The power to drive the Leviathan is distributed into turbines driving the four propellers. In the open sea the steam is distributed in what we call the high pressure cruising combination, whereby the turbines operate at their highest economy. But in this combination the engines cannot be thrown back instantly, so that in the open ocean in considering her safety and manœuvering, the rudder effect only can be relied upon. She must be considered as having no backing effect. For leaving port, entering port and manœuvering about the dock or about the anchorage, there is thrown in what is called the manœuvering combination. In this combination the highest speed the ship is capable of is sixteen knots ahead, and the combination permits steam to be thrown into the backing turbines. When there is little or no wind the ship steers very well. When it blows strong on the beam or on the quarter, the enormous area of the ship’s freeboard makes her act like a catboat, she wants to fly up into the wind. She requires a weather helm or to put it in modern language, a lee rudder. She will turn very quickly into the wind, but she will turn away from the wind only slowly and reluctantly. Consequently we always dislike going into New York or out of New York in a gale of wind, where the restricted channel requires prompt and accurate turning of the ship. Under normal conditions the manœuvering of the ship with her propellers, in spite of her great length of 954 feet, is all that can be desired.
New York Harbor
Ambrose Channel is dredged to forty feet at low water. On the spring tides the low water may fall another foot, leaving but thirty-nine feet in the Ambrose Channel at low water. As the ship draws between thirty-nine and forty feet on arrival at New York, it is not safe to try to enter at any other stage of the tide than at high water. Owing to her great bulk it is improbable that any amount of tugs could dock the ship at Hoboken when the current is running in the North River, so for docking at Hoboken, the ship’s arrival must be timed so that she is off Hoboken at the slack water. As the slack water at Hoboken is after the slack water in Ambrose Channel, we enter Ambrose Channel then at high water and carry slackwater all the way up the channel and dock at Hoboken on the high water slack tide. On sailing from Hoboken she is undocking on the low water slack tide, so as to arrive in Ambrose Channel at the next high water. The deep draft of the ship on leaving New York, namely, forty-one feet ten inches, requires that in leaving New York Harbor and as far as the Narrows, the ship must seek what might be called the prehistoric gorge of the Hudson River. There are many places between Hoboken and the Narrows even in what ordinarily would be called the navigable fairway, that are so shallow that the Leviathan would go aground. This prehistoric gorge is accurately known to Captain William S. McLaughlin, Master Pilot of the New York-Sandy Hook Pilots, who always pilots the Leviathan out and in.
Docking and Undocking
Directing the Docking of the U. S. S. “Leviathan”
In docking the Leviathan there is no particular trick that must be known, but on undocking her it must be so timed that while on the New Jersey side at Hoboken the water is dead slack, the flood on the New York side has just begun to make. This helps the operation in two ways. First, by getting her away from the dock before the flood current begins to press her against the dock, and second when she backs out, the beginning of the flood current on the New York side assists to turn her stern upstream and operates to point her correctly. In leaving New York for sea, the ship must be manœuvered over to the New York side, the deepest water being on the New York side. In midstream and on the New Jersey side, between Hoboken and the Statue of Liberty, there is not enough water to float the Leviathan. In docking and undocking we need from fourteen to sixteen tugs. Abnormal conditions can be expected in the winter months. Upstate freshets and northerly gales sometimes operate to kill the flood current off Hoboken and to cause a continuing ebb current. Such a condition has happened, making it impossible to point the ship correctly downstream, and it has been necessary to yield to the elements and to permit her to turn the ship. There is always an apprehension in entering and leaving New York Harbor lest merchant vessels carelessly anchor themselves in the Leviathan’s fairway. Such a condition adds difficulties to the piloting of the ship.
