Sea History 065 - Spring 1993

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Steam and Speed, Part II How the Thump and Hiss of Steam Power Changed the Ocean World Forever, with Utterly Unexpected Consequences in Our Time by Peter Stanford NOTE: This two-part article is adapted from an article first published by the Society ofNaval Architects & Marine Engineers What was the nature of the sturdy British native godowns in Borneo, and Ameri- Peasley who graduated from sailing schoosteamships that butted their straight stems can floating grain elevators in Erie Ba- ner to steam schooner and ultimately to into the world's ocean swells, replacing sin, New York. British ships took her deep-sea freighter in the era of World War the sailing ship in the principal trades? coal abroad to power industry in far I. These works develop the ethos of steam Rudyard Kipling has given us a marvel- countries; they brought back grain to navigation and give us some picture of a ous picture of the working of the men feed the explosively growing population way oflife already vanished from among and machinery that moved these ships , of Europe. The dense clustered cities of us, when firing up an engine meant more in his lively story "The Ship that Found the English Midlands, French industrial than pressing a button. Herself." This tale of 1895 begins in northeast, and German Ruhr Valley deWe learn much of the world of the workmanlike fashion: pended on the large-scale importation of deep-sea British freighter from Sir Walter "It was her first voyage, and though grain. This was a trade in which the Runciman 's Before the Mast-and Afshe was butacargo-steameroftwelve sailing ship managed uniquely to eke out ter. Runciman sailed as a boy in collier hundred tons, she was the very best of a living side-by-side with the steamship, brigs in the North Sea. He worked his her kind, the outcome of forty years due to the powerful wind systems of the way up to command and finally to own of experiments and improvements in Southern Ocean, and latterly due to the steamers. Hi s autobiography reminds us framework and machinery; and her low capital value in the ships and the that the steaming of these ships was not designers and owner thought as much availability of very cheap manpower dur- all beer and skittles, even as they took of her as though she had been the ing the world wide depression of the 1930s. over and ministered to a vast, univerLucania." Sail had harnessed the open engine of sally enriching growth in world trade. And of course, her role in history, while the world's wind systems to develop the At the height of this era of change, he perhaps less glamorous, was at least as beginnings of world trade, but it was the tells the story of four steamers that put to important as that of the Lucania, or any thumping, hissing power of contained sea, all sailing from the Tyne in Decemother of the floating hotels that crossed steam that really delivered the goods. ber 1878, toward Genoa. He notes: the Atlantic in ever-faster service. "We had decent weather along the The industrial world ran on steam; the For if world trade began with scarce commercial world came of age on its coast down Channel to about a huntin forthe limited manufacture of bronze, power to move big cargoes fast and dred miles west of Ushant, but then and with amber from the Baltic for Black economically; and the cultural world of ran into a terrific storm. I ran side by Sea princesses, and Arabian gums for mankind was changed forever in less s ide with the Joseph Ferens for Christian incense, and spices from the than a hundred years by these facts. twenty-four hours, and on the night Far East for the tables of North Country The culture of seafaring, of course, that awful hurricane began we lost earls, and silk for their countesses, this was also changed-so radically that sight of her." slowly expanding network of traffic be- many sailormen accepted career limits Runciman never again saw the Joseph gan to change the world, as the trade took or simply quit the sea rather than make Ferens or the other two ships-nor did up the more everyday commodities of the change. anyone else. He kept his own ship, life. The British freighter was the preA New Breed of Seaman Coanwood of Newcastle, plugging into eminent vehicle of this change. Kipling was the bard of the new seafar- it as tremendous seas boarded her and Steam power tremendously acceler- ing culture, as the poet Masefield was of swept away her charthouse, compasses, ated the trafficking of cargoes and the the passing age of sail. Others came onto boats and half the bridge. Sailor-fashion, dispersal of peoples around the world. Not the scene to sing the songs of the new he noted: "One thing after another seemed incidentally, it carried the English lan- age, notable Guy Gilpatrick in his stories to show that she was tired of existence." guage and systems oflaw and governance of the Scots engineer Colin Glen cannon Hatch tarpaulins came adrift, the iron around the world as well. The fact that of the SS Inchcliffe Castle who gave us bulwarks were flattened-and worst of English is the chosen national language of a grand picture of the humor, simple all, the fires in the lee boilers went out, as free India, half a world away and with beliefs and hard-learned skills of the an increasing volume of water found its many times the population of the damp people who manned the ships. Norman way below to swash about the stokehold. and distant British Isles, is a product of Reilly Raine did the same for the coastal "I was urged by my men time after time this diffusion of ideas and values-as is tugboat people, including one woman, to run her before the gale," he says. This the reverse flow evident in the novels ofE. the immortal Tugboat Annie Brennan, was an ultimate measure in sailing ships. M. Forster, a spreading interest in Bud- whose battles with rival tugboatman Runciman correctly perceived that if he dhism, and even the prevalence of Indian Horatio Bullwinkle are accepted by the did this, the deep-laden vessel would be restaurants in England today. maritime community of Puget Sound as pooped, the weight of water would knock England was the leading builder, by a the myths of their race, true to life with a down the funnel and flood the stokehold, country mile, of steam cargo and passen- truth that transcends the mere spinning and he wisely refused. They went through ger ships; the Red Duster flew over her of yams. And there 's Peter B. Kyne on "sle1epless days and nights of ... incesworkaday freighters lying off Russian the era of Cappy Ricks in San Francisco, sant exertion," Runciman notes, for about palaces in St. Petersburg or the Crimea, and his eventual son-in-law Matthew B. seventy hours, living through scenes he

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SEA HISTORY 65, SPRING 1993


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