I have sometimes
come across words that I had to look up for a definition or
clarification of their meaning. It was inevitable that these words
sometimes became research topics of their own. Some of the results are
listed here. Sources are not directly cited, although suggestions for
further reading are given in some cases. There is a Canadian
orientation to many of the entries.
(1) ALLIGATOR see
TUG (61.1).
(2) AUXILIARY
SCHOONER see GOELETTE.
(3) BOOM TUG see
TUG (61.2).
(4) BUNKER COAL
see COAL.
(5) CANADIAN
DRIFTER or C.D. was a fishing vessel type of warship intended for use as
a minesweeper and anti submarine vessel in WW1. The name comes from the
commercial fishing vessels of this type that drifted with their nets.
100 C.D.s were built in Canada in 1917. They were 84' long and 99 tons
displacement. Most of these were used as fishing boats following the
war, while a few became coastal freighters or passenger vessels.
(6) CANALLER was a
cargo vessel built to the dimensions of the Welland and St. Lawrence
canal locks of the time (1887-1956). The locks of these canals were
typically 270' long with a depth over the sill of 14'. The canallers
usually operated within the limits of Port Colborne at the upstream end
and ports on the St. Lawrence at the downstream end. Their most
frequent cargoes were grain and pulpwood, but other bulk cargoes were
also handled. Other canallers, carrying general freight (package
freighters) operated from Montréal to the Lakehead, usually returning
with grain. The fourth Welland canal, with much bigger locks, opened in
1931, but the St. Lawrence locks were not replaced with larger ones
until the Seaway was opened. The fourth Welland canal, and then the
Seaway, together made canallers obsolete. Canallers usually had their
bridge forward in the bows and their machinery aft. The majority of
them were built in Britain. See PACKAGE FREIGHTER.
Further reading:
Gilmore, “The Saint Lawrence River Canals Vessel” (1956)
(7) CANNERY TUG
see TUG (61.3).
(8) CASE OIL
refers to an early method of shipping petroleum products. Petroleum had
become a common cargo for sailing ships beginning in the 1861, usually
originating in American ports such as Philadelphia and NYC.
Petroleum products
were first shipped in wooden barrels that held 42 US or Queen Anne’s
gallons. Wooden barrels could lose up to 15% of their contents en
route, which was quite unacceptable as it increased the already
great risk of fire in a wooden vessel. Therefore, oil was usually
shipped in tin cans enclosed in protective wooden cases. The wooden
case was a frame holding two large tins (often five US gallons each) of
oil or, more often, kerosene. This method reduced, but did not
eliminate, leakage.
Petroleum
was carried in barrels and tins until bulk storage facilities were
available on shore. It then became practical to ship petroleum in
bulk. Case oil continued to be the normal method of distribution on the
Muskoka lakes, for instance, until the extension of roads in the 1950s.
There was a large
profit to be made in the petroleum traffic even using the inefficient
case oil system. For example, in the 1890s oil from the British West
Indies could be bought for about 1s 2d a gallon on site. It sold in
Britain for 4s 6d a quart!
See TANKERS.
Further reading:
Lubbock: COOLIE SHIPS AND OIL SAILORS (1935)
(9) CATTLE BOAT
was a vessel used to ship live cattle to market, particularly across the
North Atlantic to Europe. This was a common practice that slightly
predated cooling and refrigeration, and was used concurrently with those
methods.
Sailing vessels
sometimes carried cattle across the Atlantic, but it was usually with
breeding stock headed west. The British repealed the laws against the
importation of live cattle in 1844. Small steamers were carrying cattle
in European waters in the 1860s. The first large eastbound
trans-Atlantic shipment of live cattle was in a British vessel named
European in 1874.
Cattle boats were
common on the North Atlantic and other fairly short routes, but not used
on very long routes such as from Australia to the UK because feeding and
caring for large numbers of cattle was impractical over those
distances. The cattle were normally carried in a freighter’s holds or
in temporary wooden structures on deck. Even some passenger liners, for
instance, the Allan liner Buenos Ayrean, were built to carry
limited numbers of cattle. Entering service in 1880, she was the first
steel hulled vessel in trans-Atlantic service. The first purpose-built
vessels to carry a full cargo of live cattle were the White Star Line’s
Cufic and Runic in 1888-89. Capable of a respectable 13
knots, they could each carry 1,000 head of cattle.
Some of the
trans-Atlantic cattle boats carried emigrants westward as a backhaul
cargo. They were accommodated in the same spaces the cattle occupied.
Although cattle
boats continued to be used on less frequently traveled routes, by the
turn of the century fast reefer vessels were used on the long distance
routes where their cost could be justified. See REFRIGERATION.
(10) CHILLED MEAT see REFRIGERATION.
(11) COAL was a
preferred fuel to wood because it was more compact and generated much
more heat. Welsh steam coal was the usual standard by which others were
judged. It was Britain’s only large quantity bulk export (other bulk
exports, such as brick, were usually just as ballast). Coal was a
common backhaul cargo for vessels that had brought other cargoes to the
UK. One consequence of this cheap transport was that most of the time
Welsh coal was cheaper in New Brunswick than Cape Breton coal was.
Welsh coal was not
only cheaper than coal from many places, it was also safer to
transport. Coal could overheat and explode in a ship’s holds or
bunkers, but Welsh coal did not deteriorate in hot conditions as much as
coal from some other sources. It became the preferred steam coal to use
in the late 19th Century.
1861-65 Britain
exported a total of 8,482 tons of coal
1891-95 Britain
exported a total of 40,517 tons of coal
1911-13 Britain
exported a total of 89,860 tons of coal
Improvements in
steam technology, the greater availability of bunker coal around the
world, and the construction of the Suez Canal meant that steam
eventually became competitive even on the long routes to China and
Australasia.
In 1865 steam was
competitive with sail from the UK to the Mediterranean, or about 3,000
miles.
In 1870 steam was
competitive with sail from the UK to Bombay via Suez, or about 6,200
miles.
In 1890 steam was
competitive with sail from the UK to the west coast of North America, or
about 13,500 miles.
The terms applied
to coal used for marine purposes were bunker coal (because it was kept
in bunkers near the boilers), or steam coal.
Further reading:
Kaukianinen, “Coal and Canvas: Aspects of the Competition Between Steam
and Sail, c. 1870-1914” in Research In Maritime History No. 27
(2004); Palmer, “The British Coal Export Trade 1850-1913” in Volumes
Not Values.
