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July TELESCOPE 154________________ IN THE TRIPLE'S WAKE seIf-unloader T. If. Robinson, built by American Shipbuilding Company at Lorain. The same owner and builder brought out the huge seIf-unloader Carl D. Bradley two years later. At 638 feet of overall length, the Bradley was the lakes' longest ship until World War II. She is tragically remembered today for having foundered with all but two of her crew off Gull Island in Lake Michigan in a gale of November 18, 1958, apparently having broken in two. She is the only six-hundred-footer ever lost by storm on the lakes. For the Robinson and Bradley, turbines were used to generate electricity to power huge electric motors. An electric motor is easily reversed, and gears can scale down its speed to that of the propeller. The machinery of both ships was built by General Electric. The turbines of the Bradley were rated at 4800 horsepower, and those of the Robinson at 3600. A third turboelectric freighter was the large sandsucker J. R. Sensibar, converted in 1930 from the Tomlinson freighter Frank C. Ball for Construction Materials Corp. of Chicago, and given her new engine at that time. We shall take note of her again. The only lake fleet building new bulk freighters in the thirties was U. S. Steel's Pittsburgh fleet, and it took up the next innovation. In 1938 Pittsburgh added four ships, Governor Miller and William A. Irvin from Lorain yards, and John Hulst and Ralph H. Watson from River Rouge. These had geared turbine engines without the intervening electric motors. They were fitted with double reduction gears to help attain the desired speed. They were compound engines, passing steam to a turbine in a high pressure chamber and then to another in a low pressure one. To meet the problem of reversing the engine, geared turbines are given a separate "astern " turbine set to turn in the opposite direction. When the ship moves ahead, it rides "idle". But when it is in reversing operation, it is burdened with the other turbines, and so cannot develop the full power the engine produces in going forward. This is unlike the electric drive, which can develop equal power in forward or reverse, but in a lake freighter this seems not important, unlike, say, an icebreaker. These four freighters have engines rated at 2300 horsepower; two engines were built by General Electric and two by DeLaval. In 1942 Pittsburgh added the five Fairless class freighters then known as the "Super-Dupers" because they were 639 feet long (the longest ones today measure 730 feet). These had geared turbines rated at 4400 horsepower, and included Benjamin F, Fairless, A, H. Ferbert, Leon Fraser, Irving S. Olds and Enders M. Voorhees. Geared turbines were to become standard for new lake freighters, especially those built in the fifties. That of Wilfred Sykes, prototype of the most modern lakers, is rated at 7700 horsepower, giving her speed of more than sixteen miles per hour. In choosing the Sykes' engine her designers considered this horsepower requirement too high for a reciprocating engine like a "triple." Yet they wanted an engine that would remain highly efficient even when the ship was moving at low speeds, as in docking or locking. Inland Steel Company, owner of the Sykes, was the first to modernize its fleet after the war. Its older freighter E. J. Block was due for new boilers in 1946. The owners chose instead to install General Motors war-built twin diesel engines. Each engine was rated at 1200 horsepower at 750 r.p.m., while the propeller shaft turned a tenth as fast. Otice again, the engine was used to generate electricity to run electric motors, and the speed of the motors was geared down to suit