A Ship's Brake.

Manawatu Herald, 15 April 1899, Page 2

A Ship's Brake.

Collisions at sea (says a Home pap r) from the awful catastrophe of B.M S. Victoria downwards might have been averted and valuable lives ■taved— says a Croatian engineer oara^d Czvetkovitch -.if the colliding * tea mars had been fkted with his patent mirine brake. The idea of the th ng is simplicity itself. The brake consists of a large curved plate of steel attached to the stern of the st >amer, which can be lowered at w.ll into the water. The screw of a teamship, it should be explained, when working ahead causes a stream f water of terrific force to flow back in the direction from which the ship ha 9 com 3, and by lowering the plate of steel into this stream the power is obtained necessary to check the ship's *peed and bring it to a standstill independently of the engines. Since the stream caused by the screw is of greater force when ths ship is steaming fast, the brake will work equally well whether tha speed be 20 knots or 10 knots. The Clotilde, a steamer >f 1000 tons, when steaming at a speed of 10 knots, wa* brought to an absolute standstill within SO seconds, during which she travelled so slowly t hat only 20 feet were traversed a fee r the brake was applied. This result was obtained in spite of ths fact that fche engines were working full speed ahead the whole time.