The China, after some years’ service, was sold and converted into the sailing ship Theodor, and proved as fast after the change as when a steamer. She foundered at sea in 1908.
In 1866 another competitor appeared on the North Atlantic. The fate of the Collins and Galway Lines did not deter Mr. S. B. Guion from inaugurating a rival service to that maintained by the Cunard and Inman Lines, and for a time it seemed as if he would be successful in wresting from the splendid vessels of these companies the premier position on the Atlantic. The steamships which he placed on the service between Liverpool and New York were at that period superior in size, speed, and luxury to any of their competitors. He started the service with the Manhattan, and thus inaugurated in 1866 what may be called the great race of the greyhounds of the Atlantic. The Manhattan was built by the Palmer Company of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and was the first of seven steamers comprising the line. Her length was 343 feet, her beam 42 feet 6 inches, and her depth 28 feet, and her register was 2866 tons. She had accommodation for 72 passengers in the first class, and 800 in the second class, and besides taking 1000 tons of coal could carry 1500 tons of cargo. A feature of this vessel was the attention paid to the comfort of the second-class passengers, the cabins for this class being on the main deck and thoroughly ventilated, wherein they showed a marked improvement on the many other vessels carrying emigrants. She was fitted with low-pressure inverted direct-acting surface condensing engines, designed by Messrs. J. Jordan and Co. These had cylinders of 60 inches in diameter, with a piston stroke of 42 inches. The Chicago and the Merrimac, sister ships, followed from the same builders. The Chicago was wrecked in a fog on the rocks near the entrance to Cork Harbour, and, a contrast to some of the disasters to Atlantic liners, not a life was lost, the whole of the passengers and crew, numbering 130, being landed by the ship’s boats within an hour of the accident. The earlier Guion liners were brig-rigged steamers, and some of them carried the new American double topsails on both masts. Other boats which formed a part of the earlier fleet of the Guion Line were the Nebraska, Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. In 1870 these were augmented by the Wyoming and Wisconsin, also built and engined by Messrs. Palmer. These were each 366 feet long, 43 feet broad, 34 feet deep, and of 3238 tons register. Among other distinctive features they had the first compound engines on the transatlantic route. These had one vertical high-pressure cylinder of 60 inches in diameter, and one double-trunk horizontal low-pressure cylinder of 120 inches in diameter, both working on the same crank, and having a stroke of 42 inches. Great expectations as to speed were entertained when the Montana and Dakota, from the Palmer yards, were brought into the service in 1872. They exhibited a new design in hull and machinery as they had an abnormal slope of side, flush steel plating, and water-tube boilers. These vessels each had a length of a little over 400 feet, with a breadth of 43³⁄₄ feet and a depth of 40³⁄₄ feet. Like the Wyoming and Wisconsin, they had compound engines, one high-pressure cylinder of 60 inches diameter, working inverted on a forward crank, and two low-pressure cylinders working horizontally on the after crank. The Montana’s boilers were constructed of a series of cross-tubes 15 inches in diameter and were intended to carry a head of 100 lb. of steam, but in consequence of an explosion when at 70 lb. pressure, they were replaced by ordinary tubular boilers with a pressure of 80 lb. of steam. The Dakota was wrecked on the Welsh coast in May 1877, and a similar fate befell the Montana three years later. Seven years passed and then the Arizona was brought into the Guion service. She was of iron and was built and engined by Messrs. John Elder and Co. of Glasgow. Her dimensions were: 450 feet long, 45¹⁄₈ feet broad, 35³⁄₄ feet deep, with a register of 5147 tons. She differed from the earlier boats of the line by being four-masted, carrying square sails on the fore and main masts, having two funnels, and having her saloon accommodation amidships; in all these particulars, as well as in the straight cutwater, she bore a strong resemblance to her rivals of the White Star Line.
Model of the “City of Paris,” 1866.
Although there was no deviation in her hull from the existing type, her machinery displayed some novel features. Her engines were compound with three crank shafts, each having one cylinder. The high-pressure cylinder was 62 inches in diameter, and was placed in the centre, between the low-pressure cylinders each of 90 inches, and all had a piston stroke of 66 inches. Steam was generated in seven boilers capable of withstanding 90 lb. pressure, and furnished with thirty-nine furnaces, which had an average coal consumption of 125 tons per day, or in round figures 25 per cent. in excess of her fastest rivals, which were then in the White Star Line. On her homeward voyage from New York in July 1879, the Arizona succeeded in breaking the record, and repeated the feat on her outward passage in May 1880, when she made the passage from Queenstown to New York in 7 days, 10 hours, 47 minutes, thus proving herself for two years in succession the fastest boat on the Atlantic. While on her homeward passage in November 1879, the Arizona collided at full speed with an iceberg. Although she gave the berg a direct blow she is one of the few vessels that have managed to survive after such an experience. It was stated at the time that there was a projecting spur of ice from the berg under water, and on this the ship slid. Her weight caused the berg to rock, and it was to this circumstance alone that she owed her safety, for the rocking of the huge mass of ice enabled her to slip off the spur into deep water again. A tremendous quantity of ice, dislodged by the shock, crashed down upon her deck, doing a considerable amount of damage, and she had only drifted a few hundred yards from the berg, after the impact, when an immense portion of it fell at the spot where only a few moments previously the ship had rested. This is one of the narrowest escapes recorded in the annals of the sea. Fortunately, her collision bulkhead withstood the enormous strain, and the vessel received a magnificent, though entirely undesired, testimonial to the soundness and stability of her construction. She put into St. John’s, Newfoundland, and was found to be so badly damaged that she had to have entirely new bows. The success of the Arizona led to the building of the Alaska, which proved another triumph for Messrs. John Elder and Co., for the speed she developed won her the title of the Atlantic Greyhound, her homeward passage in June 1882 being less than seven days. This remarkable run was, however, eclipsed by the Oregon, the last vessel added by the Guion Company prior to its dissolution; she sailed from Liverpool to New York on October 6, 1883, and accomplished the passage from Queensland to Sandy Hook in 6 days 10 hours 9 minutes. The Oregon was an iron vessel built and engined by Messrs. John Elder and Co., on similar lines to, but of greater dimensions than, the Arizona and the Alaska. She was no less than 500 feet in length, 54 feet wide, 40 feet deep, and registered 7375 tons. Her engines were compound and consisted of one 70-inch high-pressure cylinder placed in the centre, and two low-pressure 104-inch cylinders, with a 6-foot stroke; her boilers had a steam-pressure of 110 lb., and her average daily consumption of coal was 310 tons.
