The “Assiniboine” in Sault Ste. Marie Canal (Canadian Pacific Railway Co.).
The steamer Hansa broke down in October 1908 in the South Pacific through the propeller jamming against the rudder stock. After a delay, the shaft broke when the steamer was 1281 miles out from Newcastle, New South Wales, for New Zealand. The shaft tank was flooded and the ship drifted in circles with sea anchors out, under such sail as the crew could set, while the engineers worked for almost twenty days—night and day—and sometimes more than waist-deep in water in the stern tube, till they managed to repair the shaft. Then the funnels of the steamer were used as masts and tarpaulins were rigged to them as sails. But such sails as they could set were insufficient and she drifted broadside on. The ship was picked up and finally brought into port, but by that time she was able to get her own engines to work and release the strain on the towing steamer.
Repair work of a totally different kind is associated with steamers built to be severed and joined up again. The Canadian Pacific Railway steamer Assiniboia, for instance, was constructed by the Fairfield Company at Govan in 1907 for service on the Great Lakes and was so made that she could be cut in half in order to pass through the canals to reach her destination, after which the pieces were reunited.
That a vessel should be built in order that she may be sunk and raised was the unique experience of the steamer Transporter, built by Messrs. Vickers, Sons and Maxim, Barrow-in-Furness, in 1908. Some time previously the Japanese Government placed with the firm an order for two submarine vessels, and a special steamer had to be constructed to carry them. This vessel is over 250 feet long, very broad and with large hatchways. When the submarines were ready for shipment the steamer was taken to Liverpool and sufficiently submerged in dock to allow of them being floated into the hold. She was then pumped dry, and after being overhauled she left for Japan.
The most serious competitors British shipbuilders have are those of Germany. The industry there is of comparatively modern growth, and it is not more than a few years since all the large steamers required by German owners were built in Great Britain. All the early steamers of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie and also of the Norddeutscher Lloyd were constructed here, but in the early ’seventies, owing to the patriotism of a Secretary of State for the Navy in encouraging the construction of warships in German yards, shipbuilding was taken up in earnest and there are now shipyards in Germany capable of turning out steam-ships in every respect equal to the best that British establishments can produce. At first, German competition was not regarded very seriously by British builders, nor were German owners altogether enamoured of the products of their own yards owing to the lack of uniformity in the quality of the materials employed. The foundation of the Germanischer Lloyd during the ’sixties meant that a new influence was exercised upon German shipbuilding equivalent to that exercised by Lloyd’s upon the British mercantile marine. It was not, however, until 1882 that the Hamburg-Amerika Linie inaugurated the serious competition between German and British builders by entrusting the building of the mail steamer Rugia to the Vulcan Shipbuilding and Engineering works at Stettin, and the Rhaetia to the Reiherstieg Shipbuilding and Engineering Works at Hamburg. Previous to this the German yards had been constructing small steamers, the first of which there is any record being the Weser, built about 1816, at the Johann Lange yards. Iron shipbuilding was established at what is now the Stettin Vulcan yard in 1851 and the same year the “Neptun” yard was founded at Rostock. The first German iron steamer was built at the Schichau Works at Elbing in 1855, and from 1859 to 1862 the machinery for wooden gunboats was supplied. Two iron steamers were launched by Klawitter at Dantzic in 1855, in which year also the Godefroy wooden shipbuilding yard, the present Reiherstieg yard, laid the keel of the first iron ocean-going steamer built on the North Sea coast. The Norddeutsche Werft was started in 1865 at the newly created naval harbour of Kiel, and in 1879 was united with the Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft, formerly Egells, whence arose the well-known Germania shipbuilding establishment.
Without entering upon debatable economic questions it may be asserted as a fact that German shipbuilding is a State-developed industry. Little was done until von Stosch, Minister of the Navy, in introducing a Bill for the establishment of a German Navy defined once for all the relations between the German Navy and the German industries. Not only did the State give assistance by the placing of orders, but further assistance was afforded in 1879 by the exemption from import duty of mercantile shipbuilding materials, a concession the importance of which was recognised when the Norddeutscher Lloyd placed an order with the Vulcan yard in 1886 for six imperial mail steamers for the East Asiatic and Australian lines. These were the first large iron passenger steamers built in Germany. Being Government mail steamers, German material was to be used in their construction as far as possible.
Before this, the Vulcan and the Reiherstieg yards had each shown what they could do by building an ocean steamer of about 3500 tons. Several English-built steamers were bought for the N.D.L. in 1881 and the following years, but in 1888-90 the company had three steamers of 6963 tons gross built by the Vulcan Company; these vessels had engines of 11,500 indicated horse-power and a speed of 18¹⁄₂ miles an hour. In these steamers were adopted central saloons and a long central deck-house with a promenade deck above, while on the main deck a dining-room, extending from one side of the ship to the other, was built. In these ships also German decorators and furnishers were given the opportunity to distinguish themselves and rival the British, and they did so. Steam-ship after steam-ship was produced, each one excelling its predecessor, until the N.D.L. decided upon the construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse under the onerous condition that if she did not come up to the very strict requirements they imposed, the Vulcan Company should take her back. One condition was that the ship should be exhibited in a trial trip across the ocean to New York. The Barbarossa type, corresponding to the White Star intermediate vessels, appeared in the ’nineties, carrying a large number of passengers and having great cargo capacity. In 1894 the twin-screw vessels Prinz Regent Luitpold and Prinz Heinrich were added with special equipment for the tropics. Since then steamers have been added to the fleet with almost startling rapidity to cope with the company’s many services, all the important German yards being favoured with orders. The largest steamer the company has is the George Washington, launched in November 1908 by the Vulcan Company, which is the greatest steamer yet constructed in Germany. She is 725¹⁄₂ feet in length with a displacement of 36,000 tons, while her gross registered tonnage is 26,000 tons. She is a first-class twin-screw steamer with five steel decks extending from end to end; she has also thirteen water-tight bulkheads, all of which reach to the upper deck and some even to the upper saloon deck. Contrary to the English practice, which is to reduce the number of masts as much as possible in these big liners, she has four masts, all steel poles, and carries 29 steel derricks. Her accommodation is for 520 first-class passengers in 263 staterooms, 377 second-class passengers in 137 staterooms, 614 third-class passengers in 160 staterooms, and 1430 fourth-class passengers in eight compartments, this vessel being the first in which four classes of passengers are carried. Besides the 2941 passengers she has a crew of 525. She has two four-cylinder, four-crank, quadruple-expansion engines of 20,000 horse-power, which give her a sea speed of 18¹⁄₂ knots.
Photo. G. West & Son.