Paddle steamer

“ The litter of cases, bales, etc., about the deck was fast disappearing under the strenuous exertions of the stevedores and dock-wallopers, while the raffle of gear aloft was reduced to as near an approach to orderly arrangement as it could ever be expected to assume. Presently a grimy little paddle-steamer came alongside, through the clustering swarm of barges, and was made fast ahead and astern. An individual with a stentorian voice, a pilot suit, mangy fur cap, and brick-red face mounted the forecastle, bellowing out orders apparently addressed to no one in particular. ”

“ IT is impossible for the most careless spectator to look at a steam-vessel making her way along a lake, a boy’s boat skimming across a pond, or even a duck paddling on a stream, without noticing that the moving body is accompanied in all cases by a trail of waves or ripples, which diverge from it and extend behind. In the case of a steamer there is an additional irregular wave-motion of the water caused by the paddle-wheels or screw, which churn it up, and leave a line of rough water in the steamer’s wake. ”

“ Then, raising one oar as a signal, we had hailed the monster, which, condescendingly relaxing her speed, had suffered our boat, tossing like a feather on the steamer's mighty swell, to come in palpitating, timid fashion under the shadow of her paddle-box, where the strong arms of men stationed on the portable ladder let down from her side had caught our skiff by the prow and held the inconstant thing for one instant firmly enough to suffer us to spring to their precarious stairway and so secure our passage to Ardrishalg. ”

“ After fullest enquiry and consideration, we came to the conclusion that the best thing we could do was to repeat a highly successful day passenger paddle steamer, the Ozone which had been built on the Clyde, and sent out to Australia a year and a half previously, and had there obtained a splendid record for speed and commercial success. ”

“ All the lights in the steamer were extinguished, and all passengers ordered below, only the officers and crew being permitted to remain on deck. The furnaces were replenished with carefully selected coal, which would give the greatest amount of heat and the least smoke. The last orders were given, and every man was at his appointed place. Presently the boilers hissed, and the paddle-wheels began to revolve faster and faster, as the fleet little steamer rose higher and higher in the water from the immense force of the rapid strokes ”

“ It must be recollected that the same old obstinacy was still very much alive that had hindered other inventions connected with the ship, and it was not until the Archimedes had toured round Great Britain, and steamed across the Bay of Biscay and back without mishap, that people121 began to believe in this new method of propulsion. To-day everyone knows how entirely dominated by the screw the steamship now is, and that the paddle-wheel belongs almost exclusively to the excursion passenger steamer. ”

“ She was an iron paddle-steamer. The engines had two oscillating cylinders 27 inches in diameter with 30 inches stroke, and made 58 revolutions per minute. Her tubular boiler, 9·75 feet long, 11·25 feet wide, and 6 feet high, developed steam at 20 lb. pressure. The heating surface was 1234 square feet. Engines, boilers, and water weighed 30·5 tons. [233] The paddles were 11·16 feet in diameter and each had nine fixed floats. There were three masts and the sail area was 64 square yards. Her speed was 12·8 knots; displacement, 93 tons ”

“ One can detect no trembling of the deck and the mast, pointing towards the clear sky, strains and quivers ever so slightly. The rigging, taut as the strings of an instrument, hums gently, but one has grown used to the vibration, and does not notice it, and it seems as if the steamer—white and graceful as a swan—were motionless on the smooth water. To perceive the motion one must look over the gunwale, where a greenish wave retreats from the white side of the steamer. It seems to fall away in broad soft folds, rolling and glistening like quicksilver and splashing dreamily. ”

“ Not a word is spoken, not a paddle blade allowed to click against the bone gun'els of the skiff. Double-bladed paddles are frequently used, so shift of paddle is made from side to side of the canoe without a change of hands. The skin shallops take to the water as noiselessly as the glide of a duck. Yonder, where the boulders lie mile on mile awash in the surf, kelp rafts—forests of seaweed—lift and fall with the rhythmical wash of the tide. Hither the otter hunters steer, silent as shadows. The circle widens, deploys, forms a cordon round the outermost rim of the kelp fields. ”