The “Oregon” (Cunard and Guion Lines, 1883).
From about this time the passenger service across the Atlantic began to assume proportions and a degree of importance to which it had never before attained. Hitherto the steamers engaged on the transatlantic route had depended considerably on their cargo capacity as a means of meeting expenses, but with the demand for larger and faster vessels—and faster vessels could only be made larger—there was developed an express passenger boat which depended almost wholly on its passenger accommodation and carried a much smaller amount of cargo than some of the older and smaller vessels then engaged in the trade. The Guion Line did not wholly meet these requirements, and on the death of Mr. S. B. Guion, the line gradually dropped out of existence, the remaining vessels of the famous fleet of steamers being dispersed in various directions. Some years before this happened, however, the White Star Line began to build steamers for the Atlantic.
The White Star Line has always been the line of big ships. In its sailing-ship days it owned some of the finest wooden clippers afloat, famous alike for their size and speed. When Mr. T. H. Ismay in 1867 took over the management of the line and formed with some friends the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, there were already in existence the Cunard, Inman, Guion, and National Lines, which had secured such control of the Atlantic trade that it seemed almost rashness for the new line to venture to compete with them. “Nothing venture, nothing win”; the line now holds a position second to none in the world for the magnificence and size of its steamers. All its vessels have been built by Messrs. Harland and Wolff at Belfast. The first of the fleet was the Oceanic, launched on August 27, 1870, which started on her maiden voyage and the inaugural voyage of the fleet on March 2, 1871. Several vessels of the same type followed in rapid succession, all having the straight stem, four masts, and single funnel which were the distinguishing marks of the White Star steamers in those days. The Oceanic was 420 feet long, 41 feet beam, 31 feet deep, and had a registered tonnage of 3707. These steamers were somewhat differently designed from the other boats on the North Atlantic. The high bulwarks and narrow wooden deck-houses were dispensed with, and instead another iron deck was added with open iron railings round it, there being thus nothing to hold any water that might come on board. The saloons were amidships and extended the entire width of the vessel, and the staterooms were placed before and after the saloon and were better lighted and ventilated than those of any other steamers. The engines also were of a novel type; they were compound, four-cylindered, and arranged tandem, with two high-pressure cylinders each 41 inches diameter and two low-pressure each 78 inches in diameter, working on two cranks and having a stroke of five feet. The engines were arranged fore and aft, and each formed a complete engine in itself, so that either could be worked in case of accident to the other. The Oceanic inaugurated the era of the modern type of express ocean liner. After a few voyages some alterations were made in her, which added to her efficiency, her masts being shortened, and a whaleback being built over her stern. In 1875 she was transferred, together with her sisters the Belgic and Gaelic, to the Pacific to inaugurate the White Star steam service between Hong-Kong, Yokohama, and San Francisco.
Two famous sister ships the White Star Line had were the Germanic and Britannic, built in 1875 and 1874 respectively; they were each 455 feet long, 45 feet broad, 33 feet 9 inches deep, and of 5004 tons register. The hulls were built at Belfast, but the engines were by Maudslay, Sons and Field and similar to those of the Oceanic. With a speed rather above 16 knots, they were the first to reduce the passage to below seven days. Numerous experiments were made with a lifting propeller in the Britannic, but they were not a success and the principle was never tried in any more of the company’s boats. The company sought also to improve the lighting of their steamers. The old system of lighting a ship by candles was seldom more than enough to make the darkness visible, and oil lamps were not always much better; so an attempt was made to install a gas-lighting apparatus. It worked very well while the vessel was in port, the experiment being made on the Adriatic in 1872, and the Celtic in 1873; but there was a certain amount of leakage through the working of the ship in a sea-way and the experiment was abandoned. Oil lamps were then installed in these steamers and remained in use until superseded by electric light. Another White Star experiment was with the oscillating saloon, intended to keep berths and staterooms level while the ship was rolling, but this was no more a success on the broad Atlantic than it was on the English Channel when tried in the steamer Bessemer.