The Great Coastwise Fleet of the United States.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 4, 26 January 1910, Page 33

The Great Coastwise Fleet of the United States.

AMERICAN TONNAGE SURPASSED ONLY BY GREAT BRITAIN —THE STEAMSHIPS THAT COMPETE WITH THE RAILROADS—THE EVERINCREASING FLEET OF SAILING VESSELS.

By

LAWRENCE PERRY.

▼TV HE extraordinary achievements II | of the foreign trans-Atlantic I ' liners have filled the popular mind for the last forty years. The merchant service of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts has been left to develop unheralded and unsung. Yet the domestic merchant marine of the United States now includes the largest and, from every maritime stanipoint, the best fleet of domestic carriers in the world. This is a fact, undramatic perhaps, but a fact of great significance. It is a record of progress unattended by spectacular struggles, speed, or an absorbing ambition for first-class passengers, achieved by the sane, careful carrying-out of a business-like policy. It has placed America second in tonnage among the nations of the world. The total documented merchant ship-

ping of the United States, at the close of the fiscal year 1907-8, comprised 25,425 vessels of 7,365,445 tons. Only Great Britain exceeds these figures. One-third of this tonnage is employed on the Great Lakes. The great bulk of the remainder is on the coasts and rivers from Maine all the way around to Washington. America has practically ceased to build ships for foreign trade. But, while they have given up this commerce

to others, they have jealously guarded their coastwise traffic. The laws of the

country protect the coastwise shipping against all competitors, and they have made it profitable for Americans to build steamships for home trade, and to operate them.

And this increase is for productive service. Boats are not built in the coastwise service as advertisements. They are built because conditions warrant their construction—because there is freight to be carried. And there is

no fear of foreign competition. For section 4 of the Navigation Act of 1817, which is still in effect, says that no goods shall be transported, under penalty of their forefeiture. from one port

of the United States to another port of the United States in a vessel belonging wholly or in part to a subject of any foreign power. No English or German or Norwegian tramp steamship can enter a port and

take charter to carry goods to another port on any coast, lake, or river of th* United States. The cotton carried by most of the eoastwise liners is, of course, of inflammable nature, and fires frequently occur. But, except in the case of the Mallory liner, Leona, in which some dozen persons were burned to death off the Virginia Capes, in 1597, fatalities have been rare. When the cargo of cotton takes fire, the sailors force steam into the holds, and the vessel proceeds on her course, while the passengers, for the most part, are ignorant that anything unusual is occurring. Far from being at a standstill in the tumultuous months, navigation on the Atlantic and the Gulf coasts is never so active as at this season. Not only the steamships., but seagoing tugs towing coal-barges, and schooners of three, four, five, and six masts are abroad at this time along a part of the coast—the section north of Hatteras—which is feared by every deep-sea captain who sails the North Atlantic. Northwest and northeast gales visit the Atlantic coast between Canada and Cape Hatteras all winter. The Gulf Sream off Bermuda rears mountainous seas, and the foreign square-riggers frequently ocupy more than a fortnight in fighting their way across this forty-mile barrier. Through all this well-nigh constant riot of the

elements, the coastwise trade is carried on, and the fact that schooners and coalbarges are lost each year, and that occasionally a small freight steamer goes down, only emphasises the skill and hardihood of the great bulk of coastwise seamen and navigators who, blow high or blow low. regularly cary passengers and freights from port to port. The most important part of the coastwise fleet of steamships consists of the vessels engaged in carrying both passengers and freight from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore southward, and, on the west coast, from San Francisco to Puget Sound and Alaska. The coastwise traffic is made up of coai from the coal ports, such as Newport News; cotton from such ports as Galveston, Charleston, and Savannah; rails from Baltimore; sulphur from Sabine

Pass; ties and sugar from New Orleans; phosphate rock from Jacksonville; and lumber and naval stores from all Southern ports. Going south, holds are filled with general merchandise, which, as in the case of north-bound cargoes, is carried in successful competition with the railroads. The coastwise steamship lines on the Atlantic coast pay little attention to the railroads. They make their own rates for freight and" pasengers without consulting the landward carriers, and get all of both that they can carry. The same situation applies to all territory where steamship companies in connection with railroads compete with an all-rail service. The all-rail routes are underbid in rates; and, in addition to this, the uniformity of service which the steamships offer—the only risk being that of the vessel sinking, which is infinitesimal—proves most alluring to shippers. Freight is carried not only from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere to the South, but cargoes from interior states north of the Potomac and east of Buffalo and Pittsburg are hauled to tide-water, transported to Savannah or other Southern ports, and there delivered to railroads for final shipment to interior points, as far west as Denver and Salt Lake City, at a considerable saving in cost over all-rail rates and without appreciable loss in time. Durability, safety, economy in operation characterise the average coastwise liner. Built in American shipyards, designed io ply steadily through North Atlantic storms, they are regarded even by the transatlantic shipping men as a credit to the flag. Aside from the Brazos and the Long Island Sound and Hudson River liners, they are not of more than average speed. Excessive speed is not desired. The railroads carry the mails. Passengers who travel southward or northward by steamships go for two reasons; the desire for a sea voyage, or because the rates of travel are cheaper. In either case, there is no demand for speed, and, so long as freight trains are stalled, shunted, and sidetracked, the coast wise steamers do not need excessive speed to meet their competition. The liners average about twelve knots in speed, and the extra six knots which

