ELECTRIC PROPULSION OF A BATTLESHIP. 



81 



when a warship, which is hit under the water, goes down, because we know that naval 

 constructors attach so much importance to guns and armor that when you look at a war- 

 ship critically you are astonished at its lightness under water. It may be staunch enough 

 ordinarily, but when hit by a torpedo or mine the result is almost certain to be fatal. 

 In the cases of the Lusitania and the Empress of Ireland, in which the same thing hap- 

 pened, the ships with large wing spaces lost stability and went down. 



Where electric propulsion comes into the thing is this — the marine engineer will want to 

 concentrate his marine engines, whether electric or any other, in the smallest and fewest 

 spaces possible. He wants to bring them together for various reasons which I do not need 

 to discuss, but if you are going to improve the safety of large vessels, war or merchant, 

 against mines, torpedoes, collisions at sea, etc., you find it the very simplest plan with elec- 

 tric propulsion to stretch out your power along the ship's length as far as possible. Suppose 

 that is the ship, looking down into the engine-room (referring to diagram on blackboard) and 

 this is the normal engine space (indicating) and boiler space here and bunkers on either side. 

 Now, if that ship is hit anywhere near the engine-room, or if the ship is struck near the 

 boilers, the whole power of the ship is lost and you are done for, and you cannot do anything 

 to save the vessel. 



My idea is that the great advantage of the electric propulsion is that you can take your 

 power generators and spread them out over the ship. For instance, you might have a series 

 of generators — four, six or eight, whichever you like — in a central longitudinal engine-room, 

 with one or two in each space, boilers on either side of them, and in the space outside you 

 can have the longitudinal bulkheads, water ballast tanks, fuel, bunkers, etc. That enables 

 you to drive your machinery into small compartments, to get your machinery divided so that 

 it cannot be put out of business by one torpedo or mine, and then you can have yoiu" four 

 propelling motors, or whatever it is, located in another closed space, and the power com- 

 municated to them by the usual methods. 



That is a point of view which the marine engineer does not take hold of — he does not 

 want it — he does not like it; the machinery is too much scattered about. You have to do 

 these things if you want the advantages, from the designer's standpoint, which come from 

 them. 



I will give you a case where I can also see the advantage of electrical propulsion. What 

 I mean to say is, a case not merely of coal consumption or mechanical efficiency, or this, that, 

 or the other thing; it is a case of being required, you need electrical propulsion, you do not 

 want to put it into ships where you can get the same results with geared turbines, but there 

 are cases where the electrical propulsion is essential, no matter what the other elements are. 

 Here is a dredge, a very large one, which I am working at just now, and there is a tremen- 

 dous hopper here, carrying 10,000 tons, nearly 300 feet long. For certain reasons of trim 

 you have to put the boilers forward, and you have your pumping engines aft, and also in a 

 central space at 5 (indicating on diagram on blackboard). You cannot design that dredge 





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