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42 LIABILITY OF THE ENGINEER. FROM THE Marine Engineer, LONDON. In considering the position of the engineer at sea, it should not be for- gotten that he, like the deck officer, runs the risk of having his certificate suspended or taken from tem Tre, this may be his own fault, but there are cases where the fault is manifest to the court and is by no means neces- sarily apparent to the man on the spot and at the time. There has recently been held at Whitby a somewhat un- usual Board of Trade inquiry. It con- cerned the abandonment of the steam- ship City of Gloucester on her voyage from Huelva to New York with a car- go of pyrites. The ship was not over- laden, and amongst the weights which 'she carried on sailing was 130 tons of bunker coal. This was to be augmented at St. Michael's, where the ship was to Goa. She was..six days. on the passage .to the coaling port, and, traveling at the rate of 6% knots, pulled her coal supply down to 35 tons. That 'is to say, on this part of her voyage she burnt just under 16 tons "a day. At St. Michael's a stipply' of 210 tons was taken on board, or at least believed to be so taken. At all events that was the quantity paid for. She thus had apparently 245 tons aboard. Judging by the experience of the ear- lier part of the trip, and assuming that the coal was of similar quality, she should now have had. about fifteen days' fuel: All went on in the usual course till the ship had been eleven days at sea; she was then 'some 200 miles from Bermuda, and 480 miles from New York. Then the chief en- gineet reported to the master that he had but three and a half days' coal left in his bunkers. The calculation now was that the ship had burnt 17% tons a day instead of, as assumed, un- der 15 tons. But we see that she had averaged a knot better than she had done previous to her call at the Azores. That knot would mean an extra dis- tance of 24 miles a day steamed, which in,eleven days would be 264 miles, or, _ Say, a day and a half's steaming. That would mean at the master's own esti- mate 22%4 tons. On the other hand the extra consumption of 2%4 tons a_ day for eleven days would only mean 2714 tons, so that the whole difference works out at a matter of but five tons when all is said and done. When the ship coaled at St. Michael's the chief engineer was responsible for the tally- ing, and the court threw some doubt Om the acctiracy of his count, At all events they agreed that whether it was the full 210 tons that the ship got or not, it was insufficient. We have seen that it obviously was, but the y THE Marine REVIEW point for us is as to how far the engi- neer was responsible. He must have estimated the' amount remaining on board when the ship coaled. He must have reported the amount he tallied as shipped. When these things were known by his superior, the master, his responsibility in regard to. them surely ceased. Again, when he reported the deficiency the ship ought at once, in - the view of the court, to have been put for Bermuda. This was not done. An attempt was made to reach New York by burning woodwork to supplement the coal. Bad weather came on, the engines lost steam, the ship became unmanageable, fell into the trough of the sea, and was pounded to death, the crew escaping to a Norwegian sail- ing vessel. In the opinion of the cou:t the loss of the City of Gloucester was due to the deficiency of her coal. They held that it was wrong when the re- port was made that so little coal re- Mained, to, attempt to 0 on'. to New York, especially as no at- tempt seems to have been made to economize fuel by running more . slowly. jNow, we . venture to think that as the engineer disclosed all the facts to the master, and as the decisions as to continuing for New York, and as to the maintenance of' full speed were entirely in the discre- tion of the captain, there is some hard- ship upon the engineer in his suspen- sion... The only real ground upon which fault could be found with him would seem to be that he did not dis- cover the shortage of coal earlier than he did. But the figures we have men- tioned would surely seem to show that the shortage was a small one, and therefore not very remarkable. The real reason of the deficiency was the shipping of too. small. a supply at. St. Michael's. The fatal result might have been averted by putting about for Ber- muda. Where does the chief engi- neer's responsibility for these things come in? If he was not responsible for them he has had rather stern jus- tice meted out to him, and we would suggest that the Institute of Marine Engineers might well examine the facts of the case with a view to the chances of an appeal, if they are ad- vised to attempt one. ENGINEERING ITEMS FROM BRITAIN. BRITISH ADMIRALTY DECIDES FOR OIL FUEL. The decision of the British to fit tor- pedo boats and small craft to burn liquid fuel for steam raising is an in- dication that the naval authorities are prepared to adopt any course when it can be proved without dotibt to be su- perior to that hitherto followed. For - years liquid fuel has been under "ttial" in the British navy, and provision has been made fox its use as an emergency agent in many cases, but owing to the proofs of its superior steam-raising powers during the maneuvers, the' small craft under the white ensign will in future be confined to the burning of oil as fuel, coal being eliminated from the equipment of the craft. The ac- tual experience of the ships engaged in the maneuvers provided with oil, and facilities for using it in the water- tube boilers showed not only a_ very material superiority in speed, but was a wonderful relief to the "black squad" in the stokeholds, who had been very heavily worked in maintaining a high speed under coal consumption. The result is a victory for the advocates of liquid fuel. Engineering, London, advocates the standardization of naval machinery. The arguments brought forward are convincing, and show that by adopting the system of standardization so widely carried out in the United States in so many directions, a great benefit would result. Taking, say, three war vessels of one type with machinery made to some standard, it is clear that in the event of war if one was disabled in the hull and another in the machinery, the damaged parts of the machinery could be replaced immediately by tak- ing them out of the crippled ships. _ By manipulation, therefore, which would take but a very short time, one ship only would be placed hors de combat instead of two. Mr. William H. Hunter, the chief engineer of the Manchester ship canal, expresses the opinion that a lock type -- of canal at Panama will bring about disaster. He bases his principal ob- jection to the lock system on the lia- bility to damage through unavoidable accidents, and points to the record on the Manchester ship canal, where, since its opening I2 years ago, dock gates have been five times wrecked by vessels. The growing popularity of the tur- bine for marine propulsion and shore work keeps manufacturers increasingly busy in Britain. It is now reported that Messrs, C. A, Parsons & Co,, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, have secured con- tracts for a 316-K. W,. exhaust steam turbine generator for Messrs. John Brown & Co., Ltd., Sheffield, a 3,500- K. W. turbine alternator for the New- castle-on-Tyne Electric Supply Co., a 200-K.. W. turbine alternator for Messrs, Archibald Russell & Co., Ltd., and a 400-K. W. turbine generator for the Consett Iron Co., as well as a 200- K. W. turbo alternator for the far east.