The steamer Hansa broke down in October 1908 in the South Pacific through the propeller jamming against the rudder stock. After a delay, the shaft broke when the steamer was 1281 miles out from Newcastle, New South Wales, for New Zealand. The shaft tank was flooded and the ship drifted in circles with sea anchors out, under such sail as the crew could set, while the engineers worked for almost twenty days—night and day—and sometimes more than waist-deep in water in the stern tube, till they managed to repair the shaft. Then the funnels of the steamer were used as masts and tarpaulins were rigged to them as sails. But such sails as they could set were insufficient and she drifted broadside on. The ship was picked up and finally brought into port, but by that time she was able to get her own engines to work and release the strain on the towing steamer.

Repair work of a totally different kind is associated with steamers built to be severed and joined up again. The Canadian Pacific Railway steamer Assiniboia, for instance, was constructed by the Fairfield Company at Govan in 1907 for service on the Great Lakes and was so made that she could be cut in half in order to pass through the canals to reach her destination, after which the pieces were reunited.

That a vessel should be built in order that she may be sunk and raised was the unique experience of the steamer Transporter, built by Messrs. Vickers, Sons and Maxim, Barrow-in-Furness, in 1908. Some time previously the Japanese Government placed with the firm an order for two submarine vessels, and a special steamer had to be constructed to carry them. This vessel is over 250 feet long, very broad and with large hatchways. When the submarines were ready for shipment the steamer was taken to Liverpool and sufficiently submerged in dock to allow of them being floated into the hold. She was then pumped dry, and after being overhauled she left for Japan.

The most serious competitors British shipbuilders have are those of Germany. The industry there is of comparatively modern growth, and it is not more than a few years since all the large steamers required by German owners were built in Great Britain. All the early steamers of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie and also of the Norddeutscher Lloyd were constructed here, but in the early ’seventies, owing to the patriotism of a Secretary of State for the Navy in encouraging the construction of warships in German yards, shipbuilding was taken up in earnest and there are now shipyards in Germany capable of turning out steam-ships in every respect equal to the best that British establishments can produce. At first, German competition was not regarded very seriously by British builders, nor were German owners altogether enamoured of the products of their own yards owing to the lack of uniformity in the quality of the materials employed. The foundation of the Germanischer Lloyd during the ’sixties meant that a new influence was exercised upon German shipbuilding equivalent to that exercised by Lloyd’s upon the British mercantile marine. It was not, however, until 1882 that the Hamburg-Amerika Linie inaugurated the serious competition between German and British builders by entrusting the building of the mail steamer Rugia to the Vulcan Shipbuilding and Engineering works at Stettin, and the Rhaetia to the Reiherstieg Shipbuilding and Engineering Works at Hamburg. Previous to this the German yards had been constructing small steamers, the first of which there is any record being the Weser, built about 1816, at the Johann Lange yards. Iron shipbuilding was established at what is now the Stettin Vulcan yard in 1851 and the same year the “Neptun” yard was founded at Rostock. The first German iron steamer was built at the Schichau Works at Elbing in 1855, and from 1859 to 1862 the machinery for wooden gunboats was supplied. Two iron steamers were launched by Klawitter at Dantzic in 1855, in which year also the Godefroy wooden shipbuilding yard, the present Reiherstieg yard, laid the keel of the first iron ocean-going steamer built on the North Sea coast. The Norddeutsche Werft was started in 1865 at the newly created naval harbour of Kiel, and in 1879 was united with the Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft, formerly Egells, whence arose the well-known Germania shipbuilding establishment.

Without entering upon debatable economic questions it may be asserted as a fact that German shipbuilding is a State-developed industry. Little was done until von Stosch, Minister of the Navy, in introducing a Bill for the establishment of a German Navy defined once for all the relations between the German Navy and the German industries. Not only did the State give assistance by the placing of orders, but further assistance was afforded in 1879 by the exemption from import duty of mercantile shipbuilding materials, a concession the importance of which was recognised when the Norddeutscher Lloyd placed an order with the Vulcan yard in 1886 for six imperial mail steamers for the East Asiatic and Australian lines. These were the first large iron passenger steamers built in Germany. Being Government mail steamers, German material was to be used in their construction as far as possible.

