It is a popular fallacy that steel is a suitable material for the construction of an Arctic ship. A steel ship, though structurally strong, is peculiarly vulnerable locally to the ragged, rock-like tongues and corners of heavy Arctic ice.
The elasticity, toughness and resiliency of thick wooden sides are essential in an Arctic ship; but the wood planking may be steel-sheathed on the outside to enable the ship more easily to slip from the grip of the ice, and the methods of composite ship building may be utilised in the interior of the vessel, to reduce weight, while at the same time increasing its structural strength, and not lessening the strength and rigidity of the interior bracing.
In the interests of strength, the frames of the Roosevelt were made treble, keel, keelson, stem and stern-post exceptionally strong; the planking is double; the deck beams, and especially the ’tween-deck beams, which are to be just below the water-line, are extra heavy, and spaced more closely than usual. Additional struts from the bilges, and strong posts from the keelson, longitudinal tie plates at the waterways and on the upper-deck beams, and transverse bulkheads, add still further to her great strength.
In the interest of lightness there is no ’tween-deck planking, no interior fittings; and the spars and rigging are made as light as possible.
The keel, false keel and keelsons are of oak, and form a rigid backbone to the ship six feet in height. The stem and rudder and propeller posts also are of massive oak timbers, the former having a depth on the ship’s axis of seven to ten feet, to take the blows when ramming ice. The frames also are of oak, placed almost close together, and each composed of three thicknesses of timber bolted together to give great strength. The planking is double, yellow pine inside and oak outside.
The sides of the ship are from twenty-four to thirty inches thick.
A STUDY IN BRONZE
Typical face of Eskimo woman
AHWEAHGOODLOO
Four-year-old Eskimo girl dressed in blue fox kapetah and sealskin kamiks