(12) COMPOUND
ENGINE was a two-cylinder steam engine where the high-pressure cylinder
exhausted into a low-pressure cylinder, thereby using the steam twice
and cutting fuel consumption by 30-50% compared to a simple Watt
engine. Englishman John Hornblower patented the first compound engine
in 1781 but his engine was not efficient enough for practical use.
Improved designs came from Britons Arthur Wolff in 1811 (using higher
steam pressures) and William McNaught in 1845. The first practical
marine application was an engine designed by Benjamin Tibbets (1818-53)
of New Brunswick for the Saint John River steamer Reindeer in
1845. The Thames steamer Cricket got a compound engine in 1846.
Messrs. Randolph &
Elder in Scotland developed a compound engine in 1853. It required more
steam than the boilers of the time could practically supply, so
refinements had to be made. The compound engine generally required a
boiler pressure of at least 40 psi. They first applied the concept to
ocean-going vessels with the construction of
Brandon
in 1854 using Wolff type engines, followed by Inca and
Valparaiso
in 1856, all for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. This firm was
particularly interested in compound engines for their ships because of
the lack of bunker coal on the west coast of South America, which they
served. P&O ordered their first compound engined ship in 1861.
Alfred Holt’s
(1829-1922) “Blue Funnel Line” made the first application of compound
engines on routes to the Far East. His Cleator of 1864 had
boilers working at 60 psi and a compound engine of improved design. She
was the first of a series of compound engined ships ordered by the
company for the eastern routes. The first of the new ships were
Agamemnon,
Ajax
and Achilles, of 2,280 tons gross, which entered service in
1866. They had boilers at 70 psi and 945 ihp engines resulting in fuel
consumption of 2.25 lb per hp per hour. Even going around the Cape of
Good Hope, as the Suez Canal was not yet open, this innovation made
steam competitive on routes to the East.
Compound engines
made it practical for steam to compete with sail on long voyages because
the ship could now carry enough coal to complete her voyage and still
have a paying cargo. See SCOTCH BOILER and TRIPLE EXPANSION ENGINE.
Further reading:
Craig, The Ship, Steam Tramps and Cargo Liners (1980)
(13) CONSORT
BARGES were towed by steamers of about the same size. Consort barges
included former sailing ships, former steamers and sometimes purpose-
built vessels. These barges existed on both salt water and the Great
Lakes, and included bulk carriers as well as some tank barges. Some of
those on the lakes were whalebacks. The consort barge principle was
that one engine could power twice as much carrying capacity and still
fit the restricted wharves, docks and canal locks of the time. See
WHALEBACK.
(14) CONTAINER SHIP is a vessel
constructed to carry cargo in intermodal containers. The containers are
carried in stacks, and loaded and unloaded by huge shoreside cranes.
The cranes are adjacent to a large space where containers may be
stacked, sorted, or put on to trucks or trains. The reverse process
also happens there.
It is common to attribute the
“invention” of the container ship to an American, Malcolm MacLean, who
converted two tankers to carry a deck cargo of truck vans in 1958. He
followed with a class of purpose-built container ships that ran from
American Gulf ports to Atlantic ports.
MacLean probably was the first to
utilize containers the size of truck vans. But, there were actually at
least two previous container operations. The United SS Co. of
Copenhagen may have been the first. In 1950 they built two coastal
vessels to carry cargo, including cases of Danish beer, in containers
that could be moved directly from ship to road transport. A second,
more sophisticated, operation was that of British Yukon Ocean Services,
a subsidiary of the White Pass and Yukon Rlwy. Beginning in 1956 this
Canadian company operated an intermodal truck-train-ship network that
linked the Yukon points with Vancouver BC by way of Skagway Alaska. The
service made possible the export of ore from Yukon mines to Skagway by
rail, and then to Vancouver by specialized container ships. From there
the ore was taken to a refinery by rail. General merchandise and
machinery were shipped north on the return trip. See TEU.
(15) CRIMPS were
people in the business of providing crews for vessels about to leave
port. The vessels needing crew members were usually sailing vessels.
Crimps were not usually reputable people.
There were some
ports where it was always difficult to obtain crews, and towards the end
of the 19th century finding a crew became increasingly
difficult in virtually all ports. Because of the customarily long wait
in port between voyages most of a sailing vessel's crew would sign off
and go to another vessel that was leaving harbour soon, or, if the
location were especially desirable such as Honolulu, an Australian port
or San Francisco, they might desert or not sign on again. In 1900 over
1,000 British seamen deserted in the port of San Francisco alone.
It became
customary to rely on crimps who would deliver crew members, often drunk,
just out of jail, beaten up or heavily in debt, in return for a fee.
The crimps in Québec City, Shanghai and west coast American ports such
as Portland and San Francisco charged particularly high fees for what
were usually poor quality men. In the early 19th Century in
Québec City crimps were paid between £14-£20 per man delivered on
board. It was common for the crimps to get their men off incoming
vessels before they even had a chance to get ashore. Crimps were known
to board ships and kidnap crew members for sale to other vessels, before
the seamen had even been paid for the voyage just ending. The crimp and
the ship’s master would split the unclaimed wages. Masters were also
sometimes paid to allow the crimps to operate on their vessels. In
other cases crimps used guns to get their way.
The crimps in
Shanghai were so notorious that to be “Shanghaied” came to mean to be
taken against one’s will.
The crimps in
Québec City only worked there seasonally, and often moved their
operations to New Orleans during the winter. Large numbers of vessels
would need crews in New Orleans to move the season’s cotton crop from
October to March.
As law enforcement
was increased in Québec City, and the timber trade carried in sailing
vessels died off, crimping decreased and no longer existed there by the
end of the 19th century.
Further reading:
Fingard, Jack In Port (1982); Hugill, Sailortown (1967)
(16) DEALS were
sawn pine or spruce lumber for construction purposes. The term appears
to have been used most often in the Maritime provinces, and of course,
in the UK. Often carried as deck cargo, and subject to the stress of
weather, deals were sometimes jettisoned or lost accidentally.
(17) FAIRMILE
usually means a Fairmile Type B, a British designed anti-submarine motor
launch built during WW2 that was 107' long on the waterline, had
gasoline engines and twin screws. 80 of them were built in Canada.
Some served in the RCN into the 1950s. Some of them were converted to
coastal freighters, excursion vessels and yachts after the war. Note:
there were also Fairmile “A”s (MLs), “C”s (MGBs), and “D”s (MTB/MGBs).
