108 Garfield Avenue, Madison, New Jersey 07940
October’s bright blue weather had nothing to compare with
that brilliant day in September. Tall white clouds drifted out
across Fishers Island Sound and the wind and sun combined to coat
the Mystic River with sparkling wavelet jewels as I walked out onto
the pier where SABINO was moored. No ship is ever quiet and still.
There is always some movement. I could hear the squeak of her brass
sheathed rubbing strake against the piling as the morning breeze
off the river stirred her at the pier. Two deck hands were
scrubbing down her decks in anticipation of the arrival of the
day’s passengers.
Thus was to be my introduction to the last of the coal burning
coastal steamers that had played such a part in the development
along the Main Coast beginning around 1840. Many were larger than
SABINO and perhaps a few smaller too, but the fact remains that
here is one of the finest examples of that coastal trade and best
of all, she still brings back fond memories of those simpler days
as she goes about her runs on the Mystic River. For, it is here at
the Mystic Seaport that SABINO is preserved and still leads an
active life in daily cruises under steam during the active season
from early spring to late fall.
Probably many a school child can tell you that on August 17,
1807, Robert Fulton’s Clermont . . . actually the NORTH RIVER .
. . made its maiden voyage from New York to Albany on the Hudson
River much to the consternation and awe of the rustics along the
up-river shoreline. Lacking today’s instant communications,
they surely thought, according to accounts at the time, that some
sea monster belching smoke had found its way into the river. This
little paddle steamer was to be the first coastal steamer. It was
followed by the innaugural ocean steamer, the SAVANNAH, in 1819.
This crossing to Liverpool from Savannah, Georgia, was more of a
token beginning since the vessel used its sails for most of the
voyage and kept her paddle wheel safely folded.
Although the development of paddle wheel propelled ships
continued for a number of years, the age of steam at sea really was
technically ready when the Swedish engineer, John Ericsson,
introduced the screw propeller. The first iron hull, screw
propeller, ocean going vessel built in America was the BANGOR,
built in 1884 at Wilmington, Delaware, by Betts & Hollingsworth
Company for the Bangor Steam Navigation Company. This vessel of 212
net tons burthen entered the coast-wise trade as the Bangor Packet
from Boston around Cape Ann and across the Gulf of Maine and up
Penobscot Bay. In later years she was replaced by other vessels and
finally was used by some South American rebels and eventually was a
prize of war to the Venezuelan government.
Maine’s long coastline with watery fingers reaching far
inland and with many off-shore islands was a natural setting for
the development of small steam powered vessels that were completely
independent of wind and tide in narrow waterways or in trips with
cargo to the islands. The G. W. Blunt White Library at the Seaport
has shelves bulging with books and monographs on this era.
There was the GOLDEN ROD built in 1893 at Brewer, Maine, for the
Penobscot Bay trade. She was 71 gross tons in a hull 75 feet long
by 15 foot beam and was powered by a 50 horsepower steam
reciprocating engine driving a screw propeller. Then there was the
VINAL HAVEN built in Searsport in 1892 for service to the off-shore
island of the same name. She was larger at 100 foot length and with
a 135 horsepower engine.
Another packet with an interesting past was the CATHERINE. She
was built in 1893 in Bath, Maine, for the Rockland & Blue Hill
Steamboat Company for the run from Bath to Boothbay Harbor. This
100 foot by 18 foot 161-ton vessel powered with a 130 horsepower
compound engine later was named NAHANT for the Boston-Nahant run,
but eventually ended her days as the ferry boat in New York Harbor
running from the Battery to the Statue of Liberty. What a fitting
finale for a gallant lady in the land of the free.
I had arrived a long time ahead of the first passenger to be
expected. In fact, Captain Chapman had not yet come aboard.
However, the scrub brush detail assured me that I was welcome and
so I stepped aboard by climbing over the port side rail. Now the
other side of the vessel is the gangway of ceremony. Had I entered
the ship via the starboard side I surely would have felt obliged to
salute the Officer of the Watch . . . then a sneaker shod college
student. . . and turned to salute that enormous flag snapping in
the breeze at the stern. As it was I merely tumbled aboard
uncermoniously, camera bag and all, and immediately made my way to
the engine room.
