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18 MARINE REVIEW. [August 3, MARINE REVIEW ~ Devoted to the Merchant Marine, the Navy, Ship Building, and rf Kindred Interests. Published every Thursday at No. 418-19 Perry-Payne building, Cleveland, Ohio, by THE MARINE REVIEW PUBLISHING Co. Eastern Agents--The Samson Advertising Agency, 102 and 104 Fulton St., New York, N. Y. SUBSCRIPTION--$2.00 per year in advance. Single copies 10 cents each. Convenient binders sent, post paid, $1.00. Advertising rates on application. Hntered at Cleveland Post Office as Second-class Mail Matter. Vessels formerly in the auxiliary fleet of the United States navy, and recently offered ior sale by the government, have all been disposed of. The city of Boston again became the possessor of the ferry boat Governor Russell on a bid of $25,000. The ferry boat East Boston went to Arthur J. Phillips of Portsmouth, Va., for $38,091. The Merchants' & Miners Transportation 'Co. of Baltimore bid in the Vulcan, formerly its liner Chatham, at $175,000. Lewis Luckenbach of New York, gets the Scipio at $50,025 and President H. P. Booth of the Ward line, bid in the Niagara at $75,563. The yacht Enquirer, formerly the property of W. J. Conners of Buffalo, was withdrawn from the sale. Holders of contracts for unfinished work on the Erie canal eagerly availed themselves of the provisions of an act passed by the last New York legislature whereby all holders of unfinished contracts might within sixty days make application to the state canal board for cancella- tion. The time has now expired and it is found that application has been made for the cancellation of thirty-three contracts aggregating $453,900, out of a total of forty-five contracts. The twelve contracts still in force amount to about $3,062,884. Holders of these latter contracts have already received $969,201 and the state has retained on the 10 per cent clause $162,280. Andrew 'Carnegie, Henry W. Oliver and H. C. Frick, all leaders in the Carnegie steel organization, now have big ore carriers in the fleet of the great lakes named in their honor. H. C. Frick is the name selected for the steamer owned by Capt. John Mitchell and others of Cleveland, which is to be launched from the Globe yard of the American Ship Building Co. at Cleveland on Saturday, Aug. 5. This vessel, to be com- pleted in September, is 6 feet longer than the steamer M. A. Hanna of the same fleet. A duplicate steamer, building at the same yard for the same owners, the Cleveland Steamship Co., will not be completed until next spring. The first of the new type of traveling derrick designed and con- structed by the Maryland Steel Co., Sparrow's Point, Md., and which was fully described in the Review some time ago, has been placed in operation at the company's yard and gives entire satisfaction. This der- rick, the construction of which is on the order of the Eiffel tower, is 90 feet in height, 20 feet width and has two hoisting booms. The tower is mounted on a car platform, which runs on an 11-foot track, and which holds the four drums and the necessary steam hoisting apparatus. The derrick has a capacity of 10 tons and can raise material to a height of 70 feet. The French naval committee report that the battleship Charlemagne, the cruiser Distreer, four torpedo-boat destroyers and twenty-five torpedo boats will be completed within the year 1899, and that two battleships, one cruiser, two gunboats, fourteen torpedo-boat destroyers, a submarine tor- pedo boat and a turbine torpedo boat will be added to the list in 1900. It is stated that four of the torpedo boat destroyers soon to be laid down will each be of 303 tons displacement, and with 38 tons of coal are expected to run 2,300 miles at 10 knots or 220 miles at their full speed of 26 knots, At the works of the Federal Steel Co., South Chicago, the ore docks are operated night and day, every day in the week, throughout the season of navigation, provided, of course, there are vessels ta be unloaded. A sample cf the kind of dispatch that is given to vessels under these conditions is contained in a note from the captain of a 4,500- ton steamer to the owner. "I reached there at 11 a. m, Saturday," he said, "and found eleven vessels in port with ore, but I got out Sunday afternoon." . YACHT RACES FOR THE AMERICA?S CUP. The coming international yacht race has revived interest in the vol- ume entitled "Yacht Races For the America's Cup," which was published some years ago by the Outing Co. of New York, and the sales of the book have in consequence taken a decided jump upward of late. The author of the book, Capt. A. J. Kenealy, is one of the recognized author- ities on yachting in America, and his conclusions are based upon exper- ience, for the captain lias had the good fortune to witness nearly every great yacht race, international or otherwise, sailed on this side of the Atlantic since 1880. During his years at the head of the yachting depart- ment of the New York Herald he enjoyed every facility for viewing the Puritan-Genesta, Mayflower-Galatea, Volunteer-Thistle and other con- tests. The "Yacht Races," without which no yachting library can make pretentions to completeness, embodies an account of the America's vic- tory at Cowes in 1851 and subsequent contests for the trophy; also the international history of 'the Brenton's Reef and Cape May cups and the mission of the Navahoe in 1893. The book is profusely illustrated with portraits and drawings. It is published by the Outing Co. of New York Price 50 cents. The Outing Co. publishes also at $1 Capt. Kenealy's re- cently completed work, "Yachting Wrinkles," TS -- ICE-BREAKERS.