After determining her length and beam, came the question of draft. For the ship navigating the waters of Smith Sound a light draft is far better than a heavier one, permitting her to hug the shore in order to get round barriers, or, when crowded by heavy ice, to retreat close to the shore and let it ground outside the ship. Another distinct advantage of light draft in a ship is the greater ease with which she will rise under the heavy pressure of ice-floes. The greater her draft, the harder it is for her to rise and avoid the grip of the ice.
So much depends on the ship in the serious work of ice navigation that it may be well to describe in detail the ship which I consider the ablest of ice fighters.
BOW OF “ROOSEVELT” IN DRY DOCK
Note massiveness and rounded, egg-like curves
The official measurements of the Roosevelt are as follows: length, 184 feet; breadth, 35.5 feet; depth, 16.2 feet; gross registered tonnage, 614 tons; maximum load displacement, about 1500 tons. The keel, main keelsons, stem- and stern-posts, frames, plank sheer, waterways, and garboard-strake, are white oak. Beams, sister-keelsons, deck clamps, ’tween-deck waterways, bilge-strakes, ceiling, and inner course of planking, are yellow pine. The outer planking is white oak and the decks of Oregon pine. Both the ceiling and the outer course of white-oak planking are edge-bolted from stem to stern, and from plank sheer to garboard-strake. The fastenings are galvanized iron bolts, going through both courses of planking and the frames, and riveting up over washers on the inside of the ceiling.
The great oak timbers of the keel, false keel and keelsons, bolted and strapped and scarfed together in every way that experience and ingenuity could suggest formed a rigid backbone over six feet high. The oak timber sources were searched to secure these timbers, and some of them perhaps could not be duplicated to-day.
Massive oak timbers formed the stem, stern and rudder posts, bolted and strapped to each other and to the keel.
The frames or ribs of the Roosevelt were placed almost close together, each made of three courses of selected timbers bolted together.
At the stem the ribs were close together and the triangular space at the bow between the port and starboard ribs was filled in solid for a distance of some ten feet aft of the stem with oak timbers bolted and scarfed together to make a solid ram, or fighting head or cæstus.