ELECTRIC AUXILIARIES ON MERCHANT SHIPS. 181 



heated by electricity. The steering gear was steam. The hoist motors in the boiler rooms 

 were worked with a lever up and down to start and stop. 



In conclusion, referring to the question of salaries, there is another point I would Hke 

 to raise, and that is the question of the status of an electrician on board ship. On one of 

 the Norwegian-American liners, the Stavangerfiord, which I worked on, they had a very 

 good arrangement. Instead of the electrical department being subject to the lowest graded 

 engineer, as in tliis country, it was run on an entirely separate department. The chief elec- 

 trician ranked with the chief machinist. There was a commander engineer over all. The 

 chief electrician messed with the chief machinist, and the chief commander had his quarters 

 with them. The junior electricians messed with the junior engineers. I think the above is a 

 very important point to raise because, as the electric machinery used on board ship gets more 

 complicated, a higher skilled man will have to be employed, and unless sufficient remunera- 

 tion is given and more respect shown, it will be difficult to get a good man to go to sea on 

 ships as an electrician. ' 



Since writing the above I attended the opening meeting of the Liverpool Engineering 

 Society, November 3, when a very interesting address was given by our new president, Jamea 

 B. Wilkie, M. I., Mech. E., M. Inst., N. A., on the "History and Progress of Marine En- 

 gineering." In his address he gave us some details of a new ship belonging to the company 

 he is interested in and which is expected round next Tuesday from the builders. The namej 

 of the vessel is the Aba and she is about 7,000- tons, oil driven; all her auxiliaries are electri- 

 cally driven. The generators, of which there are three in number, are 200 kw. each, and are 

 driven by Diesel engines. : 



Mr. W. McClelland, Visitor: — As to the auxiliaries paper, I am in general agreement 

 with the author. In the British Navy we have for many years run most of our auxiliary 

 machinery electrically. We have winches, capstans, pumps, refrigerating machinery, fans, 

 air compressors, almost every conceivable kind of machinery, running by electricity, and we 

 have had very little difficulty with that machinery; I speak with some authority because, dur- 

 ing my eighteen years of service with the Admiralty, fifteen years of that period was spent 

 as head of the electrical repair department, and I have had to deal with all classes of electri- 

 cal machinery, not only machinery connected with the British Navy, but, during the war, of 

 the American Navy. 



There is one point to which I would particularly like to refer, and that is the ques- 

 tion of insulation. We hear a lot about water washing electrical machinery on the decks. 

 I do not really think that in this country the importance of proper insulation for electrical 

 work for deck machinery has as yet been appreciated. I have visited many of the works 

 in this country, and I am quite sure most of them can make satisfactory material, but most 

 of the materials used are composite materials, and these materials absorb moisture. This 

 means breakdown sooner or later in moist atmosphere laden with salt. 



I am giving you the result of our experience. We have found that the only insulation 

 which stands up imder salt water and sea atmosphere conditions is mica and micanite. For 

 instance, with control gear, with the fingers clamped to a diamond shaped or square bar, 

 which has been insulated with moulded micanite or wrapped micanite thoroughly baked and 

 finished, you will have a thoroughly satisfactory insulating material; whilst at the present 

 time we are carrying out tests on practically every known composite material, I have not 

 yet m.et with the material which I should consider suitable for insulating electrical machinery 

 on deck. 



