WASTE OF THE WIND.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1019, 7 January 1911, Page 3

WASTE OF THE WIND.

SAILING SHIPS IN THE FUTURE. \ .CHEAPER THAN STEAMERS..

Not long ago we published a pape* by Mr. F.-T. Bullen on-"The-Passing of tho Sailing Ship;" The melancholy fact that the sailing ship is disappearing is hardly to be challenged. It leaps to the eye. Everywhere ono sees steamers taking up the work of the old sailing ship, because our modern world depends for its sustenance and orderliness on regularity; and the steamer gives, wit!} small reservations, a regular; scrvice of which the sailing ship was incapable. Small coasting vessels, it is trueschooners, brigantineß, ketches,' and. barges—are still built in considerable numbers to carry cargoes which need:' not be delivered with promptness, but in their case the tendency is towards a-, rcgularisation of the trade formerly unknown. These vessels are owned by a.; comparatively . few. proprietors, instead '■ of being distributed among many, and they approach a uniformity of size and design. Tho .barges which successfully engage in tho East Anglian and Thames trade are now all over one hundred ' tons, and eighty and sixty-ton - barges are laid aside and are. to be.', bought chc-ap. One begins to wonder whether this systematising of the trade' of our smaller coasting vessels may' not; after all spread upwards, and reimport into the trade of . oceangoing sailing ships the element "of life. Method and comparative punctuality, might just turn the scale in favpur of ocean sailing ships, and make it worth" while to continue to build thenu

SOME POSSIBILITIES. It is by no means a now observation . that the application of steam to ships arrested tho development of tho sailing' ship. Contemporaneously with the first steamships wonderful progress was still _ , being made in.tiuilding the fast clippers.'' which 1 sailed to the 'Far East; but' jrteam rapidly conquered all other ambitions, and since, those days there have been few ..experiments in tho" designing of merchant sailing ships. Wo have heard it suggested by a marine, engineer: that even tho theory of wind-.. power has not been fully explored, and that there is still something to ' be achieved from the lifting-power of / wind.' If his theory could bo made at all convincing, it could only be by setting 'it forth mathematically. That is impossible here, but it may ;be ; said broadly that 'he rested his'ideas on the fact that a ship when running tends to bury her.nose in the. sea, and that this tendency might be appreciably counteracted, while the .lightness and buoyancy of 'the whole. ghip would be increased, by the supporting power of sails used as'planes. 'We are not rash,enough to.offer an.opin-.'' ion on that subject, but go on' to our point, which is tliat •wo civilised men' do,consent>ery easily to, a considerable' waste of a permanent force, not only in i navigation, but for engineering and domestic purposes. . We do not live in the "horse latitudes"; .the wind , is' nearly always with us. Of course, every',.; one' who-want's a cheap motive force' has tried, to harness the wind. Every, child has. made a paper propeller or a. . windmill." "But can it be said that "the• possible uses-of the wind.have been as' arduously investigated as such recently: discovered forces as steam and electricity and-gases? Is' it not' conceivable that-the : practical uses of- the wind are underestimated just because xhey aro' familiar ? - Wo, cannot-; help • thinking that the wind will be. more variously' employed some day,-'in the samo way that probably the problem of laying un- > der contribution-the great physical fact i of ! the tides will bo solved. One would j, think that the .wind could be used for;. ; clccfrfc lighting", yet" there is no practi-v eal apparatus for tho"purpose. ' True,, the wind is variable and 1 occasionally 1 absent; but as electricity can be stored, j one might suppose that this. was the ] very case in which variability-did notparticularly master.

. LOSS OF THE PREUSSEN. v Our thoughts have been turned to the future of merchant sailing ships by.; the great German ship Preussen, which, has been driven ashore-near Dover.' She is the largest sailing ship in .the world, and for some eight years she has. made her voyages between Germany and Chile with a punctuality which has astonished all who have watched them. As everyone knows, there is no route" on which-there are more marked differences in the times of voyages than on the Horn route. ' Yet'tho Preussen has made her' voyages out and home with a. variation of. only- a few>days. . She has. more than once doubled, the Horn four times", ill'.- the" yenr. Wo know that German sailing ships are . better.' manned than British sailing ships; but. we should- like to know .whether this .is made financially possible only by subsidies. If it is, our own ships could not be expected to compete with German' ships; nor should we urge them to-.try, as the German advantage ..is in that case au unreal one, and can have no permanent, effect on-commercial competition'. But' is there'not an explanation in the use. of a type of ship which has not been tried in Great Britain? Just as large barges pay and small barges do.not, is it not likely that , large sailing ships would pay, although our barques and full-rigged ships of a thousand to two thousand tons scarcely do so? ..The Preussen, which was stranded through 110 fault of her navigable qualities, but through a series of mischances, is nearly six thousand tons gross—as big .aa some of the P. and 0/ liners which rua to Australia. '

THE AMERICAN SCHOONERS. The same principles which ■ are at work in tho large American coasting schooners are as far as' possible employed in her. Everything, it has been said of the American schooner, is driven by machinery except tho ship; the sails are set by machinery, the ship is lighted, by machinery,'- tho ship's derricks are. worked by machinery. Such ships are managed adequately by small crews. Of course tho systenv'of small crews cannot be safely employed in crossing the ocean, nor can machinery bo applied to setting square sails as-it can" to the much simpler fore-and-aft sails. The American schooners, with their five, six, and seven masts, are able to run for' shelter on the coast. Their fore-and-aft rig is most unsuitable for oceanvoyages owing to the dangers of before heavy winds. In 1907 one of. these large American schooners which crossed the Atlantic was totally lost off the Seilly. Isle's. But still, even in square-rigged ships, a greater use of labour-saving apparatus is possible. If that were done, perhaps the condemnation of,sailing ships would prove to be premature. Wo venture to saythat this will almost certainly be so if auxiliary power from internal-combus-tion engines can be applied to large ships. For, after all, wiiTd is cheaper tlia.il steam, if only speed and regularity in transport can be obtained, and ships can be worked with small crews. The Preussen, unless her remarkable voya'e.'es arc only a series of coincidcncos" has obtained both speed and regularity. Have wo nothing to learn, from 'her? And, if .wo have,. why . skuld we . continue to wasto the wind?—" Spectator."