Some British-built “D”s served in the RCN during the war.
(18) FAST
FREIGHTER was a term for a small fast cargo vessel involved in the
liquor trade during prohibition. Most vessels in the trade, however,
were too slow to be termed fast freighters.
(19) FIDDLE BOAT
was a side-wheel paddler built for the narrow locks on the Rideau and
Ottawa River canals. They were especially common in the 1840s and
1850s. The paddle wheels were recessed into the hull. This made it
possible for the hull to be as wide as possible and still fit through
the narrow locks. From above the hull would look like a fiddle, with
the paddles in the narrow part. It was a very inefficient method of
propulsion.
(20) GOELETTE was
an auxiliary schooner, a small, low-powered wooden motor vessel with one
or two masts. Even if fitted, sails were the secondary source of
power. Goélettes were common on the lower St. Lawrence. They were
called goélettes (schooners) in the tradition of their sail-powered
predecessors. Goélettes were usually engaged in the pulpwood trade and
were almost invariably family owned and operated. Most goélettes were
less than 100 feet long. Only one of them (A. Tremblay of 1916)
is known to have been steam powered, the rest had heavy oil,
conventional diesel, or gasoline engines.
(21) GUANO is the
dung of seabirds, which is found in thick beds on some islands and
headlands. Recorded thickness on some of the Peruvian islands has
exceeded 150’. It was once calculated that one million seabirds, left
undisturbed on an island off the coast of Peru, would produce 11,000
tons of guano per year. It was exported worldwide in the 19th
Century to be used as fertilizer, being introduced to Europe in the
1840s.
Agriculturally
useful guano is usually found in arid regions between the equator and 20
degrees south. Seabird guano in these regions is rich in nitrogen and
phosphorous because of the bird’s fish diet, and the lack of water to
wash the nitrogen away. This seabird guano might also include some
guano from seals and penguins.
The most common
source for guano were islands off the coast of Peru including the
Chincha, Ballestas and Lobos groups and the islands of Macabi, Ferrol
and Guanape. Other sites were Ichaboe Island off what is now Angola,
some of the Tristan da Cunha group in the Atlantic, Gough Island 250
miles SSE of the Tristan group, Browse Island in the Indian Ocean,
Kooria Mooria Island off Muscat in the Arabian Sea, some coastal islands
off South Africa, and Canton Island and other members of the Phoenix
group off New Zealand.
When Peruvian
guano first began to be shipped to the United States and Europe it was
mined and loaded by the crews of the ships that came to carry it away.
Chinese coolies were soon imported to do the work. They dug the guano
and took it to loading chutes for the ships under the cliffs. For both
the ship crews and the coolies, the work was in equatorial heat and
amongst dense clouds of guano dust.
The coolies had a
very short life expectancy because of the working conditions. At least
the ship crews would eventually leave, but the coolies could not. At
its height in the Peruvian islands, the cost of the guano delivered to
the chutes was 8s a ton. A coolie could dig 6-8 tons a day. The great
powers intervened to prohibit the importation of coolies in 1858.
Ships hauling
guano were said to be dung droughing. The trade was not popular. It
involved long hot waits at anchor before being allowed to load. Three
to six months was not an uncommon time to wait, and then load, guano.
The famous Canadian packet Marco Polo became a timber and guano
carrier late in her career. She once spent an extraordinary 15 months
waiting to load guano. Once a vessel had carried a cargo of guano she
was unlikely to get a cargo of foodstuffs ever again.
The heat of the
guano islands was dangerous for the ships as well as for the men. Both
planks and oakum caulking shrank, opening spaces in the hull. Some,
such as the Saint John ship Howard D. Troop, sank because the
loading of the heavy guano put too many of these open spaces below the
water line.
The easily
accessible guano deposits were severely depleted by 1880, which is when
nitrates began to be popular as fertilizer. See NITRATES.
(22) IN BALLAST
means a vessel does not have a paying cargo. For wooden sailing vessels
the holds would be empty except for whatever solid ballast, such as
stone or brick, was needed to keep the vessel upright in the water.
Early Portuguese whalers in Labrador brought red roof tiles as ballast,
and the tiles could be used in buildings ashore. Many of them were
simply thrown overboard instead, and that is how Red Bay got its name.
Metal-hulled ships usually have tanks in their hulls that hold water for
ballast.
(23) LAKE TYPE was
a WW1 standard three island freighter class built in large numbers in
American Great Lakes yards. They were small enough to fit through the
St Lawrence canals. There were 430 vessels in the class, and some
additional vessels of an engines-aft type not included in the total.
Most of them were not completed until after the war ended. A few Lake
type steamers wound up in Canadian commercial service. The Canadian
government shipbuilding programme during the war included many similar
vessels, most of which were sold off in the 1920s. Both American and
Canadian-built programmes included many ships originally ordered by the
British. See THREE ISLAND.
Further reading:
Dowling, Know Your Lakers of World War 1 (1978).
(24) LINER
describes a vessel on a regular scheduled service. A hundred and eighty
years ago most vessels were still sail-powered. Commercial vessels left
port only when they had a full cargo, and the duration of a voyage would
be known only very approximately. It was therefore impossible to state
definite departure and arrival dates. Some entrepreneurs reasoned that
a relatively short route, with heavy traffic, would be able to support a
service with vessels departing and arriving at scheduled times.
The trans-Atlantic
routes seemed to best meet the above criteria. The first liner service
began in 1818. This was the famous American “Black Ball” line of sail
packets between New York and Liverpool. They left port on schedule
whether they had a full cargo or not. Of course, being sailing vessels,
they could not guarantee the exact date of arrival.
There was also a
British company known as Black Ball. It began operating sailing packets
between the UK and Australia in 1852. Many of its vessels, including
the famous Marco Polo, were built in Canada.
J&R Reed and R&E
Wright of Saint John NB and Fernie Brothers of Liverpool ran the first
Canadian liner service in 1852-54. They made eight or nine
trans-Atlantic departures per year carrying immigrants westbound and
deals eastbound. They carried 6,000 immigrants to Canada between 1852
and 1854. Before the line was wound up they had ordered two steamers to
run Saint John-St John's-Liverpool but the new ships were apparently
sold before entering service. See DEALS.
(25) LUMBER
SCHOONER see STEAM SCHOONER.
(26) MICKEY MOUSE
see MOTOR MINESWEEPER.
