THE SPEED OF STEAMSHIPS.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 360, 29 October 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SPEED OF STEAMSHIPS.

It will be remembered that at the Jubilee naval demonstration a small steamer created a sensation by dodging: ia and out among the fleet, easily distancing the fastest torpedo boats sent alter her. It ,vas called the Turbinia, from its engines, which were on the principle of the turbine wheel. Since then the inventor, Mr Parsons, son of the late Lord Roses, has been perfecting the motor, and in Pearson's Magazine Mr Cloveland Moffett has a paper in which he foreshadows the adoption of the principle on ocean-going vessels. The builder, Mi Burnard, says the screws of the Turbinia make 2500 revolutions per minutes, but they could easily turn out motors to ran at double or quadruple that speed if desired, and even with 10,000 revolutions there would bo no vibration. On long routes without coaling stations, such as the Atlantic, to secure the higher rates of speed would be practically impossible, because a sufficient quantity of coal could not be carried within feasible bunker limits, but, says the inventor :—" I believe that a liner of 15,000 tons can be built with engines like the Turbinia-'s, capable of running be twecn Roches Point and Sandy Hook in three days. She will burn nearly three times as much coal per day as the present models, say 1500 tons, she will save weight and space in boiler and engineroom which -will enable her to carry about the same number of passengers and the same cargo as a 15,000 ton steamer carries to-day." But on the Mediterranean there are no such checks. Mr Parsons goes on to say:—"We can build now a fleet of passenger steamers to ply between Marseilles, the Italian ports, Athens, Constantinople, Smyrna, slopping to coal every day or two, that will have the speed of 40 knots, that is 46 miles an hour. These steamers would be about 500 feet or 600 feet loog, would have a displacement of 12,000 tons, and would burn about 2000 tons of coal a day. We could even run their speed up to 50 knots, that is about 58 miles an hour, if passengers enough could be found to pay for the 3000 tous of coal that would be burned a day, and if the practical difficulties of handling that amount of coal could be disposed of."