NON-ROLLING PASSENGER LINERS. 103 



sea. With the gyroscopic stabiHzer equipment on board, we have the unique .situa- 

 tion of being able instantly to throw it on or off, in action or out, at will, by stop- 

 ping its slow precessional movements, so that we can observe exactly what happens 

 under the two conditions and repeat each condition as often as we choose and hold 

 each under complete observation as long as we choose, under any given sea or 

 weather condition. And just such tests as these have been repeatedly made and 

 studies pursued until they are well known and understood. Thus the presence of 

 the stabilizer on the ship reduces and holds to a very low value the stresses and 

 strains which in the case of an unstabilized ship in storms often rise to high and 

 dangerous magnitudes. Many thousands of feet of record have been made and 

 studied. Fig. i, Plate 42, shows a photograph of some of these. 



Here again Admiral Taylor's work comes to the fore. The development of the 

 active gyro stabilizer was aided materially through the encouragement given by this 

 naval officer. He was among the first to appreciate the important results likely to 

 follow the application of the active principle, i. e., the ability to develop pure torque 

 stresses in ships without change in loading or moving of weights or masses, and to 

 direct these stresses and emplace them at will upon a ship independent of the state 

 of motion of the ship itself and also independent of any particular position of the 

 equipment upon or within the ship. This whole art certainly owes much to Admiral 

 Taylor. 



Everyone is familiar with the groanings, creakings, and weird noises that are 

 always present in heavily laboring or rolling ships. These illustrate the stresses 

 and strains to which she is being subjected. Imagine the sensation when the sta- 

 bilizer is thrown into action and these sounds cease forthwith, positively demon- 

 strating that the heavy stresses have vanished. The stabilizer thus becomes one of 

 the greatest safety devices yet invented, imparting absolute security to the great hull 

 and structure of the ship and materially prolonging its life. All of this, of course, 

 is wholly outside of the consideration of comfort, which is one of the prime reasons 

 for the installation on passenger ships. 



In this connection it will be interesting from a technical standpoint to know that 

 some time before the first stabilizer equipment was installed by the United States 

 Navy, the great English naval architect. Sir William White, was brought to this 

 country in consultation on this subject. He stated, after careful review of the facts, 

 that from the naval architect's standpoint the strains introduced by the gyroscopic 

 stabilizer in holding a vessel absolutely free from roll were insignificant, and that if 

 we laid hold of a single frame of an ordinary steel ship we would have a factor of 

 safety of about six, and furthermore that these strains and stresses were only a 

 small fraction of those existing in the hull and general structure of a ship when roll- 

 ing in a storm. 



This great authority went further and stated something that our highest authori- 

 ties in this country then doubted, namely, that as soon as a ship was stabilized in a 

 storm and rolling was prevented, that ship would not ship seas, but her decks would 

 immediately begin to be dry and would remain dry. Although we did not at the 