(27) MOTOR
MINESWEEPER was a British designed WW2 wooden coastal minesweeper with
gasoline engines. They became especially useful after the Germans
invented magnetic mines. A motor minesweeper was commonly called a
“Mickey Mouse”. 18 were built in Canada to a 105’ design. Motor
minesweepers could be built in yards not normally used for warship
construction, such as those that usually built wooden fishing vessels.
Some of the Canadian motor minesweepers became fishing vessels after the
war, others became coastal freighters and some went to the Soviet Navy.
(28) NITRATES from
Western South America, particularly Peru, began to be popular as
fertilizer when guano deposits were severely depleted in the 1880s.
Nitrates were mined inland and carried to the coast in bags on the backs
of mules. Compared to loading guano, loading a ship with nitrates was
much simplified, and could be done by a small group of men. See GUANO.
(29) OWNER does
not necessarily mean 100% ownership of a vessel. If a vessel was owned
in 64ths, it might not even mean 33 or more shares. Sometimes the owner
given in the registers was simply the individual with the largest number
of shares. The owner shown was more often the one of the several
different owners who undertook to actually run the vessel, the managing
owner.
(30) PACKAGE
FREIGHTER was a type of freighter (canaller) capable of navigating the
small St. Lawrence canals and seaworthy enough to operate on the open
lakes. The carried general freight (“package freight”) from Montreal to
the Lakehead. The freight was carried in a deck below the upper deck,
with doors in the hull to give access from the sides. Most of them also
had elevators between the freight deck and the upper deck, and some
cargo handling booms for deck cargo. The backhaul cargo was usually
grain in the main hold of the vessel. The last package freighters,
built for CSL in the 1950s, had no deck cargo handling equipment. Most
of their cargo was on pallets handled by forklifts. These vessels found
a large amount of business in auto parts. See CANALLER.
(31) PADDLE WHEELS
were the first widely used method of propelling steamships. They were
fitted either at the sides, stern, or in the centre of the hull.
Paddles had many advantages, including the ability to be mounted on
shallow-draft hulls, and in the case of sidewheels, maneuverability.
Paddle wheels were
not that efficient at transforming the power of the engine into movement
through the water. They were exposed to damage from large waves or
debris, and they forced the placement of a vessel’s engines where the
paddle wheels would be located. Feathering paddle wheels improved the
efficiency, but were complex and even more subject to damage in, for
instance, waters where floating logs and debris were common.
Sidewheels, which
allowed the best sea-going hull shape, were problematic in a rolling
vessel where the wheels might be alternatively lifted out of the water.
The floats of paddle wheels were designed to operate at a certain depth
of immersion. Their efficiency therefore changed when a vessel’s
draught changed.
Even after the
introduction of the propeller, paddle wheels continued to be used where
shallow draft or maneuverability were important. The Admiralty built a
class of paddle-wheeled tugs in the 1950s. They were diesel-electric
and were intended to work docking aircraft carriers where
maneuverability was important. The last large steam paddlewheeler built
in Canada was the
Klondike
of 1937 for the Yukon River. See PROPELLER.
(32) PARK ship
refers to one of the WW2 war emergency standard freighters built in
Canadian yards for the Park SS Co. of 1942. The 10,000 ton 5 hatch type
was the most common (354 completed as freighters, naval auxiliaries or
tankers), but there was also a 4,700 ton three island type (42
completed). Additionally, six small tankers were built for Park SS.
The names of ships built in Canada for Park SS ended in the word
“Park”. Others were built in Canada for the British Ministry of War
Transport, and had names beginning with the word “Fort”. See THREE
ISLAND.
Further reading:
Heal, A Great Fleet of Ships (1999); Mitchell & Sawyer, The
Oceans, The Forts & The Parks (1966)
(33) PIG BOAT see
WHALEBACK.
(34) PROPELLER is
a type of propulsion based on the screw. The general form of the
propeller, as we commonly know it, came from Englishman Francis Petit
Smith who experimented with an Archimedes screw in a 30’ boat on the
Paddington Canal in 1836. Almost half of the screw broke off during the
trials, and the speed of the test vessel unexpectedly increased.
John Ericsson, a
Swede, built the Francis B. Ogden in Liverpool in 1837. She had
a propeller, and was followed by the iron
New Jersey
ex Robert F. Stockton, built in the UK that crossed the Atlantic
by sail to be used as a canal boat. Ericsson went to the United States
himself and was responsible for the design and construction of the USS
Monitor.
The Archimedes,
fitted with a propeller of Smith’s design, circumnavigated Britain in
1840 and later went to Portugal. The famous test between HMS Rattler
and HMS Alecto occurred in 1843. The two warships, of about the
same size and horsepower, were tied together. Rattler had a
propeller. Alecto had paddlewheels. A tug-of-war followed, and
Rattler towed her opponent backwards.
Further progress
was limited, however, because the propeller required higher speed
engines than were available at the time. Another limitation on the
introduction of the propeller was the need for as inflexible hull as
possible, in order to protect the propeller shaft. Iron hulls seemed to
provide the answer. An iron hull could be made that was much stronger
and more rigid than a wooden hull. See PADDLE WHEELS.
(35) REFRIGERATION
was unknown at sea until the late 1870s. The historic means of shipping
meat products without spoiling was to reduce the carcass to tallow. New
Zealand lamb, for instance, reached overseas markets that way.
The first
artificial method of shipping dairy products and slaughtered meat was
chilling. Chilled beef began to cross the Atlantic from the United
States to Britain in 1873. It was especially popular on the Northern
route from Canada to Britain through the Strait of Belle Isle. Thomsons
(the Battle Line) began to transport chilled beef on this route in 1880,
and found the lower ambient temperature encountered on the route to be a
definite advantage.
Refrigeration,
with frozen instead of chilled cargo, began with the French La
Frigorfique of 1876 and the more successful
Paraguay
of 1878. She could carry 5,500 beef carcasses, but the French did not
capitalize on the experiment. The first British reefer vessel was the
SS Strathleven in 1879, which was modified from a regular cargo
steamer. In addition to a large general cargo, Strathleven
carried 40 tons of butter, beef, lamb and mutton from Australia to
Britain in 1879. The sailing ship
Dunedin,
fitted with a steam engine to run her refrigeration plant, brought the
first frozen New Zealand lamb to Britain in 1882.
Refrigeration made
it practical for Europeans to import meat and dairy products from South
America, Australia and New Zealand. Many contended, however, that
chilled meat tasted much better than refrigerated meat. So chilling
continued to be used as a shipping method especially on the North
Atlantic. Another factor at play was that fitting refrigeration
equipment in a typical freighter doubled her cost. See CATTLE BOAT.
