OCUGAN GREYHOUNDS. Fast Time Made From New York to Queenstown.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 294, 29 August 1888, Page 3

OCUGAN GREYHOUNDS. Fast Time Made From New York to Queenstown.

' T,he record has been beaten ' was the t word' passed along the- water front among steamship men and ocean travellers when they learned that the Cunard steamship Etruria was off Sandy Hook 'at noon on Saturday? June 2nd. The record had been been beaten several times, not only by different vessels, but the Etruria had beat her own record more than once. The Etruria left Queenstown just after lunch on Sunday, May 27th, and was off Sandy Hook nearly two hours before lunch on Saturday, June 2nd. While the apparent- interval ot time was three hours le&s than six days between the two points, owing to the difference in time of four minutes to each degree of longitude she had crossed, she was actually six days one hour and fifty minutes between the two points, a span ot 2,854 marine miles. Her average runs were 471 knots every twentyfour hours, butononeday, the day previous to her arrival off Sandy Hook, she made 503 knots. This was at the rate of 21 knobs an hour, 2,124 feet each minute and 15 ieet each second, and for the entire run an average of 19 6-10 knots an hour. The question aiipes, as> it has often done before, what is the limit of speed? It seems not unlikely that before the summer of 1889 the ia,stest steamers on the Atlantic, such as tbeEtruria, the Umbria, the Lahn, the Saale, the Tiave, the Werra, the Allor, the Elbe, the City of Rome, La Bretagne, La Bourgogne, La Champagne, La Gascogne, the Alaska, and the Arizona — will cease to hold their pro-eminence of speed. Tho builders maintain that the only que&tion whether the six-days' transit can be surpassed or not is one of expense. The two twin-screw vessels being built for the White Star line, and tho two new steel steamships nearly completed for the Inraan line, promise to surpass anything yet brought out in the matter of speed. Will a higher rate of speed be possible? is a question being considered. Will not greater speed involve greater peril by augmenting the dangers in iogs and in bad weather? Are fast steamers the safest? There is a diversity of opinion among mariners on this latter point. But whether the&e opinions may be solved in the affirmative or negative, tho records of the fast steamers are interesting. Each captain is as jealous of tho ability of his ocean greyhound to excel all others in the matter of speed as the Haggins, the Jeromes, the Baldwins and other owners of fast horses, or the owners of yachts, both steam and sail, arc of their records. Previous to this la&t unprecedented trip of the Etruria she was the bearer of the champion pennant as the ' Queen of the Ocean,' but the pennant has alternated between the Alaska, the Arizona, the Auionia, the Oregon, the Umbria and tho Etruria. This, however, does not &ay that the steamers of the French and North German Lloyd lines enumerated above arc not equally fast, but as they s>ail between different ports their trips are not calculated in the comparison of the speeds between Queen&town and New York. For instance, the Aller of the North German Lloyd, made the trip fiom New York to Southampton in September lac>t in seven days four hours and twenty-five minutes. This is equivalent to making the run to Queenstown in six days nine hours and forty-nine minutes. As late as 1866, a voyage between New York and Liverpool in less than eleven days was considered phenomenal, and then the question was asked, What is the limit of &peed *' But the Baltic, of the White Star Line, in 1873, cufc the eleven flays down to s-oven days twenty hours and nine minute". Then the City of Berlin, of the Inman Line, two years later, exit the record to seven days fifteen hours and forty-eight minutes. Next came, in 1881, the Arizona ot the Guion Line, making a rush for the Queen of the Ocean's pennant, and she took it with the iecord of -seven days seven hours and twenty-three minutes, and has continued to do even better than that. The Alaska followed in May, 1882, cutting the record to six days twenty-one houis and twenty -six minutes from New York to Queen&town. The Oregon, then of the j Union Line, followed in 1884 and in September of that year reduced the record to six days eleven hours and nine minute?. The next year followed the Etruria, with six days five hours and thirty-one minutes. Then the Umbria, with a record of six days four hours and fifty-eight minutes. Since then the Umbria and Etruria have alternated in possession of the pennant. The increased speed of late years is due no less to the improvement in steamship models than to that in machinery, the long and narrow hulh enabling them to make time now that cou*d never have been made with the old style of steamship 0 . Ifc is not alone in the exceptional voyages in Avhich the increasing speed of the ocean steamships of the present day is most im- ' pre&sively presented, but in the general average attained in a succession of voyages, and in the increasing speed thus shown by the same vessels, owing to the great improvements made in their machinery. One fact probably never enters the mind of a marine novice or of a landsman. It is that in the substitution of steel for iron, the former being more ductile than the latter, the materials ot construction may be lighter. For instance, the steamer Servia, one ot the smaller of the fast vessels, weighs 620 tons less than .she would have done if had been equally strong with iron, and of course she lias that much greater carrying capacity, for machinery of freight. But the question yet remains unanswered — what is the limit of speed ?