* L-KNOWN BRITISH AUTHORITY DISCUSSES AN INTERESTING TYPE oF q men, THE DEVELOPMENT OF WHICH HAS BEEN SIMULTANEOUS : . IN EUROPE AND AMERIOA, BY H. F. SWAN. There can be no doubt that the employment of ice-breakers is des- tined to become a very important factor in connection with steam navi- gation generally, and that many ports which formerly were partially, and others entirely closed during the whole of the winter, will become ayail- able for commerce all the year round. The first record that, we have of an ice-breaker is the Pilot, belonging to the port of Cronstadt She was a small single-screw tug with very sharp lines and great rise of floor. Her owner, the Russian merchant Britneff, conceived the idea that such a vessel could be utilized for ice-breaking, and therefore had her bow altered so that she could be forced up on to the ice, which was then broken by her weight, and although owing to the smallness of the vessel, she could only deal with ice ot comparatively small thickness, she em- bodied the germ of the idea which was destined to have important ments. fe Hamburg authorities, having heard of the Pilot's success, decided to have ice-breakers specially constructed for service on the Elbe, the first being Eisbrecher I., built in 1871 and of 600 indicated horse power, From time to time the size and power of these vessels was increased, and their success was such that ice-breakers have now come to be looked upon as a regular part of the harbor equipment, and are able to keep the navigation open throughout the winter. In the meantime, various Scan- dinavian countries with ice-bound harbors had turned their attention to the subject and a number of vessels, both to be used as ice-breakers pure and simple and also as ice-breaking ferry steamers, were built, some . being propelled by paddles and others by screw propellers both of the single and twin description. Particulars of these vessels are given in the paper which 'Capt. Tuxen of the royal Danish navy read at the inter- national congress of naval architects, held in London in July, 1897, and the illustration which he gave of the Sleipner, belonging to the port of Copenhagen, of 1,400 tons displacement and 2,600 indicated horse power, is a fair representation of the type of ice-breaker in use up to that time; a main feature being the cutting away of the forefoot from a point on the stem above the water line in a slanting direction, and striking the keel line about one-fourth of the vessel's length from the bow, this form -naturally facilitating the mounting of the vessel on to the ice field. Our enterprising friends the Americans had for some time been using ferry steamers so constructed as to be able to make their way through ice of considerable thickness, and they accidentally discovered that a single-screw steamer of this type when leaving an ice-bound wharf was able to make her way out better by going astern than ahead, as the dis- turbance of the water by the propeller had a disrupting influence of a much more important character than might have been supposed. The idea thus given was immediately taken advantage of and embodied in the next vessels to be built, which were given the bow propeller, the first to be so fitted being the St. Marie, built in 1893 for service on the great lakes. Experience with the latest ice-breakers so constructed has proved that not only is the-bow propeller very valuable, but is almost indispen- sable where heavy packs of ice have to be dealt with. With the exception of some of the American vessels, which were built of wood, the whole of the others have been built of iron or steel, of which latter material all the more recent vessels have been constructed. It would be impossible in the limits of a paper of this description to give many details as regards the construction of such vessels. It will however, be interesting to the members if I give a few particulars of two vessels built last year, embodying all the latest practice, and which have been at work during the past winter with eminent success. These vessels were the Sampo of 2,000 tons displacement and 3,000 indicated horse power, built for the Finnish government, and the Ermack of 8,000 tons displacement and 10,000 indicated horse power, built for the imperial Russian government. The Sampo has one single propeller aft and an- other one forward, and her chief dimensions are: Length, 202 feet; beam, 43 feet; depth to upper deck, 29 feet 5 inches. Her bow and stern have considerable overhang, the contour being such as to strike the ice at a very acute angle, so that when the vessel is driven with considerable force she has a tendency to rise on the ice in a slanting position, which, while it conduces to bringing her maximum weight to bear, does so in a manner which mitigates the blow to the vessel herself. The Ermack marks an immense stride in the construction of ice- breakers, being fully three times as powerful as any vessel previously constructed; moreover she has four propellers, three placed aft and one forward. Her principal dimensions are: Length over all, 305 feet; beam, 11 feet; depth to upper deck, 42 feet 6 inches; the contour of her bow and stern also shows a quite exceptional amount of overhang, and both she and the Sampo had their sides inclined outwards at a considerable angle from the vertical, to lessen the strain when the vessels are being nipped in the ice floes. The whole construction of the Ermack is exceedingly strong and she is subdivided into forty-eight compartments, the water- tightness of which has been tested in the most efficient manner, and as an example it may be mentioned that after the vessel was launched, and her engines and boilers fitted on board and all complete, one of the boiler-rooms was filled with water to the upper deck, the bulkheads prac- tically showing no deflection. This is probably the most severe test to which the bulkheads of any ship have ever been previously subjected, and as the other parts of the hull are relatively as strong this gives a good indication of the vessel's solidity. The frames are placed 12 inches apart, and the thickness of the ice belt varies from 114 inches at the ends where most of the ice-breaking is to be done, and is slightly reduced in other parts less exposed to shocks when breaking ice. In ice-breakers generally, it is highly important to have a model of a *Paper read at the summer meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects, held at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, July, 1899. Mr. Swan is of the firm of Swan Hunter, Wallsend-on-Tyne- eee eet eee eo cme