Further reading:
Craig, The Ship, Steam Tramps and Cargo Liners 1850-1950 (1980)
(36) RUM RUNNER is
a generic term applied to vessels running liquor into countries or
provinces under prohibition. While Canadians, especially those in the
Maritimes, drank a lot or rum, Americans consumed very little of it.
Bottles labeled scotch, gin and bourbon were far more popular in the
U.S., regardless of whatever was really in them. To be accurate,
vessels that traded into the United States should not therefore be
referred to as rumrunners.
(37) SALVAGE BOAT
is a powerful but very small tug used to recover lost logs whether
floating or on the beach. Most of them look like pleasure boats or
fishing boats rather than tugs. These vessels are found in British
Columbia and the American Pacific Northwest where logs are often moved
in booms. Logs frequently escape from booms. Most of these tugs are
owned by individuals, aka beachcombers, who sell the logs back to a
co-op of the companies that lost them in the first place. See SALVAGE
TUG (61.4).
(38) SALVAGE TUG
see TUG (61.4).
(39) SCHOONER
originally meant a simple type of two masted sailing vessel with fore
and aft sails. They existed in embryonic form (without a headsail) in
the Netherlands as early as 1630. A picture exits from 1697 that shows
a schooner with a headsail. Yet, a two-masted vessel launched in 1713
is popularly considered to be the first schooner. The reason for that
belief might be that she was built in Massachusetts, by a Captain
Robinson of Gloucester, and therefore has been publicized by the
Americans.
Registers
sometimes listed brigantines (2 masts, square rigged on fore, and fore
and aft rigged on main), topsail schooners (similar to a brigantine but
with fewer square sails on the foremast) and barquentines (usually three
masts, square rigged on the fore, and fore and aft rigged on the
remainder) as schooners.
Three masted
schooners are referred to as ”terns” in Atlantic Canada. The Americans
built over 1,500 of them 1870-1900. They were cargo vessels intended
for the lumber and coal trades. As well, almost all Canadian terms were
cargo vessels. The first Canadian tern was Bonito built in
1857. An all-time total of over 800 terns were built in Canada. A
large increase in their construction happened at the end of WW1 when a
jump in freight rates led to the building of about 150 freight
schooners, 150 terns and two barquentines. The last Canadian-built
tern, the Mary R. Brooks, was begun in 1920 but not launched
until 1926.
Four masted and
five masted schooners are usually referred to as such. Beginning in
1879, over 300 four masted schooners were built in North America,
including 41 built in Canada. The first Canadian-built four master was
Uruguay
in 1889, and the last was Whitebelle, launched in 1920.
Beginning in 1888
the Americans built over 130 five masted schooners, half of which were
built at the end of WW1 with auxiliary engines. The French ordered 34
of the later group. Only 18 five masted schooners appear to have been
built in Canada, all on the west coast and all at the end of WW1. Six
of them were ordered by the French but wound up under Canadian
registry. In addition, one ex-American five masted schooner was
registered in Canada 1940-41 (City of
Alberni
ex Vigilant). No Canadian schooners had more than five masts, although
the Americans built several with six masts beginning in 1900, and one
with seven masts.
Big schooners required a smaller crew
than equivalent sized square-rigged vessels did. A hypothetical example
was that a 500 ton schooner would require a crew of seven or eight men.
A 500 ton square-rigged vessel would require a crew of 10 to 12 men.
Seagoing wages varied between $12 and $25 a month in the late 19th
Century. Since the real running costs of a sailing vessel were the cost
of maintenance and the wages paid to the crew, a reduction in crew size
could make a real difference in the balance sheet.
Schooners with
more than four masts generally turned out to be awkward to handle. In
addition, a higher proportion of big schooners were lost at sea than
were smaller ones, possibly due to the strains the additional fore and
aft sails put on their hulls.
A large number of
the Canadian and Newfoundland cargo schooners and terns were sold when
the bottom fell out of the overseas fish markets in the early 1920s.
Many of them had been employed carrying fish to markets in Spain,
Portugal, the West Indies and Brazil. But auxiliary cargo schooners
continued to be built into the 1940s, particularly in Newfoundland.
Some
Maritime-registered schooners and terns were in the liquor trade during
prohibition. The Malahat on the West coast and Cap Nord
on the East coast (both five masted) also played prominent roles as
supply vessels for the actual smugglers. Cap Nord was one of
those originally ordered by the French on the West coast. Many of the
smugglers were converted from fishing or cargo schooners. Other
schooners, such as the famous I’m Alone, were purpose-built for
the trade.
Further reading:
Anderson, The Sailing Ship (1926); Carse, The Twilight of the
Sailing Ship (1965); Morris, Four Masted Schooners of the East
Coast (1975); Spicer, Sails of the Maritimes (1960)
(40) SCOTCH
BOILERS were amongst the first cylindrical boilers, as opposed to the
square or rectangular boilers previously used. Apparently known as
“Scotch” boilers because of their place of origin, the first known
installation was by Randolph, Elder & Co. in the McGregor Laird
of 1862. These were fire-tube boilers, where the heat (inside tubes
about 3.5” in diameter) was passed through the water to heat it. The
furnaces were in large tubes inside the water tank, further increasing
the transfer of heat. Scotch boilers were better able to withstand high
pressures because most flat surfaces had been eliminated in their
design. The almost simultaneous introduction of steel boilers furthered
the increase in maximum possible pressure.
Scotch boilers at
125 psi were first introduced in the
Aberdeen,
built in 1881. She had a Kirk triple expansion engine and used only
60% of the coal that would have been required for a compound engine with
a conventional boiler. The combination of Scotch boilers and triple
expansion engines became the standard for freighters into the 1930s.
The end result of
the gradual increase in efficiency was enormous. A square boiler
producing steam at 40 psi, attached to a Watt engine, might burn 10
pounds of coal per horsepower per hour. A Scotch boiler, producing
steam at 200 psi, attached to a triple expansion engine, might burn 1
pound of coal per horsepower per hour. See COMPOUND and TRIPLE
EXPANSION engines.
Further reading:
Gardiner (ed), The Advent of Steam, The Merchant Steamship Before
1900 (1991)
(41) SEALER was
not simply a vessel that went to the ice front once or twice a year.
