LUCIA FOR THE UNITED STATES SHIPPING BOARD. SS 



I believe, when carefully considered in all its bearings, a very considerable contribution to 

 the possibility of rendering ships, with the lives of their crew and their cargoes, more safe 

 at sea. 



Mr. George A. Orrok, Member (Communicated) : — With regard to the paper on the 

 Lucia and the various appendices, I have been through Engstrom's mathematical review and 

 agree with him in his conclusions, both as to the result and the time saved by the method. 

 The metacentric height method is an heirloom of the days of ships without the regularity of 

 form which characterizes modern freighters, but I see no reason why, with the same as- 

 sumptions for a starting point, there should be any divergence in the results. 



It would appear that the adoption of the non-sinkable construction for ships has at 

 least as much to recommend it as the construction of fireproof buildings, which has become 

 quite general in the last half century. 



The President : — This paper is now before you for discussion. We will be very glad 

 to hear from any gentleman in the room, a member or not. Is there any question you would 

 like to ask of Mr. Donnelly ? 



Constructor-Commander S. V. Goodall, Royal Navy, Member: — I would like to say that 

 in the early days of the war the British Admiralty, in considering the transportation of troops 

 to France, received many proposals for making ships unsinkable, or, at any rate, difficult 

 to sink. One of the proposals adopted was this method of filling the hold with watertight 

 boxes. 



At that time, of course, there was no experience available to indicate what success the 

 submarine would achieve in attack upon merchant ships and transports, but it was quickly dis- 

 covered that the best method of dealing with this menace was not to protect the ships in this 

 way, but to provide efficient convoys. The lesson to be committed to memory is that the best 

 method of dealing with the submarine menace is to concentrate attention upon the provision 

 of the most efficient means of attack rather than to accept the enemy's attack and merely 

 aim at making the ships unsinkable. Of course, if it were possible without grave attendant 

 disadvantages to provide some effective means of rendering a ship more difficult to sink, it 

 would be unwise not to do so. I use the term "difficult to sink," because the term "unsink- 

 able" is misleading. Any ship can be sunk provided it is struck with a sufficiently large num- 

 ber of torpedoes. 



If it be desirable to provide some means of rendering a ship difficult to sink — and that 

 is entirely a question of policy to be decided by the naval authorities — the following are the 

 lessons which I would draw from our experience during the war. 



In the first place, we must never forget that the submarine has proved to be a very 

 eflfective weapon in attacking merchant ships, and during the years of peace to which we 

 may look forward, our efforts should be directed towards the creation and perfection of 

 weapons that will insure that in any future War the submarine shall not be a weapon as 

 difficult to cope with as it has been during this war. 



Secondly, cargo ships should be larger, and therefore more difficult to sink by one 

 torpedo. 



Finally, and above all, stands the great lesson recorded by the committee appointed 

 in Great Britain to consider the subject of protection against submarine attack, viz., that 



