Ocean liner

“ There was the water, sparkling clear, and a monstrous wave that lifted itself up to mountainous heights. Behind it the ocean's blue became a sea of mud; and only when he glanced at their ground-speed detector did he sense that the watery mountain was hurling itself upon the shore with the swiftness of a great super-liner.
There were the out-thrusting capes that made a safe harbor for the commerce that came on and beneath the waters to the Harkness Terminals; the wave built itself up to still greater heights as it came between them. ”

“ There are six distinct steps in the technical evolution of the ocean liner of the present day,—six changes which mark the epochs in the history of the substitution of steam and steel for sail and wood. The first step in the evolution was taken when the steam engine and the paddle-wheel took the place of wind and sails. ”

“ We who journey to-day over the smooth or troubled waters of national or international [Pg 43] affairs are no more conscious of the infinite toil and labors which have gone into the intricate making of the vessel that carries us, than are travelers conscious of the cogs and screws, the engines and all the elaboration of detail which compose an ocean liner. ”

“ The passengers on a great ocean liner are apt to imagine, because their stomachs are now so little troubled by the perturbation of the waves, that it no longer profits them to offer up the familiar prayer 'for those in peril on the sea.' It is difficult for them to believe in danger where everything appears so steady and well-ordered, and where they can enjoy most of the distractions of urban life, from a cinematograph theatre to a skittle-alley, merely by descending a gilded staircase or crossing a brightly panelled corridor. ”

“ The big liner, with its knife-edged bow and tapering hull, is by its shape alone eloquent of the high speed which has earned it the title of Ocean Greyhound; and as for the fastest craft of all, torpedo-destroyers, their designers seem to have kept in mind Euclid’s definition of a line—length without breadth. But whatever its shape, boat or ship may not shake itself free of Nature’s laws. Her restraining hand lies heavy upon it. A single man paddles his weight-carrying dinghy along easily at four miles an hour ”

“ There is a tug-boat taking out to its moorings the light-ship on which the safety of many other ships will depend.
There also are the ‘fast-sailing’ steam trawlers and carriers coming from, or going to, the fishing-grounds off Iceland and north of the White Sea—the representatives of the whalers of a hundred years ago—there the scurrying pilot boats and revenue cutters. And there is a great ocean liner riding at anchor and waiting the turn of the tide to allow it to enter the dock and discharge the cargo it has brought from the other side of the world. ”

“ The transmitting ranges of ship installations vary greatly, the range of the average ocean liner being about 250 miles. Small ships come as low as 50 miles, while a few exceptional vessels have night ranges up to 1200 or even 2500 miles. Although an outward-bound vessel is almost always within range of some high-power shore station, it is evident that it soon must reach a point beyond which it is unable to communicate directly with the shore. ”

“ It diminished or streamlined outdated regulations that governed the ocean liner industry, and it has helped rekindle the spirit of American maritime enterprise. American-flag liner companies are now in the forefront of developments that are providing shippers with more efficient, extensive, and innovative intermodal services. ”

“ A magnificent liner, with its precious human freight, steams majestically out of harbour, and ploughs its209 way out into the waste of waters. In mid-ocean comes disaster, swift and awful, and the lives of all on board are in deadly peril. ”

“ As the crossing is made, numerous craft of all kinds come into view. Boats, launches, barges, yachts, schooners, steamships, ocean liners and naval vessels all pass by. The air is delightful and invigorating, and the salt breeze from the ocean is both perceptible and stimulating. ”

“ Hearing that the Torres Straits pearling luggers were likely craft, I set my teeth and journeyed on a Chinese liner—incidentally one of the most comfortable and well-managed ships it has been my good fortune to encounter—up through the myriad islets of the Queensland barrier reef to Thursday Island.
It is a strange thing on a ten-thousand-ton liner to awake at night to a silence unbroken even by the familiar throbbing of the engines, and to feel the great ship rising and falling on the swell like any cockleshell ”

“ There is no reason in the world why a staunch, seaworthy craft of not less than forty-one feet on the waterline should not continue to circumnavigate the globe indefinitely, and with every whit as much safety as a ten-thousand-ton liner. ”

“ A modern liner moves so quickly that it does not attract life to it in the same way as a slow-moving ship like the Terra Nova, and when specimens are seen they are gone almost as soon as they are observed. ”

“ It would be a disappointing matter if we had to pull our boat-load of stores back to the yacht against the wind; so, after a little hesitation, I decided to risk the landing. One must run some risks on such a place as Trinidad, and we might as well commence at once. All in the boat were delighted at the decision.
Every one knows how the ocean swell proceeds in regular rhythm, and how one sees at intervals three greater waves than usual come up, one after the other, to be succeeded by a comparative calm. We took the boat just outside the outer breakers and awaited one of these smoothes. ”

“ The boys could now make out every detail of the other craft. She was a trig-looking schooner, painted black, with a flush deck except for her after house and a small structure astern of the fore-mast. Her canvas was set but it flapped idly in the light breeze as she swung to and fro on the Pacific swells. No guiding hand could be seen at her wheel. Not a soul was visible on her deserted decks.
There is no more melancholy sight than a sea derelict, the aimless prey of winds and currents, 32 drifting sometimes for years over the trackless wastes of the ocean. ”

“ Whether liner or dream ship, it makes no difference to the infinite care necessary in navigating these reef-infested seas.
A young navy of pilots performs the miracle—for miracle it is. After long apprenticeship they learn the exact dimensions of every open stretch of water, and if they leave one side at nightfall, they can tell by the vessel's speed, and to a yard, when they have reached the other, when they anchor until dawn. The farther we progressed up the magnificently rugged coast of Queensland, the more varied became the nature of our passenger list. ”