Sealers often worked at other jobs when not sealing. These other tasks
included service as whalers, coasters, Northern supply vessels and
colliers. Just as sealers often worked at other tasks, vessels built
for other purposes were sometimes employed on the seal hunt, e.g. some
of Bowring’s passenger liners regularly showed up at the ice front.
Many
sealer/whalers were purpose built for the job, especially a series built
in Dundee Scotland in the 1870s and 1880s. These were heavily
constructed wooden auxiliary barques. Some of them built for
Newfoundland owners, including Bear and Terra Nova, were
used for polar exploration.
(42) SEEKER TUG
see TUG (61.5).
(43) SPLINTER
FLEET refers to a group of small wooden coastal cargo vessels built by
the Newfoundland government during WW2 to replace larger steel steamers
that had been taken over for war service. The splinter fleet vessels
were 124' long and 334 gross tons. They were named
Bonne Bay,
Burin, Clarenville, Codroy, Exploits,
Ferryland, Glenwood,
Placentia,
Trepassy and Twillingate. Most survived under Canadian
registry postwar.
(44) STANDARD
DISPLACEMENT see TONS DISPLACEMENT.
(45) STEAM COAL
see COAL.
(46) STEAM
SCHOONER was an American term for a small wooden vessel engaged in the
coastal lumber trade from Washington, Oregon and California ports. They
usually, but not always, had engines aft. Many of them normally carried
most of their cargo of lumber on deck. These vessels operated from the
1880s to the 1920s. Some of the steam schooners traded as normal
coasters, and sometimes came to Canadian ports.
Further
reading: Newell & Williamson, Pacific Lumber Ships (1960)
(47) STEMWINDER an
American term for a vessel with bridge and engines aft.
(48) TANKER is a
vessel for carrying liquids in bulk. These liquids include petroleum
products (sometimes as a liquefied gas), vegetable oils, acid, asphalt
and wine. The first two sailing vessels intended to carry oil in bulk
were built in the UK in 1863. Both had iron hulls. A steam tanker to
carry bulk kerosene, the Zoroaster, was built for the Nobel
interests in 1877. Built in Sweden, she was a coastal vessel carrying
only 250 tons, but she was successful. Her boilers were fitted to burn
oil instead of coal.
In 1885 an
ocean-going steam tanker was built in the UK for German owners. This
ship was the first to use large tanks on board, filled and emptied by
pipes leading ashore, for shipping petroleum. The Glückauf, as
she was named, had a layout that was used by tankers for almost
100 years after. Her boilers and engine were aft and her bridge
amidships. Glaükauf could carry the equivalent of 23,000 barrels of
oil. She could discharge it in three days at the most, compared to
weeks if it were actually in barrels. See CASE OIL.
Further
reading: Dunn, The World’s Tankers (1956)
(49) TERN is an
Atlantic Canada term for a three-masted schooner. See SCHOONER.
(50) TEU, or twenty-foot equivalent
unit, is the standard measurement for container ships. Most containers
today are two TEU in length and are built of steel. Some containers
have canvas tops instead of steel ones. Refrigerated containers are
available. Containers are inter-modal in that on any particular trip
they may be moved by any combination of highway tractors, rail flatcars
or ships. Throughout their trip from point A to point B only the
container itself is moved, the cargo inside is not unpacked and repacked
as the container changes modes of travel. The change from one mode to
another is carried out at specialized terminals. See CONTAINER SHIP.
(51) THREE ISLAND
is a term to describe an ocean going vessel with a raised forecastle,
midships bridge and machinery structure, and poop. These “islands” are
separated by lower well decks. The design may have evolved from
modifications the Admiralty made to chartered colliers during the
Crimean War. They wanted to protect flush-decked vessels from being
swept by head or stern seas, and to protect the engine and boiler room
spaces.
The fo’c’stle
protected the anchor gear from head seas, and increased the vessel’s
freeboard forward. The bridge house amidships protected the engine room
skylights. The poop protected the steering gear from stern seas. Three
island vessels usually had one funnel.
This was a very
common, almost universal, freighter design until about 1920, especially
for tramps. After that higher-freeboard flush-decked freighters with
bridge and engines amidships became the norm. See TRAMP.
Further reading:
Craig, The Ship, Steam Tramps and Cargo Liners 1850-1950 (1980)
(52) TONNES are
metric tons. One short ton (2,000 lbs) is 0.9072 tonnes.
(53) TONS
DEADWEIGHT is the weight of cargo that a ship can carry, and is the
standard measurement for tankers.
(54) TONS
DISPLACEMENT or “standard displacement” is a naval measurement of
tonnage as defined by the Washington Treaty of 1922. It is the actual
weight of the water displaced by a vessel under prescribed conditions,
or if you like, the warship's total weight with certain amounts of
stores, ammunition and fuel on board.
(55) TONS GROSS is
the usual measurement of size for ocean freighters and passenger ships.
It is not a unit of weight at all, but of enclosed volume where 100
cubic feet = 1 ton. The origin of this was the number of tuns, or large
barrels of wine, that a medieval merchant ship could carry. The metric
equivalent of a gross ton is 2.83 cubic metres.
(56) TR refers to
a class of minesweeping trawlers built in Canada during WW1. These were
similar to the British “Castle” class, but the Canadian ones were
numbered rather than named. An example would be TR50. 60 were built in
Canada 1917-19. They were 125' long and 275 tons displacement. Some
were lent to the USN in 1918-19. Most became fishing vessels after the
war.
(57) TRACTOR TUG
see TUG (61.6).
(58) TRAMP is a
vessel taking opportunity cargoes, i.e., operating without a fixed
schedule and route. Tramps usually carry bulk cargoes. Before
telegraph communication made control by owners common, it was the
vessel’s master who found cargoes through the vessel’s agents in
whatever port the vessel was in. Steam tramps, designed and built as
such, became particularly profitable with the introduction of the Scotch
boiler and the triple expansion engine. For instance, the Swedish
Oscar II, which was built in the UK in 1896, burned only 14 tons of
coal a day. She was also one of the first Trunk Steamers. See SCOTCH
BOILER, THREE ISLAND, TRIPLE EXPANSION ENGINE and TRUNK STEAMER.
Further reading:
Craig, The Ship, Steam Tramps and Cargo Liners 1850-1950 (1980)
(59) TRIPLE
EXPANSION ENGINE is a three-cylinder version of the compound engine.