“ In the forepart a stout stick some ten feet long stands up as a mast and supports a small sail, and amid-ships a short rail, supported on two uprights, enabled the two men who form the crew to hold on when much knocked about by the waves. A single paddle seems to serve as a rudder, but it is not easy to understand how such a rude substitute for a boat is able to work out to sea against the breeze which commonly sets towards the shore. ”

“ A steamer whose screw or paddles are revolving and driving the hull through the water will not, amidst the heaviest sea, give you the same sensation you get from a vessel tumbling about on a strong, fine-weather swell, not a breath of air to steady her or give her way. The steamer in a measure escapes the worst of the seas by sliding out of them; her bows are lifting clear of the washing coil whilst her lee sponsons are buried, and she half jumps the intervening hollow as her paddles{114} thrust her from the summit of the surge. ”

“ Passing over to America, we shall first describe the famous American and Canadian river steamboats, which are in many respects as curious and unique as they are generally magnificent. These steamers are usually paddle-boats; are very long and narrow in shape, but of great strength. On the hull a sort of lofty platform is built, which is divided into what may be called the middle and the main deck, one above the other. Fore and aft there is a spacious, luxuriously appointed, and richly decorated saloon, covered in with a glass roof. ”

“ That lies in wait to make a silent rush,
And there was something in her like a thrush,
For she had paddle-wheels, each like a wing.
She had a long hornet stern that seemed to hold a sting.
Sometimes her paddles slowly turned,
For they kept steam up, waiting for a gale.
It seemed as if the slim boat chafed and yearned
To go hell-tearing under steam and sail.
The oily water churned
And made a slap-slap to the paddles' stroke ”

“ The actual paddling is not difficult to learn, that is, the paddling required from an ordinary member of the crew. But the man in the bow and, still more, the man in the stern need the highest kind of skilful daring to take them safely through. Paddling by oneself also requires a special touch, only to be learnt by long practice. Even in dead water it takes some time before a novice can send the canoe straight ahead when paddling on one side only. As the paddle goes aft the bow naturally tends to turn towards the other side. ”

“ You can form no idea of one's sensations as the steamer pushes her way through an ice jam. For miles around, as far as the eye can reach, the sea is covered with huge, glistening blocks. Sometimes the deep-blue water shows between, and sometimes they are so tightly massed together that they look like a hummocky white field. How any one can get a steamer along through it is a never-ending source of amazement, and my admiration for the captain is unstinted. ”

“ That would be an unnecessary waste of time, and would not pay, so that at all hours of the day and night steamers patrol the river, collecting from the row boats that do the drifting the fish they have netted. When a steamer gets a load she comes and ties up at the wharf and there unloads her fish. ”

“ There is something so exhilarating in the motion of a sailing-vessel, always provided she is neither rolling about in a calm, lying to in a gale, or beating against a head-wind. She seems to belong to the sea, with her tall tapering masts, her cloud of moving canvas, and her buoyant motion over the rolling waves. Her movements are all comprehensible, and above-board she is invariably clean, and her crew are connected in one's mind with nautical stories which charmed one in the long-past days of youth. A steamer is very much the reverse. ”

“ That which retains the paddle-wheel in favor to-day, and renders it a necessity in spite of argument or prejudice, is the fact that the screw requires that the draft of the ship shall not be less than its own diameter, whereas in the largest paddle boats a dip of wheel of six feet is generally sufficient. Hence it is that nearly all fast steamers plying on rivers or shallow estuaries, and channel steamers running to ports where there is little water when the tide is low, are of necessity paddle-wheel. ”

“ At last, high above the rocky point whereon the waves broke furiously, appeared scurrying wisps of smoke, then a reeling red funnel; and presently the steamer staggered into sight, the paddles beating water and air alternately, the bow throwing up clouds of spray. ”