would be required to save twenty-four hours would not bring in sufficient financial returns to make the extra cost worth while. And, seemingly, the extra speed is not necessary for the passenger business either. For the vessels sailing south out of Boston, New’ York, and Philadelphia leave port full, and are likewise full on the return pourney. The greatest number of coastwise wrecks, so far as steamships are concerned, occur to foreign vessels which go down the coast to buy cheap coal at Norfolk. A deep-sea skipper is not much at home on the treacherous coastwise lanes of travel, and vessels under foreign flags are so often lost between Hatteras and Hampton Roads as to cause the serious apprehension of marine insurance underwriters, who have taken steps to force captains of foreign steamships to buy their coal at the port in which they happen to be, and, when they sail, to head for deep water as quickly as possible. But the great preponderance of coastwise losses occurs to schooners. They far outnumber the steam traffic on the Atlantic coast, and, far from disappearing from the sea, the canvas-driven ves-

seis are increasing steadily. They are, in reality, the tramps of the coastwise lanes, proceeding hither and thither, picking up cargoes where they can. The commonest type in the schooner coastwise trade is the three-master, although there are many four and fivemasters, and some with six masts. There was a seven-master, the Thomas W. Lawson, but it was lost on the other side of the Atlantic on Friday, the 13th of December, 1907, turning turtle because of shifting cargo. Before that time it had been a success in the coasting trade, and, with a crew of only sixteen men, it carried as much cargo as a German transatlantic freighter. The schooner is peculiarly the product of Yankee shipbu.xuing genius, and is the handiest ■•wind-jammer” that floats. The schooner has figured in the coastwise trade since the eighteenth century, but the threemaster came into vogue about 1870. By the early eighties, schooners of this rig filled the oeean from Maine to Texas, and they do to-day. They are built in every State from Maine to Virginia, and thir oaken frames and planking of hard wood resist the most tumultuous weather. When the three-masted schooner reached eight hundred tons, the spars became too unweildy to be handled by the seamen, and donkey engines are used to hoist sail, which saves men and labour. There are not a few steel schooners carrying coal and lumber along the eoast, nowadays; but, as a prominent schooner owner put it the other day, “When wooden schooners cost so little to build, and steel schooners so much, why not keep to the wooden boats, especially as they do just as good work as the metal craft?” Probably his view reflects the attitude of most of his brethren. At all events the yearly output of wooden vessels continues to increase. A curious coincidence occurred to the Eleanor Percy of|Bath and the George Wells of Boston, the first two six-masted vessels afloat. A year after their launching, these two ships, one headed up the coast, the other headed down, crashed

together oft' Cape Cod. Both were seriously damaged, but limped into port safely. Schooners of their size are not infrequestion these days; and, when winds are good, they can equal the speed of the swiftest coastwise steamship. The George W. Wells once sailed from Brunswick, Ga., to New York, with a cargo of railroad ties, in just four days. The Thomas

W. Lawson, the seven-master before referred to had a spread of forty-three thousand square feet of canvas, and she could carry a cargo of eight thousand tons of coal. The six-masted schooners already cary more than live thousand tons of eoal a trip.