Before this, the Vulcan and the Reiherstieg yards had each shown what they could do by building an ocean steamer of about 3500 tons. Several English-built steamers were bought for the N.D.L. in 1881 and the following years, but in 1888-90 the company had three steamers of 6963 tons gross built by the Vulcan Company; these vessels had engines of 11,500 indicated horse-power and a speed of 18¹⁄₂ miles an hour. In these steamers were adopted central saloons and a long central deck-house with a promenade deck above, while on the main deck a dining-room, extending from one side of the ship to the other, was built. In these ships also German decorators and furnishers were given the opportunity to distinguish themselves and rival the British, and they did so. Steam-ship after steam-ship was produced, each one excelling its predecessor, until the N.D.L. decided upon the construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse under the onerous condition that if she did not come up to the very strict requirements they imposed, the Vulcan Company should take her back. One condition was that the ship should be exhibited in a trial trip across the ocean to New York. The Barbarossa type, corresponding to the White Star intermediate vessels, appeared in the ’nineties, carrying a large number of passengers and having great cargo capacity. In 1894 the twin-screw vessels Prinz Regent Luitpold and Prinz Heinrich were added with special equipment for the tropics. Since then steamers have been added to the fleet with almost startling rapidity to cope with the company’s many services, all the important German yards being favoured with orders. The largest steamer the company has is the George Washington, launched in November 1908 by the Vulcan Company, which is the greatest steamer yet constructed in Germany. She is 725¹⁄₂ feet in length with a displacement of 36,000 tons, while her gross registered tonnage is 26,000 tons. She is a first-class twin-screw steamer with five steel decks extending from end to end; she has also thirteen water-tight bulkheads, all of which reach to the upper deck and some even to the upper saloon deck. Contrary to the English practice, which is to reduce the number of masts as much as possible in these big liners, she has four masts, all steel poles, and carries 29 steel derricks. Her accommodation is for 520 first-class passengers in 263 staterooms, 377 second-class passengers in 137 staterooms, 614 third-class passengers in 160 staterooms, and 1430 fourth-class passengers in eight compartments, this vessel being the first in which four classes of passengers are carried. Besides the 2941 passengers she has a crew of 525. She has two four-cylinder, four-crank, quadruple-expansion engines of 20,000 horse-power, which give her a sea speed of 18¹⁄₂ knots.

With this steamer and four others only slightly less in size, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, the Kronprinz Wilhelm, the Kaiser Wilhelm II., and the Kronprinzessin Cecilie, the company is able to carry out its ambition of maintaining a weekly express service between Bremen and New York.

The other great German shipping organisation, the Hamburg-Amerika Linie, started with a fleet of sailing ships, but inaugurated its steam service in 1856 with the Borussia, built by Caird of Greenock, who in the next few years executed orders for a number of vessels for the line. This steamer was one of the best of her day. The progress of this line, which claims with good reason to be the greatest shipping organisation in the world, has been extraordinary. Long ago it was adopted as its motto “My field the World,” and well it has acted up to it. Its fleet had grown by 1897 to sixty-nine steam-ships with a total of 291,507 tons register, in addition to several smaller steamers for coastal and harbour work.

Its extension in the last few years has been phenomenal. Among its largest and fastest boats are the Cleveland and Cincinnati, Koenig Wilhelm II., Amerika, Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, Patricia, President Grant, President Lincoln, and Deutschland, the last being one of the fastest afloat. Some of its larger vessels have been built at Belfast, notably the Amerika, and the Spreewald and others of her class at the Middleton yard, Hartlepool. In March 1909, the fleet comprised 164 ocean steamers of a total of 869,762 tons register, and 223 smaller steamers of 46,093 tons, or a total of 387 steamers and 915,855 tons. Both these companies, by their direct services and the numerous lines which they control, are in connection with every port of importance throughout the world.

With regard to engineering developments, it must be remembered that high-pressure and multiple-expansion engines were known before 1879.

The little Enterprise was engined by Wilson of London, in 1872, with a pressure of 150 lb.; the Sexta, engined by the Ouseburn Engine Works of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1874, had boilers with a pressure of 120 lb. and triple-expansion engines working on three cranks; the Propontis, engined in the same year by Elder, of Glasgow, was also fitted with triple-expansion engines. Mr. Perkins’ tri-compounds came out in the ’seventies, the Isa (yacht) in 1879, with a pressure of 120 lb.; and there were a few others. With the exception of the Isa, all the others may well be designated experiments that failed, and it was owing to the success of this little yacht that the possibility of the ordinary boiler for still higher pressures suggested itself.[94]

The Propontis, built in 1864, was re-engined and fitted with tri-compounds and new boilers in 1874. The boilers (of the water-tube type) were a failure, and were replaced by cylindrical boilers in 1876, at a reduced pressure of 90 lb. With these she worked till 1884, when her boilers were renewed. Dr. Kirk declared “that the want of a proper boiler had delayed the introduction of the triple expansion.”

Plates of five tons in weight and upwards are in common use for boiler shells, yet in 1881 hardly a firm on the north-east coast would undertake to build a boiler for 150 lb. pressure.

The success of the triple engine resulted in many vessels being converted and fitted with new boilers, while others were re-engined.

