Steamships and their storyChatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
History
Steamships and their story
Chatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
Shipbuilding; Steamboats
When a vessel is carrying her full cargo her stern is sufficiently
immersed to prevent her propeller from racing badly in a heavy sea.
But when she is making a voyage “light” there is great danger of
damage to the ship through the fracturing of the propeller shaft as
the ship dips her bows and raises her tail in the air. Everyone who
has had experience of handling small craft of any kind is aware
that the lower the ballast is placed the more the ship will roll. In
an extreme case, when all the ballast is placed outside the ship on to
her keel, the motion in a sea-way is more like that of the pendulum
than anything else. The method which we are now about to discuss
allows of water-ballast tanks being placed sufficiently high at the
“wings” to counteract this rolling. Opposite page 250 will be seen two
illustrations of the patent cantilever-framed steamers which are built
by Messrs. Sir Raylton Dixon and Company, Limited, of Middlesbrough,
through whose courtesy the photographs are reproduced. By examining
them it will be seen that water-ballast can be carried not only in the
usual tank at the bottom of the ship, but in the wing tanks at the
sides of the ship, and at such a height that when the ship is crossing
the ocean without cargo, she will have an easy motion.
The lower illustration shows a section of one of these cantilever
ships, and the water-ballast tanks, above which is a shelter deck
that in the case of a passenger ship can be used as a promenade, or
can accommodate live cargo in cattle-ships. It will be noticed that
the ship’s frames are bent inwards, and that these, together with
the vertical sides of the hull, form the triangular spaces for the
tanks. Now these tanks run fore and aft on both sides and increase the
strength of the ship, not merely longitudinally, but transversely.
Owing to this the necessity of adding such obstructions to the hold as
pillars and beams vanishes, and as will be seen in the illustrations,
the hold is thus free and unencumbered for all manner of cargo. It
is further claimed for this cantilever craft that she can carry a
dead-weight more than three times the net register, and since these
tanks are not reckoned into the tonnage they increase the safety and
comfort of the ship without detracting from her utility. The reader
will also notice in the upper picture to what an enormous extent the
modern steamship is now being fitted with extra derricks, with a
cross-piece up the mast to take the strain involved in working the
latter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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