Steamboat SABINO rounds Lighthouse Point astern of the Joseph
Conrad as seen from the deck of the two masted schooner L. A.
Dunton.
This last symbol of early coal fired coastal vessels, SS SABINO,
was built in East Boothbay, Maine, in 1908 by the firm of H. Irving
Adams and, until 1922, carried the name, TOURIST. She is 57′
3′ in length on a beam of 22′ 3′ and draws 6′
4′ of water. The 22′ breadth is a bit misleading since
around 1922, sponsons were added for increased stability for
service in exposed waters, thus her ‘beam’ is really like
15′. Her registered tonnage is 24 gross, 9 net. .. more about
tonnage later. She was originally built with a fire tube boiler of
the Scotch Marine type, probably, though the records are not
completely clear on this for around 1940 she was fitted with an
Almy watertube boiler. Her engine, however, is the original
compound engine built by Paine Engine in Noak, Connecticut, when
the ship was built. We will want to get into the familiar details
of her coal fired steam propulsions plant for those that cherish
old steam power. However, since we are ‘going to sea’ under
steam, perhaps it would be wise to clear up some nautical terms
that might not be as familiar as steam terms.
Length, breadth and draft or depth of water necessary to float
the vessel are somewhat self-explanatory. On the other hand, tons
is not as obvious, especially when the modifier of gross or net is
added. In simple terms, gross tons is the total cubic volume of the
vessel occupied by cargo, passenger, crew and machinery expressed
in cubic feet. One ton is taken as being 100 cubic feet of space.
Since these are long tons or 2240 pound tons, then we can say that
the space density is 22.40 pounds per cubic foot. If we deduct
crew, fuel and machinery space and divide by 100 we will have
‘net’ tons. Now water weighs about 64 pounds per cubic foot
so these ‘space’ type tons do not give any measure of just
how much the vessel weighs fully loaded. Let us take SABINO’s
dimensions of 57 x 15.3 x 6.3 which gives us 5494 cubic feet… if
SABINO was a block of wood floating in the water. But, she is not.
She has fine lines beneath the water and we can use a term used by
marine architects to denote this difference, block coefficient.
Lets’ say she is only 80% like a block and so she displaces
4395 cubic feet of 64 pound seawater. Thus she is 126 tons dead
weight. . . DWT. .. quite different from her registered 24 gross
tons. Passenger and small cargo vessels are usually rated in gross
or ‘space’ tons whereas large bulk carriers such as tankers
use DWT ratings.
For comparison, I looked up the dimensions of the ESSO BAYONNE.
She is 17,000 DWT but only 7,000 gross tons. The displacement
figure is more meaningful for a tanker.
By this time I was in the tiny engine room writing down the
nameplate data from the Almy Water Tube boiler which hydro tests at
225 psig for a 150 psig working pressure. That was easy to find.
Not so for the engine. I crawled all over that engine looking for a
nameplate. Then I straightened up to be looking into a smiling face
topped with tousled hair and complete silence. ‘Oh,’ I
said, ‘I suppose that you would like to go to work down
here.’ There was hardly room for both of us. ‘No,’ he
said, ‘Take your time. It’s a Paine engine.’ ‘No,
there is no nameplate.’ With that I crawled up out of the
‘engine room’ and let Engineer, Bernie O’Brian light
off the kindling wood in the fire box so steam would be ready for
departure at 10:30. Soon he was shoveling in some Pocohantas coal
which is about the only type that he can burn and meet EPA
standards. This $100 per ton fuel is the finest bituminous
anywhere; 2% moisture, 20% volitile, 70.3% fixed carbon, 7.7% ash
proximate analysis and only 0.7% sulfur chemical analysis. You
fellows that have to fire Illinois No. 6 from the Herric seam …
eat your heart out!
