290 ELECTRIC PROPULSION OF MERCHANT SHIPS. 



Mr. John Reid, Member: — The time is getting short, and I will be as brief as possi- 

 ble and give you a few remarks on a practical application of electrical propulsion. I suppose 

 I am one of the few men in this room who can speak of having had the electrician get his 

 hooks into him — I put in electrical propulsion, but had to take it out again. That is not to 

 say anything against electric propulsion, but I want to tell you why I failed, because I do 

 not know that it has been brought before you. 



Some years ago, about 1908, we looked into the matter of electric propulsion on the 

 Clyde and built a boat between 30 and 40 feet long, and put electrical propulsion into her. 

 The boat was a perfect success, as a sample. Then we cast about for a bigger boat. We 

 had to look. We tried Denny of Dumbarton, but they said they were too busy and could 

 not bother with it. The British Admiralty was friendly and promised to allow us to equip 

 a mine sweeper — mine sweepers were not wanted so badly then as they were later on — so 

 the mine sweepers were cut out of that year's programme and we lost that prospect too. I 

 was connected with the matter in a small capacity and took it on myself tO' get the ooat so 

 we could apply electric propulsion. At that time they were anxious on the Great Lakes to 

 get a Diesel engine boat, and I was not pleased with the idea of putting the Diesel of that date 

 direct on the propeller; sO' we determined to put electric propulsion in, and that was the 

 cause of all the trouble. The boat was 250 feet long with 750 horse-power, and I think you 

 will admit it provided a reasonable experiment. The electrical work was well done and 

 highly successful in every respect — nothing wrong with it — and justified every prognosti- 

 cation made in its behalf by the people who put it in, but unfortunately we married it with 

 the Diesel engine, and that, we found, was a very bad mesalliance. If you are contemplat- 

 ing jmtting electricity on a Diesel engine, and putting it in a ship, if you will come to me, 

 I will give you gratis some information that may save you a lot of bother. The trouble is 

 that the Diesel engine will carry no overload, and if you put in a Diesel engine or two and 

 electric propulsion, as we did in this boat of 750 horse-power, and expect to secure this 750 

 horse-power at ^he propeller, throwing out all transmission losses, you will get into trouble, 

 because the electric generator and Diesel engine will work against each other; if you have 

 variations of load in the propeller, they will work back against the Diesel engines and they 

 will not come up to their work, and you will have constant trouble with your power plant. 



As I say, the electrical equipment was simply perfect and successful, and anyone who 

 watched the thing run would have said, as one of the men who discussed the paper a minute 

 ago said, it was the logical thing to have done. LTn fortunately, if you make an experiment 

 of that kind, and fall down on it, for one man who knows what happened you will find ten 

 men discussing it without the slightest idea of what went wrong. We took out the elec- 

 tric features and put in steam engines. That was a failure for electric propulsion, but I 

 am not sorry I made the experiment. 



I do think, however, that Mr. Emmet would be wise to consult the marine men a little 

 more than he apparently does in making his designs. Mr. Emmet is a remarkable man, 

 who has had a great deal of difiiculty in shoving his head through this fence we have tried 

 to put around him, but he has kept at it and has gotten on famously, but he would have 

 gone faster if he had some of the naval engineers enthusiastic on his side. 



In this design here the motor and propelling arrangements are all right, exactly as in 

 the small vessel I refer to. We had the Diesel engine just forward of the bulkhead you 

 see in front of the motor, and the shaft connections were very short, and there was no 

 need of a passageway throwing the whole engine-room into one. But when the machinery 



