96 COMPARATIVE TESTS OF BILGE KEELS AND A GYRO-STABILIZER 
However, we had a good opportunity to make several tests on some of our ships 
that were built at Hog Island. The Government ordered seventy of these condensers 
with 8,000 square feet, of which we have fitted up ten and tested about three. The 
results from these trials, as you will see on page 102, of the paper, were so satisfactory 
to me that I felt there was nothing more to be desired. 
However, the data given there and signed by our engineer, Mr. Wilson, I took 
exception to, because he had it roughly 12 pounds for the General Electric turbines, and 
I understood that 11 pounds would be more nearly correct. But the results are so good 
that I would be fully satisfied with a water rate of 11 pounds instead of 12, because the 
heat transfer is remarkably good. One of the great features 1 was aiming for was to 
be able to take the condensate away from the condenser at as near the temperature 
corresponding to the vacuum as possible, and I think that the results here show that it 
is practically the same temperature. 
I know there is going to be a discussion on the question as to how much was con- 
densed and how much water was used for circulating purposes. However, I think we 
all know that if we take the temperature rise in circulating water and know the British 
thermal units in the steam, we can figure almost as closely as we can weigh the amount 
of circulating water used. 
As to the amount of steam, I think the General Electric Company, which is repre- 
sented here, will give me the exact water rate from tests conducted at their plant. 
Whether or not this will be the same as we would get on board ship, I am unable to 
say, because there are conditions that upset the tests on board ship as compared with 
those made in the plant. 
I have made a table of data of the river trial and then another table of the sea 
trial. They differ somewhat, but the results are very gratifying in each case. 
In addition to the seventy condensers which we are building for the Hog Island 
ships, about twenty other ships are being supplied with these condensers, and three have 
been in use and running now for a period of about six months, in connection with the 
reciprocating engines. While in the case of the reciprocating engine we are not interested 
in high vacuum, I was interested in obtaining as high a temperature of condensate as 
possible, and the engineers who ran these ships noticed a remarkable difference in the 
temperature of the condensate on these reciprocating-engined ships as compared with 
the former ships; in other words, if the outboard delivery temperature was within, say, 
15° of the temperature of the exhaust, the condensate would be probably within 3 or 4°; 
in every case it was much higher than the temperature of the outboard delivery. 
I am sorry I have not been able to run a laboratory test or a more complete test on 
these condensers, but everybody who has anything to do with ships knows that the 
shipowners want the ships delivered to them at the earliest possible moment, and apart 
from the battleship Tennessee, on which Admiral Griffin has kindly ordered a thorough 
test made of this condenser, I could not see my way clear to obtain any better data or 
any further or better information than that taken by various disinterested engineers on 
our trial trips. 
I want to call particular attention to the fact that on all of these trials—and we 
have had a number of them—we could scarcely discover the difference in vacuum at 
the low-pressure turbine and the bottom of the condenser. We used eleven mercury 
gauges in the different parts of the condenser, as will be seen. We calibrated all of 
these gauges, and the loss with the condenser about 12 feet from the low-pressure rotor 
