SHIPS AND THE SEA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 133, 12 June 1909, Page 12

SHIPS AND THE SEA.

• A MONSTER SAILER. " The largest three-masted ship owned in the United Kingdom, 'and the biggest three-masted sailer in the world," is the distinction possessed by the Ditton, 2901 tons, which arrived at Adelaide from Chemainus on 26th May, with about 2,500,000 feet of lumber. Leaving Chemainus early in February, she proceeded to Oallum Bay, Puget Sound, where she anchored until 11th February. The commencement of the voyage was marked by sensational incidents. When a week out terrific weather was encounteied. * Great green seas swept on board and carried away two forward boats, and battered in portion of the bulwarks. Tho mizzen lower topsail was also blown out of the ropes. The north-east trades were strong and squally, and in one of the puffs the mizzen royal yard went by the board. The south-east trades, on the contrary, were most often from the north-west Contrary weather lengthened the passage to over 100 days. The morning of the Ditton' s arrival witnessed j q. sensational episode. A Spanish seaman ran amok on the ship with a carving knife, and threatened the lives of the officers and» crew. ji.ventually the man was secured and placed in irons, and on arrival was taken into custody, pending transfer to the lunatic asylum. THE COMBINATION STEAMER. The first week in May was rather notable in the history of marine engineering, as it witnessed the sailing of the iirst passenger and cargo steamer ever propelled across the Atlantic by the joint aid of reciprocating and turbine engines. The vessel was tho Laurentic, with which the White Star Line inaugurated, in conjunction with the Dominion Line, an improved service from Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal. The Laurentic is not actually the nrst combination steamer aUoui, for she has' a preuect&sor in tlie shape ox the Otaki, \Uuch emoouies the buuie principles oi piopuißioii. Jay an outi coincidence, the OtaKi, at the tune, iiatl jubD returned to ijonaou utter her maiuun voyage to INew Zieulauu'in Uie service oi me ~.ew Aeala-nu buipping uoinjjd.ii,>, ncr ownerb. Consequently, tnere suouia snoriiy become uviiiiaoie home usoial miomialioii as. to £he result m her cat.o oi the employ inent oi the combination pimciple. J.J.je Otaki was built Dy^ lues&is. .Denny, ot JJiuiioarton. 'iho* .Lv urentio, ox course, lias i>een constructea uy Messrs. iuarianU ~and VVolit, ot Jieliast, who build ail the vessels ol the (Joiubmo. whatever conclusions may De drawn from the experience ot tho Utaki on her maiden voyage, they can scarcely dwari the interest which attaches to the propelhng machinery oi the Laui'entic, on the working oi which, so tar as Atlantic traffic is concerned, so much may ultimately depend. The new system, it is perhaps almost uiuiecessary to explain, is intended to secure economy. Two wing propellers will be driven by reciprocating engines, while a central propeller will bo operated by the further expansion of the steam in a low-pres-sure turbine. The arrangement, it will be -seen, avoids the need of an astern turbine, while at the same time relying upon the turbine as 'a supplementary and relatively cheap addition to the means of propulsion. It is worth 'noting that the introduction of this idea into the Atlantic trade is for the present confined to the Canadian route, so that Canada is to share with the far-distant Dominion of New Zealand the inauguration of a new idea. The White Star Line has built another and a sister steamer, the Megantic, which is also to run in the Canadian trade this summer. She will depend on reciprocating engines alone, so that as between her work and that of the Laurentic there will be an easy means of comparison. GRAVEYARD OF THE ATLANTIC. Look out "sable" in the French dictionary, and you will find that it means "sand" (writes Clevedon Ken in a London contempoiary). Sable Island is Sand Island. It is a mere dot in a map of tho North Atlantic, standing out by itself south of a line drawn between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. John's, Newfoundland. For uniold ages the icebergs which float down from Greenland and Labrador through the Straits of Belle Isle have melted into these warmer waters, and deposited beneath them the pebbles, grit, dust, and other solids which they carried with them ; and the strong northerly and westerly currents of the Atlantic meeting here swirl ' up similar contributions ; and so is formed the heap of sand which is ior ever increasing in bulk and changing in shape. I For leagues around Sable Island navigation is most dangerous. The island as the map shows, lies on the course of traffic ; the bewildering fogs are raiely absent, and currents, strong and shifting, drag many and many a vessel upon the sand-bars. No wonder that Sable Island has been called the Graveyard of the Atlantic — a burial-place of ships and men ! Some are wrecked in. view of the watchers and in spite of their efforts ; some are ' unseen till the fog lifts and shows them ashore, or till their timbers are found floating in on the waves. Some are only known to have been lost because they were known to have entered the qhanncl, and were never seen more; while occasionally some more than ordinary violent wind will tear off projecting cliffs, unburying timbers, and skeletons utterly beyona identification, after, it may be, centuries of concealment. Mr. Leslie Denny, of the well-known Dumbaiton firm of shipbuilders, read an interesting paper befoie the Manchester Association of Engineers recently on "Modern Ship Design." The general principles involved in the design of a vessel, he pointed out, were tho same whatever type was required. All the general, features of vessels were now tabulated by builders in a complete form and &o full were the data that it was possible to scheme out a vessel in the course of an hour which, was so nearly correct that when passed to the drawing office for more caTeful analysis only minor alterations had to be made. Seven passengers in the White Star liner Runic, which arrived at Plymouth recently, were not at all pleased to reach England. A few days before arrival gieat excitement was caused on board when the liner came to a stop in response to signals from the Persic, another Australian liner of the same company, bound for Capetown. A small boat soon put off from the Persic, however, and the seven passengers, who were discovered to be stowaways, were soon on their return journey. An English paper states that in view of the success which has attended the installation of the two new four-bladed solid manganese bronzo propellers to tho wiug shafts of the Mauretania, the Cunard Company has just given an order fo/ two similar propollors for the stern shafts. These are being manufactured in London by the same firm which made the first two, of which they will be duplicates — four-bladed and solid cast, weighing about nineteen "tons each. 'When these are completed and fluted on board then all four of the Maitaretania's propellers will be of this typa. A short time ago the British steamship Grangewood ran out of coal when about three hundred miles from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in order to reach port us«d her cargo of beet sugar for fuel. .The sugar was worth £12 a ton. '■