Alexander Carnegie Kirk built the first practical triple expansion
engine in Scotland in 1869. Kirk was a former employee of the firm of
Elder's who had developed the compound engine for seagoing vessels. In
1880 another shipyard, Gray's, built Sexta with triple expansion
engines, and soon after Kirk retrofitted the steamer Propontis
with triple expansion engines of his own design. The first Canadian
triple expansion engine was fitted in Richelieu & Ontario’s Great Lakes
liner
Toronto
in 1901. Triple expansion engines were eventually built in very large
sizes. The icebreaker d’Iberville had two Uniflow engines, a
modification of the traditional triple expansion, that each produced
5,300 hp. See COMPOUND ENGINES and SCOTCH BOILERS.
Further reading:
Craig, The Ship, Steam Tramps and Cargo Liners 1850-1950 (1980)
(60) TRUNK DECKED
STEAMER was a design developed and used by Ropners, a large British
tramp shipping firm. Sir Robert Ropner began the firm in 1874, and
bought his own shipyard at Stockton-on-Tees in 1887.
The purpose of the
design was to have ships pay the lowest possible tolls for use of the
Suez Canal. At that time canal tolls were based on the area of the
uppermost continuous deck of a ship.
Like Turret ships,
Trunk Decked ships minimized Suez tolls because they had a very narrow
upper deck, referred to as a trunk, that connected the forecastle,
bridge and poop. The hatches and masts were on the trunk. The result
was a very strong hull with fewer pillars in the hold than a
conventional design would have. The Turret and Trunk designs were so
similar that Doxfords, who built the Turret ships, sued Ropners for
infringement of their patent.
Disadvantages of
the Trunk ship design included the small size of the hatches and a
reduced capacity to carry lightweight bulk cargoes. It also exposed the
forward ends of the midships island and the poop to wave action, so they
had to be stronger than they would be otherwise.
Ropners built 12
Trunk steamers for themselves 1896-1908 and 32 more for other firms to
1911. They were mostly used as tramp steamers.
The first Trunk
steamer was named Trunkby, the “by” ending being common for
Ropner ships. Another one of the first ones was Oscar II, one of
2 built for Swedish owners by another British shipbuilding firm. None
of them ever came to Canadian registry. In 1911 when the Suez Canal
tolls were revised to increase the amount paid by Trunk ships the design
had no further purpose, and no more were built.
See TRAMP, TURRET
SHIP, WHALEBACK.
Further reading:
Craig, The Ship, Steam Tramps and Cargo Liners 1850-1950 (1980);
Gray, Ropner Shipping Company 1874-1974 (1975)
(61) TUG is a loose term that sometimes
means a powerful vessel assisting larger, less handy, vessels in
restricted waters. The name tug comes from the first British steam
vessel built for that purpose. There are other definitions. Great
Lakes fishing vessels are often described as fish tugs. The original
tugs on Burrard Inlet, and elsewhere, were also ferries. On the
Mackenzie River system a tug is often a towboat, which despite the name,
pushes barges. Tugs in harbours are also as likely to push vessels, as
they are to tow them. In Canada today a tug is most likely to be a
vessel involved in the movement of logs, wood chip barges or other
forestry products.
(61.1) Some
Central Canadian tugs are described as an alligator, warp tug or winch
boat. These terms all refer to a type of tug used in moving log booms
where the tug anchors ahead of the boom (or even ties up to a shoreside
tree!) and then winches the boom towards the anchor. In 1889 John
Ceburn West, one of the partners in the West & Peachey Manufacturing Company of Simcoe, Ontario, invented the type of winch boat
that came to be called alligators. Alligators are flat bottomed and
able to winch themselves across portages using the skids on their hulls,
and rollers. Most of them had small paddle wheels amidships, which with
their short length, relatively great beam, and their semi-amphibious
ability, gave rise to the name alligator. The Russel Brothers Company,
which probably built more of this type of tug than anyone else, divided
them into alligators (steam powered, which they did not build), winch
boats (gasoline or diesel over 27’) and warping tugs (gasoline or diesel
under 27’).
(61.2) Boom tug
refers to a small West coast tug for sorting and handling individual
logs while making or breaking up booms, or feeding logs to a jackladder,
etc. While the first ones were really miniatures of normal steam tugs,
the more recent ones are somewhat similar to a 10' to 15' decked boat
with a large motor in the centre. The motor drives a propeller directly
below it and is able to swing 360°. A single operator sits on top.
These are obviously highly maneuverable craft, with heavy fenders all
the way around.
(61.3) Cannery
tugs were used on the West coast. Each fish cannery normally owned a
fleet of small open fishing boats propelled only by a sail and oars.
Low-powered tugs were necessary to tow these boats between the cannery
and the fishing grounds.
(61.4) Salvage
tugs are used to assist vessels in distress or that have gone ashore.
Historically the best have included those operated by the Dutch firm of
Smit. Salvage tugs have usually been stationed at points of high vessel
traffic and bad weather. Island Tug & Barge on the West Coast, and
Foundation Maritime in Nova Scotia are amongst the Canadian firms that
have successfully operated salvage tugs. Fire-fighting ability and
long-distance towing ability are common in salvage tugs. See SALVAGE
BOAT.
(61.5) Large
sailing ships have difficulty in confined waters such as the Gulf of St
Lawrence and Juan de Fuca Strait. Seeker tugs were developed to help
the sailing ships. The term means a large tug that searched for sailing
vessels out at sea and offered them tows to port. Of course, they also
offered tows from port to the open sea. Amongst the seeker tugs in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence were those operated by the Allan Line, and on the
West Coast (where they even worked out beyond Cape Flattery) the famous
Czar, Sea Lion and Lorne.
(61.6) Tractor usually means a
ship-handling tug with a “Z drive” propulsion system. An engine within
the hull drives a propeller directly below that is at the end of a leg.
It is something like a large outboard motor sticking down through the
bottom of the ship. The leg is capable of rotating 360°. Tractor tugs
are very maneuverable.
(61.7) Tugs with
cycloidal propulsion, where the blades of the propeller revolve around a
vertical axis, are commonly known by the name of the firm that
originally made them, Voth-Schneider. In North America tugs of this
type are usually considered to be tractors. They are used for ship
handling.
(61.8) During both
World Wars the Allies built large numbers of tugs to standard designs
for use at home and abroad. Most of the standard tugs in use in Canada
after WW2 were of British design, but on the West coast some of the
American single screw Miki and twin screw Mikimi classes entered
Canadian registry. Examples of all the WW2 classes are still in use.