“ They dare not lie down a moment without keeping one half of their number on the watch. But what is that in the distance? A steamer! A thrill of joy goes through the boat's company. Every possible signal is given, but she does not see them, and another night is spent on the floe. The next morning every eye was straining to see a whaler. Soon one appears. They shout, raise their signals, and fire every gun at once. But she passes out of sight. April thirtieth, as the night was setting in foggy and dark, the shout from the watch of "steamer" brought all to their feet. ”

“ The moment the anchor broke ground the helm was put hard a-port, and the paddles were set in motion; but though from the tide alone the rudder had some effect, the strength of the eddy was too much for her; round came her head to port, as if she were going to take a leap at the embankment.
“Hard a-port!—hard a-starboard!—ease her!—stop her!—turn her a-head!” were the contradictory orders bawled out almost simultaneously. If noise and shouting could have got the steamer out of the scrape, there was no lack of it ”

“ The steamer is put athwart the seas, to form a break-water for the boat, which comes under her lee; the roll of the steamer, the pitching of the boat, the wild wind and sea, with the darkness of the night only faintly broken by the light of the steamer's lanterns, render it a somewhat difficult matter to get the women out of the boat. As the boat rises the men lift up a woman and steady her for a moment on the gunwale, two men on the steamer catch her by the arms as she comes up within reach, and she is dragged up the side on to the deck. ”

“ In America Watt’s beam engines were imitated very closely, and to-day, as every visitor to New York is aware, the curious sight is seen of enormous ferry-boats, towering high above the water, with the beam and connecting rods showing up through the top of the ship. Now this idea is all very well where the steamer is concerned only with navigation on rivers and peaceful waters, but for ocean steaming, where the deck needs to be covered in from the attacks of the mighty seas, it is out of the question. ”

“ I say rather stately, for the high and graceful hull of the steamer comes to a lame and impotent conclusion in its squat chimney, like a large-faced man with a mayhemed nose, and in its toy masts and rigging, like a stout woman with curl-papers or a thin wisp of ringlet. ”

“ The best man shifts his place from the stern to the bow, and stands ready with his long-handled paddle to twist the frail boat out of reach of hidden rocks. The men's faces glow with excitement. Quicker and quicker flows the stream, breaking into little rapids, foaming round rocks, and [Pg 107] rising in tumbling waves over the shallows. At a word from the bowman the crew redouble their efforts, the paddle shafts crash against the gunwale, the spray flies beneath the bending blades. The canoe shakes and quivers through all its fibres, leaping bodily at every stroke. ”

“ Tom sat in the bow of his boat, Hunting Dog was next to him, then came the chief, and Harry sat in the stern. A paddle is a much easier implement to manage for a beginner than is an oar, and it was not long before they found that they could propel the boats at a fair rate. ”

“ John’s musing exclamation was unfinished. With a swift stroke of the paddle Kingdom sent the canoe sweeping through the water with sudden liveliness and the lad who, under the name of “Little Paleface,” must answer to the charge of witchcraft, could only seize a paddle, also, to use as a rudder and likewise assist in hurrying the light bark craft onward. ”

“ During the stroke bring your upper hand forward across your face or breast, and with the lower draw the blade through the water.
It is well to begin as bow paddler, for your duty there, in smooth water, is to watch for obstructions such as hidden rocks and submerged logs or snags, while the paddler at the stern must steer the canoe and keep it in a straight course.
At the beginning learn to paddle as well from one side as from the other. To be able to change sides is very restful and sometimes a quick change will prevent an accident. ”

“ If the water was smooth and open, with no current, our twenty paddle men would sing as softly as the whispering of a summer breeze. But if there was a current they would sing louder. And the more difficult the paddling, the louder they would sing. In boiling rapids where it took every ounce of their strength and they had to take quick, short strokes to keep going, their voices arose to an almost howling crescendo. ”