Getting a picture of the Paine engine was most difficult since
there is very little space around the engine. However, Naval
Architect Robert C. Allyn has made a sketch that shows that
principal parts of SABINO’s engine. The lettered legend points
out the parts of interest. In the photograph, however, there are
several items of interest. The throttle valve is the hand-wheel
angle valve in the insulated steam line. Just at the top of the
cylinders is a valve in this steam line and a line curving around
the low pressure cylinder head. This is a by-pass direct to the
condenser and is used during start-up of the boiler to prevent
raising the safety valves. In very much larger vessels this line is
used during maneuvering when the load on the boiler is so variable
that it is difficult to maintain constant pressure. The cylinder
drain cocks are the globe valves in the corners of the picture.
These drain into the condensing system also. As can be seen from
the cycle diagram, this is a completely closed cycle. The only make
up water from a tank in the bow of the vessel is that made
necessary by any leakage and the blowing of the whistle. The
exhaust from the low pressure cylinder passes first through a feed
water heater where approximately 10% of the flow is condensed. The
remainder passes to the condenser which is simply some pipes on the
outside of the hull along side of the keel where the cool seawater
condenses the steam back to water. A duplex reciprocating air pump
brings the condensate into a hot-well. This is a three compartment
tank with sponge-like material to absorb any cylinder oil in one
compartment, then sediment drops out in a second. The end
compartment contains the condensate ready to be picked up by the
duplex reciprocating boiler feed pump. Feed water than passes
through the feed heater on its way to the boiler.
There is no super heater in the boiler so quality is probably
around 98%. At normal pressure of 125 psig the steam is about 1175
Btu/pound. Instrumentation is not in the extreme so it is a bit of
guess work on my part, but I figure that with auxiliary pumps and
the main engine the boiler is required to put out about 1300 pounds
per hour at cruising speed. Combustion control on this natural
draft boiler consists of the Engineer’s manual operation of ash
pit and fire doors. So, with such a wide range of excess air,
trying to figure out fuel consumption is only an approximation.
Looks to me like her coal bunkers need to supply at maximum rate
about 130 pounds per hour.
BOILER-CASING REMOVED SABINO’s boiler was built by Almy
Water Tube Boiler Company in 1940 to replace the original fire tube
unit.
It might be interesting to see just how, in a rough cut manner,
the engine got to be sized at 75 horsepower. Calculating the force
necessary to push a boat through the water at a specified speed is
a very complex thing. The resistance is made up of several
components including (1) that portion that makes the waves as the
boat moves, (2) a force of the friction of the water passing along
the hull, (3) another to move a weight of water equal to that of
the boat and (4) wind resistance. A man by the name of Ayres put it
all together in an equation that says that the effective horsepower
is equal to the displacement in tons to the 0.64 power… if that
had been 0.5 it would be square root… times the velocity in knots
cubed (multiplied by itself two times) and the whole thing divided
by a factor that runs around 450 for a vessel in the SABINO class.
We said earlier that her displacement was 126 tons. Just a moment
while I get my Sears Roebuck assembled in Mexico calculator, and do
that 0.64 power. Answer 22. She was intended to run around 10 knots
… 10 nautical miles per hour. How do I know? Well, from the fact
that her length is 57 feet at the water line. She shouldn’t be
driven much faster than a speed equal to the square root of the
water line length which is 7.5 without the friction and
displacement components, which go up at a very fast rate with
increases in speed, making the horsepower excessive. So, all of
this figures out at 49 horsepower at the propeller. The propulsion
efficiency is probably around 65%. There you have it, 75 horsepower
at the engine coupling.
Now, before the Society of Naval Architects, the ASME and the
Gold Seal Engineers have me drawn and quartered let me say that
there is a good bit of coincidence of numbers in the foregoing.
However, I feel that I have taken the reader, who incidently
isn’t sitting for his license, step by step through the
reasoning that has to be negotiated before the keel of any vessel
is ever laid.
By this time Bernie had 125 pounds showing on the big brass
bulkhead mounted pressure gauge. He had been warming up the engine
by letting it run with the docking lines holding us to the pier.