The following designs are all British:
(61.8.1) The
Frisky and Saint classes dated from WW1.
(61.8.2) Most of
the WW2 standard tugs did not enter service until late in the war.
Those classes that had vessels under Canadian registry are listed here.
The numbers after the name indicate the approximate total number of tugs
built (rather than owned) to that design in Canada: Glen (16), Norton
(6), TANAC (100), TID (?), Warrior or Rock (18), Ville (15).
Further reading:
Baird, Under Tow (2003)
(62) TURRET DECK
SHIP was a design developed by Arthur Havers who was employed by the
British firm of Doxfords in Sunderland. The Doxford shipyard built 176
ships of this type 1892-1911. Another 6 were built by other British
yards and one was built in Germany. Doxfords had so much confidence in
the design that they took a financial interest in the Turret SS Co. that
operated the first ships of the type.
They were used in
both liner trades (e.g., British Indian SN) and as tramps (e.g.,
Runciman and Watts, Watts). Nine ships of this design later came into
Canadian registry (8 owned by Petersen, 1 by Stamp). The Canadian ones
spent most of their lives on the Great Lakes.
The purpose of the
design was to pay the lowest possible tolls for use of the Suez Canal.
Canal tolls were based on the area of the uppermost continuous deck of a
ship.
Like Trunk Decked
steamers, Turret ships minimized Suez tolls because the design featured
an upper deck (turret deck) that was extremely narrow, sometimes
referred to as a trunk. There was a minimal forecastle and poop, with
low harbour decks on either side of the trunk. Turret ships had their
bridge, funnel, masts and hatches on top of the trunk. The main
recognition difference between them and trunk decked steamers was the
turret ship’s lack of a midships island. Turret ships got their name
from the concept that the trunk was really an elongated turret that
stretched the length of the hull. In this sense they were a descendent
of the American Whaleback design that had deck turrets.
Both engines
amidships and engines aft designs were built (at least the first and
second, SS Turret and Turret Age had their engines aft).
The longitudinal trunk or turret reduced
the weight of the ship's hull. The design also featured a cellular
double bottom that gave them exceptional hull strength. Compared to the
whaleback, the turret deck ship had a dryer and safer deck for the crew
to work on. One operator, Petersen Tate & Co, claimed that seas never
broke over the upper deck of their turret ships. The trunk also
provided reserve buoyancy in case of an extreme roll by the hull.
Turret vessels were usually designed with self-trimming holds to
facilitate the rapid loading of bulk grain or coal, and probably to
compensate somewhat for the small size of their hatches.
Disadvantages of
the design included the small size of the hatches, which made cargo
handling difficult, and the reduced carrying capacity for lightweight
bulk cargoes.
Turret ships were
built up to 400’ long, but those that came to Canadian registry had to
be short enough to go through the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes canals of
the time.
In 1911, when the Suez Canal tolls were
revised to increase the amount paid by Turret ships, the design had no
further purpose and no more were built.
See TRUNK DECKED STEAMER, WHALEBACK.
Further reading:
Brown, “Turret Ships on the Lakes”, INLAND SEAS (Sum'48); Craig,
The Ship, Steam Tramps and Cargo Liners 1850-1950 (1980); Ship’s
Mail section of Ships and Sailing (Apr’55)
(63) VOTH-SCHNEIDER
PROPELLER see TUG (61.7).
(64) WARP TUG see TUG (61.1).
(65) WHALEBACK was
a type of ship designed by the Scottish/Canadian/American shipbuilder
Alexander McDougall. His shipyards at Duluth Minnesota and Superior
Wisconsin produced 1 passenger steamer, 18 freighters and 23 consort
barges of this type between 1889 and 1898. All the first group of
whalebacks were consort barges.
One additional
whaleback ship was built on the Pacific coast for ocean service (City
of Everett), and one, Sagamore, was built in the UK in 1893.
The UK built ship followed a transatlantic trip by one of the American
ships. This visit is also the basis of the theory that the whalebacks
influenced the Turret Deck and Trunk Deck designs. As a matter of
interest, one of those built on the Lakes, C.W. Wetmore, spent
most of her life on salt water until she stranded about 1 mile north of
Coos Bay Oregon 8/ix/92 ov Tacoma-San Francisco.
The essence of the
whaleback design was a cylindrical hull, slightly flattened on the top
and bottom. Instead of a pointed bow they had a snout, giving rise to
the nickname “pig boats”.
Hatches were set
in the narrow flat deck at the top of the hull. Also on the deck were
round deckhouses, or turrets to support the bridge, funnel and anchor
winch.
The barge design
was the first to be developed. There was no mention of the turrets in
the original patent application of 1881. The 1882 patent added a bow
turret and windlass that were both aft of the chain locker. There was
also a stern turret just forward of the wheel. There was a lifeboat on
top of this aft turret. The 1888 patent put the windlass under the fore
turret. The final patent in 1890 added a capstan on the after turret,
and moved the barge’s wheel there as well. A capstan on top of the fore
turret replaced the forward windlass. Many of these were operated as
consort barges.
The powered
versions followed roughly the same design as the barges, except that
they had a navigating bridge (sometimes forward but not at the bow, and
more often at the stern) and machinery spaces at the stern.
Whalebacks proved
to be very seaworthy, and cheap to build, but they were very wet with no
protected fore and aft passageway for the crew, and had small hatches
that made cargo handling difficult.
One whaleback, the
Christopher Columbus,
was built to carry passengers between downtown Chicago and the World’s
Fair site in the south part of the city. She later sailed on longer
excursions. The stability of the whaleback design was demonstrated when
sandbags equal to the total weight of a passenger load were put on one
side of the upper decks of the Christopher Columbus. Even with
tugs trying to pull her over she hardly heeled (Ships and Sailing
May’52). This experiment was carried out after the traditional
passenger steamer Eastland capsized in the Chicago River due to
passengers crowding to one side.
McDougall
later designed a few ships with wider decks and more conventional bows,
but the true whaleback design was short-lived and with the few
exceptions noted, was confined to the Great Lakes. The two whalebacks
that entered Canadian registry never left the lakes.
See CONSORT BARGE,
TRUNK STEAMER and TURRET SHIP.
Further reading:
Zoss, “Early Whaleback Turret Alterations”,
INLAND SEAS,
(Spr’06); Ship’s Mail section of SHIPS AND SAILING (Apr’55).
(66) WINCH BOAT see TUG (61.1).
(67) Z DRIVE see TUG (61.6).
Posted July 2007, mds