Messrs. Palmer, in the James Joicey, fitted an interchangeable crank-shaft with the crank-pin on the centre engine, made with a coupling at each end to fit into a recess in the web. It was seen at quite an early stage of tri-compounds that the three-crank engine, with cranks at equal angles, from its easy turning moments, would be the most satisfactory, and its universal adoption in new engines was only the work of a very short time. The steamers Aberdeen and Claremont, both launched in 1881, were the first to have commercially successful triple-expansion engines.

As to how high steam-pressures may go, it is recorded that the yacht Salamander, with triple-expansion engines, had the valve set at 600 lb.

The invention of the turbine has been the most remarkable event in the modern history of the steam-engine. The following passages, taken from the Hon. C. A. Parsons’ paper on turbines, read at the Engineering Exhibition, 1906, give an account of its adoption for purposes of steam navigation:

“Turbines in general use may be classified under three principal types, though there are some that may be described as a mixture of the three types. The compound or multiple expansion type was the first to receive commercial application in 1884; the second was the single bucket wheel, driven by the expanding steam-jet, in 1888; and lastly a type which comprises some of the features of the other two, combined with a sinuous treatment of the steam in 1896. The compound type comprises the Parsons, Rateau, Zoelly, and other turbines, and has been chiefly adopted for the propulsion of ships. The distinctive features of these varieties of the compound type lie principally in design; nearly all adopt a line of flow of the steam generally parallel and not radial to the shaft. In the Parsons turbines there are no compartments: the blades and guides occupy nearly the whole space between the revolving drum and the fixed casing, and the characteristic action of the steam is equal impact and reaction between the fixed and moving blades. The chief object is to minimise the skin friction of the steam by reducing to a minimum the extent of moving surface in contact with the steam, and another, to reduce the percentage of leakage by the adoption of a shaft of large diameter and great rigidity, permitting small working clearances over the tops of the blades. The other varieties of turbines have all multicellular compartments in which the wheels or discs revolve.”

The first vessel to be fitted with a turbine engine was the little Turbinia, in 1894, and successful though she was it was found necessary in the two following years to make a number of experiments which resulted in radical changes in the design and arrangement of the machinery. The first engine tried was of the radial flow type, giving about 1500 horse-power to a single screw. A speed of only 18 knots was obtained. Several different propellers were tried with this engine, and the result not being satisfactory the original turbine engine was removed, and the engines finally adopted consisted of three turbines in series—high pressure, intermediate pressure, and low pressure—each driving a separate shaft with three propellers on each shaft. A reversing turbine was coupled with the low-pressure turbine to the central shaft. The utility of the turbine for fast speed having been demonstrated by the Turbinia, the destroyers Viper and Cobra were built and given Parsons turbines and propellers, and the Viper showed herself the fastest in the world with a speed of 36·86 knots per hour. These two vessels came to grief, through no fault, however, of the turbines.

Captain Williamson, the well-known steamer manager on the Clyde, was the first to order a turbine-propelled boat for commercial purposes, this being the steamer King Edward, built in 1901. She gave such excellent results that the Queen Alexandra was ordered. The South Eastern and Chatham Company was the first railway company to order a turbine steamer, The Queen, 310 feet long and of 1676 tons gross, with engines of 7500 horse-power. The first ocean liners fitted with turbines were the Allan liners Victorian and Virginian, built in 1904, each of about 10,754 gross tonnage and having turbine engines of about 12,000 horse-power. The Cunard Line built a turbine steamer in the following year, the Carmania, with turbines of 21,000 horse-power and of 19,524 tons gross. So satisfactory, apparently, was the experiment that the Cunard Line next ordered the Lusitania and Mauretania with turbine engines of 70,000 horse-power each.

After the two torpedo vessels already mentioned, the Admiralty ordered the Velox and Eden, which had additional engines for obtaining economical results at low speeds. Then came the third-class cruiser Amethyst, and comparative trials with sister vessels fitted with reciprocating engines showed the superior economy of the Amethyst’s engines. Next the Dreadnought was fitted with turbine engines. Another conclusive proof of the superiority of the turbine was afforded by the steamer Princesse Elisabeth on the Ostend and Dover service, which in her first year averaged 24 knots as against the 22 knots of the Princesse Clementine and Marie Henriette on an average coal consumption per trip of 23·01 tons, compared with their 24·05 and 23·82 tons respectively. The turbine boat also does the trip in about 15 per cent. less time than the other two, or, “to reduce the turbine boat to the displacement and speed of the paddle-boats, and assuming that the indicated horse-power varies as the cube of the speed, the mean consumption of the Princesse Elisabeth would be about 17 tons as against 24 tons in the paddle-boats, thereby showing a saving of over 25 per cent.” Many other vessels have been fitted with turbine machinery, including the royal yacht.

The multiple propellers tried in some of the earlier vessels were found to be less satisfactory than single propellers on each shaft.

The first in which a combination of reciprocating and turbine engines was installed was the Otaki by Denny, for the New Zealand Shipping Company.