When he was satisfied everything was ready he passed the word to
the bridge. Now, SABINO is a ‘bell boat.’ That is,
communications between bridge and engine room is by means of two
bells. One is an enormous thing like a fire gong in a firehouse.
The other is a jingle bell that sounds as if someone had opened the
door to a country store. The deck hands had cast off the lines and
Captain Chapman rang down for slow ahead. This is one stroke on the
gongone bell. When we approached Dunton Wharf to pick up passengers
he rang one bell meaning stop engine. To check his approach speed
and since ships don’t have brakes he asked for slow astern by
sounding two strokes on the big gong and Bernie had the quadrant in
reverse and the throttle open a turn or two in a flash. Then one
stroke on the bell to stop the engine. At any time that the slow
ahead or slow astern is to be increased then the bridge gives a
pull on the lanyard attached to the jingle bell and the engine room
steps it up a bit. If still not enough, another jingle. If it is
too much then one bell to signal stop and immediately another bell
to signal ahead and now you know the mystery of all that clatter of
bells going on in the engine room. Really quite functional.
If all else fails, there is a speaking tube of about one inch
brass pipe between bridge and engine room. There is a stopper in
each end which in reality is a whistle. Just pull out the stopper
on your end and blow hard to sound the whistle on the other end.
They remove their stopper and speak into the tube with such
admonitions as, ‘Engine room! What are you doing, burning old
rags?’ as the ‘old man’ gets a bit of soot on his white
shirt.
This wasn’t the only ship’s engine room that I had ever
been in, but it was nearly the smallest. I think that the ESSO
JAMESTOWN, 37,000 DWT, was the largest and during sea trials off
the Virginia Capes was a very confusing place. But, it certainly
had to be one in which I could feel a one to one relationship with
the machinery. That old compound reciprocating engine ran as
smoothly as any engine could possibly be expected to run. And, that
little down east packet was as neat as a pin’Bristol
fashion’ is the nautical term for it.
At the period of SABINO’s beginnings was the period in our
national development when our greatest asset, our growing middle
class, began to make itself known. That was the beginning of the
end of the period when only the very, very rich could own a
pleasure boat, one which was powered by a single cylinder steam
engine as was the steam launch NELLIE built in 1872. By 1904 when
the private launch LILLIAN RUSSEL was powered by the then newly
developed naphtha engine capable of about 2 horsepower a man of
means could afford one. But, soon Yankee ingenuity and a developing
market saw the development of the marine gas engine such as the two
cylinder 1913 Palmer Brothers which really was two ‘one
lungers’ bolted together. Others were in the market place too,
Kermath, Universal and Lathrop, to name a few, some of which are
still in the business. That was the beginning of the period when
the working man could own a boat with a motor.
When SS SAVANNAH I crossed the Atlantic it used coal as fuel.
When SS SAVANNAH II made the same voyage in our times it was with
nuclear fuel in her steam plant. I wonder how many more years it
will be before the Sears Catalog has a nuclear powered outboard
motor? Possible? Perhaps. When the BANGOR Packet was built we
didn’t even know about the atom and its power. The first
SAVANNAH threw its ashes overboard. Waste fuel from SAVANNAH II
contains a metal, plutonium, created from uranium within the
reactor, never before known on earth. It is not likely that we will
use nuclear fuel in small engines in the near future due to
radiation problems, but it is entirely conceivable that we will use
some derived fuel safely in the future. The impossible simply takes
a little longer.
Late the next day I stood on the Morgan Wharf to get a last
glimpse of SABINO. Overnight the wind had gone into the
nor’east and the weather was cool and misty. I wanted to get
just one more action picture of her in the stream as she steamed
past. What a sight, looking through the view finder, there she was
with house pennant streaming from the forepeak staff and that
enormous American flag at the stern. Click went the shutter to
catch the moment. As I took the camera from my eye, Captain Chap
man stepped from the wheelhouse to wave, ‘So long.’ I hope
that he heard me when I called back, ‘Thanks for
everything,’ as the last of the coal burning steamboats
disappeared around Lighthouse Point and into the mist.