Schooners laden with coal and lumber and naval stores brave the dangers of the Atlantic all the year round. They are lashed on the Diamond Shoals, on the Georges, on the eoasts of New Jersey, [Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; come are cut down in collision; many are Abandoned at sea. The abandoned schooners do not sink below a certain point. ■They become water-logged and flail about in the grip of ocean currents, working ,their harm (upon traffic between the Grand Banks and Florida. Some of these schooner derelicts, like the Fannie Wooleton. have wallowed about the ocean, driving hither and thither for more than a year before they were destroyed. So great a menace had these derelicts be-come—twenty-five or thirty have been charted at a time — that the United States Government built a derelict destroyer, the Seneca, which cruises up and down the coast doing nothing but looking out for these sodden wanderers which it Hows up or tows to port as the condition of the vagrant may seem to warrant. The average schooner captain is not a licensed navigator; that is to say, a great many captains have declined to go to the trouble of studying for master's papers, and yet, in cases of collision with steamships, the findings in a majority of eases have proved the steamship men at fault. The schooner captains may not know a great deal about logarithms and the like, but they know how to sail, and they know the coast that they travel. Considering the number of schooners and the conditions that they face, the wonder is that the percentage of losses is so low. As a rule, the “ wind-jammers ” try to follow courses up and down the eoast between the lanes prescribed for steamships, which, bound south, go down the coast considerably out to sea, and, bound north, steam nearer to the coast. But storms intervene, and frequently a schooner, getting under the bows of a coastwise liner, goes to the bottom. There is another kind of schooner besides the freighter in the American merchant marine—the American fisherman that sails out of Gloucester for the Georges Shoals, for the Grand Banks, and for Labrador. These staunch, two-masted schooners put out to sea from the New England coast for three months at a time, and work week after week in the heart of the fog, returning at last with full fares of cod or mackerel, or, as happens year after year, never returning, for many are rim down by the transatlantic liners. And many men from their crews are lost in their dories in the fog. The third division of the coastwise traffic is made up of sea going tugs and the barges which they tow along the Atlantic coast from Hampton Roads to Massachusetts Bay. Thes tugs and barges are for the most part owned by the railroad or coal-mining companies of various states. Plying northward and southward, week in and week out, no matter what the weather, trailing their three lumbering barges astern, these coal-tows are a familiar sight to all coastwise voyagers. If romance can be said to exist so close to the coast, these towmen and bargemen may lay calim to their share of it, for there is danger in this coast-towing game. When the gale comes and the rangy tug snuggles to, with her hempen bow fender punching holes in the onrushing combers, there is a man's work for every one of the crew. Astern, the thousand feet of tow-line leading to the first barge twangs like a harp-string: the barges are but vague, indefinite shapes in the outer gloom, reeling grotesquely. Then a report like a cannon sounds dull above the roar of the gale. Tile towing hawser has parted. Away go the barges, and the captain without a thought., throws his tug across the seas and goes in pursuit. Sometimes he catches the castaways and gets another lino aboard Semetimes he never sees them again, and the water swallows them up. Or, perhaps, the largemen succeed, with the aid of the fore and aft sails they carry on their two masts, in outliving the gale. In that event they eventually make port, or a r e picked up by another tug or steamship. If the tow-line connecting the se.ond or third barge greaks, the captain of the tug, if it is possible to do so, wails until the barges still attached to his boat lower their anchors. Then he casts loose and goes off to search for the wanderer.

Coal barges are drawn largely from th • ranks of the fast-disappearing square-rig-ger. Many a famous ship of the past, cleared of her cabins and spars, is b ing drawn up and down the coast. :< mere receptacle for coal. In summer, the barge captains have their families with them in thep leasant trips up and down the coast; but, When November comes, the bargeman leaves his family on land, and prepares for a season of hardship and grave risk. There are times when all but the little cabin on the end of the barge is buried under water, and there are times, when, with a broken tow-line dangfrtß» from her bow, the bsrg? goes hustling away into oblivion. To safeguard this coastwise shipping —the steamers, the schooners, and the barges—the United States has protected its coasts better than any other counter. Lightships, lighthouses, and buoys of various sorts give warning of reefs and shoals and bars. In addition to the beacons, bell - buoys, gas - buoys, whistling - buoys and the like, to say nothing of 'lightships with their submarine bells, the Government maintains a coastwise revenue-cutter patrol which is a most beneficent institution. Thes cutters suggest in design small gun-boats, and they are armed with fourinch rifles. Officers are appoint, d by the Secretary of the Treasury after passing severe and comprehensive examinations. Beginning as second lieutenant a young officer works his way through the various grades to a captaincy, just as in the navy, and seamen are also enlisted under the mt vol syst< m. When November comes, these boats leave port for their winter’s patrol on the look-out for vessels in distress. And many are found. Sometimes it is a craft which, in working up the coast, has run short of provisions; sometimes it is a sinking vessels from which the crew is taken in the nick of time; sometimes there is a mutiny to be quelled, or misunderstandings to be adjusted. It is a winter filled with work, excitement, hardship, and peril, and of the deeds performed by these revenue men in the past half-century a book might be written—a readable,*absorbing book it would be.

Nearly as many men on one yard as comprise the crew of the schooner, w’hose sails are worked by donkey engines.