the meantime important changes had been transpiring in the constitution of the Cunard Company and its environment. The original shareholders had been by degrees bought out by the founders, so that the whole concern was vested in the three families of Cunard, Burns, and MacIver. Sir Samuel attended to the business in London, Mr. Burns in Glasgow, and Mr. MacIver in Liverpool, and never was any business better managed than by these men and their successors. In 1878 it was deemed expedient to consolidate the interests of the partners by the formation of a joint stock company with a capital of £2,000,000 sterling. The three families interested in the concern took up £1,200,000 in paid-up shares. No shares, however, were offered to the public until 1880, when a prospectus was issued, setting forth the necessity for additional steamships of the most improved type, involving a large outlay of money. The shares were readily bought up and measures were taken to increase the efficiency of the fleet, which had become at length imperative owing to the keen competition of rival lines. This was inevitable.
THE “SCOTIA,” LAST OF CUNARD PADDLE-STEAMSHIPS, 1862.
The manifest success of the Cunard Company could not long continue without exciting competition, and this followed in due course from a variety of quarters; nor was it to be expected that they should easily hold the supremacy of the sea against all new-comers. They had, in fact, to contend vigorously for their laurels, and at successive intervals had to retire into the second rank, but their determination to regain and hold, at whatever cost, the championship has been well illustrated in the newer ships of the line. The Umbria and Etruria, steel ships launched in 1884, having cost nearly two millions of dollars each, were a decided advance upon any steamers then afloat. They are 500 feet long, 57 feet 3 inches wide, and 40 feet in depth; they are of 8,127 tons, 14,500 horse-power and are equal to a speed of 19½ knots an hour. They have ample accommodation for 550 first-class passengers and 800 steerage. Each of them has made the run from Queenstown to New York (2,782 knots) in less than six days. In nine consecutive voyages the Etruria (in 1885) maintained an average speed of 18 knots. Her fastest voyage, however, from Queenstown to New York, was made in August, 1897, when she was thirteen years old—namely, 5 days, 21 hours and 10 minutes actual time, the average speed during the voyage being about 20 knots.
THE “CAMPANIA,” AT LIVERPOOL LANDING-STAGE.
It helps one to understand the enormous cost of such vessels when it is stated that the single screw-propeller weighs about thirty-nine tons and costs $25,000! Splendid as was the record of these crack Cunarders, they were surpassed by ships of the White Star and Inman Lines. Something had to be done. An order was given to the Fairfield Ship-building and Engineering Company on the Clyde to build two steel twin-screw express steamships that should surpass all previous efforts. The result was the Campania and Lucania, launched at Govan in September, 1892, and February, 1893, respectively. These sister ships are splendid specimens of marine architecture. They are each 620 feet long, 65¼ feet beam, and 43 feet in depth. Their gross tonnage is 12,950 tons; their twin screws are driven by triple expansion engines of 30,000 indicated horse-power. Each engine has five cylinders and three cranks. The low-pressure cylinders have the enormous diameter of 8 feet 2 inches; the two high-pressure cylinders are 37 inches in diameter, and the intermediate are 79 inches, with a stroke of 5 feet 9 inches. They are arranged tandem fashion, with a high-pressure cylinder over a low-pressure cylinder, one at each end, and the intermediate in the centre. At eighty revolutions (their normal speed) this enormous weight is moved about 2,000 feet per minute. The crank shaft is twenty-six inches in diameter, and each of the three interchangeable parts weighs twenty-seven tons. The propeller shaft is twenty-four inches in diameter, fitted in lengths of twenty-four feet, each length having two bearings. The bossing out of the stern, as in the Teutonic and Majestic, permits the screws to work without any exterior overhanging bracket, as in other screw steamers. The central boss of the propeller is made of steel; the three blades, weighing eight tons each, are of manganese bronze. A new feature in the machinery is what is called an “emergency governor,” which, in case of the shaft breaking, or the screw racing from any other cause beyond a certain speed, is designed to act automatically on the reversing gear and stop the engines. These gigantic engines are started and reversed by steam. Their height from the base to the top of the cylinders is no less than forty-seven feet. There are twelve large boilers, with four furnaces at each end, and made to stand a pressure of 165 lbs. to the square inch. The two funnels are each twenty feet in diameter, and rise to a height of 130 feet above the floor of the ship. The rudder is one large plate of steel, 22 x 11½ feet in area and 1½ inches thick. With the steering gear it weighs forty-five tons! On her maiden voyage from New York to Liverpool the Campania eclipsed all previous records, making the run to Queenstown, by the long route (2,896 knots), in 5 days, 17 hours, 27 minutes. Her fastest eastern passage has been 5 days, 9 hours, 18 minutes, and westward, 5 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes. She has run 548 knots in twenty-four hours, and maintained an average speed of 21.82 knots an hour throughout an entire voyage.
Wonderful as the performances of the Campania have been, they are surpassed by her sister ship. The Lucania made the western voyage, from Queenstown to New York, arriving October 27th, 1894, in 5 days, 7 hours, 23 minutes, the fastest voyage between these points yet made. Her daily runs on that occasion were, 529, 534, 533, 549, 544, 90—total knots, 2,779. Her fastest eastward voyage (up to July, 1897) has been 5 days, 8 hours, 38 minutes; her best average speed throughout a voyage was 22.1 knots an hour, and her highest day’s running is 560 knots. The arrival and departure of these steamers at the Liverpool landing-stage has come to be anticipated with almost as much exactitude as that of our best regulated railways. The mails which they carry from New York on Saturday morning are usually delivered in Liverpool on the following Friday afternoon, and letters from London are delivered in Montreal in seven days. By arrangement with the Admiralty, and in consideration of an annual subvention of £19,000, the Lucania and Campania are held at the disposal of the Government whenever their services may be required as armed cruisers. Other ships of this line are also at the disposal of the Admiralty without any specified subsidy.