SHIPBUILDING AND MARINE ENGINEERING FAILURES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3646, 24 January 1899, Page 3

SHIPBUILDING AND MARINE ENGINEERING FAILURES.

~ ,n£ . ..glance',‘At.-the..casualty columns of 'any shipping, ““daily ’’ reveals the,, fact • tHat;"'the ’;bre‘akdown of steamships' is 'bWcoming ! .',ri'ilite > ~ a; feature of modem “bhipbwhiiig 'economics.. Strong newly‘’bunt ai[e.’J'iiavli»ble.>to .filisliap ’’tJffjougn ,'f appident: jto- their , propelling 'mWctiihery as.are older vessels.' In dact, r ftf, study "ojf ~'suqb '.disasters reveals the disquieting l truth ’■.that 'the' newer .type : ot Vessels; Are; more liable’ to accident '‘thaiT their predecessors of ,a decade or ‘id ’fijgi'. 'I This I 'is more;than « disquieting; "it-is alarming;, for it shows that there, J is a scrrnv .lose'somewhere i or other.,.,;. Of 'late years ‘the tendency of owners has been to go in for larger and larger vessels. Big carriers; of huge capacity are the order of the da!y, and where formerly there '-were three; ships of, 1 say .2,000 tons,'' there 'is. now one of 6,000 -tons. The' economy of such a method is obvious. . There is one captain, one set ;’of officers, and one crew, while the . ship will roughly earn as much on a single voyage as 1 her smaller predecessor did iin three. The big' ship, therefore, is quite recognised as the sign, manual of him who would be considered an up-to-date shipowner. But though it. is quite competent for an owner to,.order a vessel of enormous carying capacity, and though builders can construct a ship ■ of practically any size; it would seem as if , the. builders" of marine engines have yet to bring their branch of naval architecture- into closer lino with, modern requirements. '-The builder of marine engines can, -no 'doubt, . perform just what is expected of him. He- can put machinery into ■ a- vessel which l will propel,her at twenty.knots an hour, or ten.' Hp will, in fact, do, just # what he asked to ‘ do.' But still, ho must bo looked upon ■ as knowing the why and the wherefore of what*.he docs; and under these circumstances it would be manifestly: unfair to. saddle the owner with the responsibility for, the great number of broken tail-shafts and Ipst or damaged propellers.' Those who engine ; modern steamships do not; seem to realise the somewhat novel fea 7 s tures which are now recognisd as' nor-' mal conditions of shipbuilding. To saythat ships are bigger implies, of course,, that they, arc longer—i.e., that the dis-. tance from 'engine-room to propeller, is more than-it i was. In other words,; shafts -are longer, and. hence the i-lia-j bility to. .“go wrong ?! is enhanced, v The > other new feature is the sending of: water ballast. A few years ago such a these huge crafts , acres , the ocean in course of action would have aroused widespread interest and criticism. .Now/ it is accepted as qpite'; an ■ every-day practice. There . are < good' freights l Homo from the Eastern ports of North America, hut practically nothing outwards.; and as,) especially during the. cotton season, there .is a great demand for what wo may terra more or less occa- ■ . sional -tonnage:, 'shipowners : send ; out their vessels light' to share in the freight harvest. In short, the modern cargo steamer- is- intended - by her r owner to go anywhere,: with full cargo or nothing. Now, have those who engine new steamships fully recognised these two factors ; -—(1) That the length of tho propeller shafts has increased; and. (2) that vssels are expected to face any weather it may bo with their propeller hardly: immersed'? Without any desire to reflect upon builders or contractors of marine engines, the number of steamshipfailures warrants the belief that these matters are -not . assessed at their true political value. If they wore, breakdowns would be less frequent than they are. Eormorly it was a pretty'.general custom to •. build ships for a particular trade in which cargo and weather conditions were more or less known quantities. Now, however, this is altered. A ship must be prepared to go anywhere, full or empty; and as builders and engineers assume that a vessel will carry cargo, it is obvious that the increased strains experienced by a steamer whose how is well up and propeller insufficiently immersed,- must be for if thevessel is to ■ come • through the r ordeal of a bad passage. We s do not propose in the present article" to re-open the* vexed question as to the immediate cause, of these shaft failures. It does not matter much whether the weakness is due to the diameter of the shaft being insufficient, or to the want of

homogeneity in the material of which it is constructed. The weakness is there, and the proof of it lies in the fact of so many steamships breaking down.—“ Syren.”