xl INTRODUCTORY PROCEEDINGS. 
for many people to take passage in the ‘‘biggest ships afloat.’’ In regard to the 
maintenance of speed in rough water, I have on other occasions pointed out what 
seems to me to be the paramount consideration, viz., that the maintenance of speed 
at sea is chiefly dependent upon the relative size of the ship and the waves, and 
particularly their lengths. It is strange to note how little regard has hitherto 
been paid to the considerations to which I have drawn attention in the paper. 
Because ships have been made bigger, there is no reason to anticipate that waves 
will become larger and larger than in the past. The waves of the Atlantic remain 
what Dr. Scoresby discovered-them to be sixty or seventy years ago. The facts 
which I put together more than thirty years ago in my “‘ Manual of Naval Archi- 
‘tecture’? in regard to ocean waves are substantially accepted still after most 
thorough and repeated investigation in recent years. Attention is invited to the 
detailed statement made at the bottom of page 10 and top of page 11 of my paper, 
as to the actual performances of the Mauretania, a ship in which I have a consider- 
able personal interest, but which is mentioned simply as a typical case. If after 
reading that summary any one will assert that for the purpose of securing regularity 
of Trans-Atlantic passages it is necessary to make bigger ships, I cannot argue 
further with him, but I must leave him alone. It seems to me the argument in 
this paper is unanswerable. 
Another consideration which is often overlooked, although it applies to all 
classes of ships is this—the limit of speed at which a ship at sea can be driven— 
when one passes, say, from the torpedo boat destroyer up to a ship as large as the 
Mauretania—is not determined by the size of the ship, but rather by the fact that 
the danger of having the navigating position or the fittings destroyed by the blows 
of the sea is greatly increased if vessels are driven at a high rate of speed through 
heavy seas. This matter was forced on my attention nearly twenty years ago in 
the days when I designed the first torpedo boat destroyers. The cry for higher 
speeds was continually being raised, but it did not come from the men serving in 
destroyers, and it was a fallacy, because the higher speed asked for could not be 
utilized one day out of ten, even in the English Channel. It was only in dead- 
‘smooth water that the designed speeds could be utilized. Last year, the Captain 
of the Lusitania, a most experienced officer, said tome: “Since I have commanded 
this ship I have realized more than ever I did before that although a big ship may 
be driven at high speed in almost any sea, it is not worth doing if it involves the 
risk of green seas coming as high as the navigating station and of the pilot house 
being swept away.” In the navigation of ships of any size, there must come a 
time when the captain, if he is a sensible, wise man, will not incur risks which are 
inevitable if a ship is driven hard against a heavy sea. Some people appear to 
believe if ships were made a thousand feet long that risk would disappear, but 
nothing of the kind could happen. Experienced seamen confirm what I say. 
What I have stated on the lower half of page 11 is also confirmed by experience. 
‘One need not make a ship large in order that she may be steady. One of the 
steadiest ships I have known was the cruiser Inconstant, although she was of less 
op dele 