“ Speed, silence, efficiency; nothing else "goes" in "the Zone." Things are done in a few seconds and utter silence here that would take hours and pandemonium elsewhere. The entire miracle of passing a ten-thousand-ton liner from Atlantic to Pacific through seven locks and forty miles of tortuous, ever-threatening channels has been performed in six and a half hours, and with a lack of fuss that is almost uncanny.
But the dream ship was twelve tons, and not ten thousand, and for that reason it is probable that she gave more trouble than any craft since the canal was opened. ”

“ A bird’s-eye view reveals great stacks of timber, iron, and steel; a net-work of rails which connect the works with all the principal lines converging at Glasgow; long brick sheds, and edging the water-front the launching-slips, where as many as fifteen vessels have been in course of construction at the same time. There the great hulls of many of the most famous Atlantic liners have been put together; this was the birthplace of all the new ships of the North German Lloyd line; of the Arizona, the Alaska, the Oregon, the Umbria, and the Etruria. ”

“ Their era antedated that of the clipper and was wholly distinct. The Atlantic packet was the earliest liner: she made regular sailings and carried freight and passengers instead of trading on her owners' account as was the ancient custom. Not for her the tranquillity of tropic seas and the breath of the Pacific trades, but an almost incessant battle with swinging surges and boisterous winds, for she was driven harder in all weathers and seasons than any other ships that sailed. In such battering service as this the lines of the clipper were too extremely fine, her spars too tall and slender. ”

“ And, perhaps, we may look forward to a time when, by the command of wind and wave given by the steamboat, and by our increased knowledge of "ocean topography," if we may use the phrase; a ship may make its way across the ocean without ever being out of a current; a result which would be obviously a most important accession, if not to the speed, at least to the security of navigation.
Those ocean traversers evidently belong to a system. Some are permanent, some are periodical, and some are casual. The permanent arise chiefly from the effect of the flow from the poles to the equator. ”

“ On first going on board a big liner after being accustomed to Mana, it felt an alarmingly dangerous means of transit.
Existence on any ship has drawbacks in bad weather or extreme heat, but on the yacht the arrangement by which the saloon and cabins were connected with the deck-house made the circulation of air particularly good. A sailing ship is also without the universal and unpleasant draughts which are omnipresent in a steamer. ”

“ We are so accustomed in a sea passage to the constant passing of other vessels that we allow ourselves to imagine that a frequented portion of the ocean, such as the Channel, is thickly dotted over with shipping of some sort. But in entertaining this idea we are forgetful of the fact that we are all the while on a steamer track. The truth, however, is that anywhere outside such a track, even from the commanding point of view of a high-flying balloon, the ocean is seen to be more vast than we suppose, and bears exceedingly little but the restless waves upon its surface. ”

“ The day a ship returns safely has always been important to seafaring men. It’s especially important if she has made a new record of some kind. All the seamen in New York harbor were excited when the passenger liner United States came in after crossing the Atlantic faster than any other liner had ever done. ”

“ No passenger traffic is ever carried on now in dangerous vessels upon the treacherous ocean, but solely in the safe and comfortable rocket-car through the air a thousand feet or more above the cruel waters. Steamships, electric ships and sailing vessels are still common round our coasts engaged in transporting heavy freight, but they only cross the ocean to convey some bulky produce which cannot be divided and go by car. ”

“ The steamers of the German Cosmos line, of which this is, I believe, a fair example, differ in many respects from the great English ocean steamships which conduct most of the intercourse between Europe and South America. They are mainly destined for cargo, the accommodation for passengers being comparatively very limited, and of scarcely half the dimensions, being of rather less than two thousand tons displacement by our measurement. In our passenger ships speed is always the foremost consideration. ”

“ The music flows on and the smooth service accomplishes itself; Honour and Glory, high up under the wrought-iron dome of the staircase, are crowning another hour of Time; and our traveller comes up into the fresh air again in order to assure himself that he is really at sea. The electric lift whisks him up four storeys to the deck again; there all around him are the blue-gray waters of the Channel surging in a white commotion past the towering sides of the ship, spurned by the tremendous rush and momentum of these fifty thousand tons through the sea. ”

“ A voyage across the Atlantic must ever be attended with greater peril than almost any other ocean service of similar length and duration; arising, as this does, from the boisterous character and uncertainty of the weather, from the icebergs which float in huge masses during spring along the northern line of passage, from the dense fogs frequently prevailing, and from the many vessels of every kind to be met with, either as employed in the Newfoundland fisheries, or in the vast and daily increasing intercourse between Europe and America. ”

“ The first railway cars having compartments for passengers, baggage, and freight were changed to express trains, where speed and comfort are the first considerations, and freight trains, where carrying capacity is the main object. In just the same manner, and for the same reasons, the ocean traffic is undergoing changes. The day cannot be far distant when the passenger ships will take only passengers, mails, specie, and express packages. ”

“ Work on an ocean steamship never ends, for no sooner does she reach her moorings in New York, Liverpool or Hamburg than preparations begin for the next voyage. Her decks are holystoned, sprinkled with sand and made beautifully clean; the outside of her hull, from deck to water line, is repainted and, if it be the end of a round trip or voyage, all the exterior paint work receives a new coat, while her sanitary and plumbing arrangements, her smokestacks, woodwork, spars and rigging are all carefully examined and overhauled. ”

“ The seas rise up as if some power is moving the water from beneath, and letting it suddenly fall down again. When it thus falls down on the deck of a small vessel, all steerage-way being lost, she is drifted along, utterly helpless, by the tide, and if heavily laden, possibly sent to the bottom. Vessels, however, when passing the Bill of Portland, keep outside the Race, or, when the wind is off the land, close to the shore, as we were doing. When they are caught by a current in a calm, they are drifted through it. ”