The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 2, 1900, Page 12

12 by P. Latzke) for the ears now ave puttered sebout the rbors both in country e mever ven- A boat of this but they the coas ordenfelt the o tour great o it has been generally supposed, main a dream of Jules bee of inventor of the Holland torpedo- hss now determined to make this His rew boat will go boat dream & reality. to Bermuda, thence to the Fayal Islands, then to Lisbon in Portugal. This is. a trip of 3496 miles—New York to Bermuda, 676 es; Bermuda to Fayal, 1880 miles, &nd Fayal to Lisbon, 940 miles. Just when the trip will be made is not yet definitely Getermined upon, but it will probably be some time in February. The boat will walt for propitious weather. To speak of walting for propitious weather in Febru- #:1y sounds like an absurdity, and in the case of ordinary craft it would be. but Toland's high w seéa and th aiver: 1s look nd -and the 4 heavy al signal for th For this ! the ca for. most voya Journey fo inder the unfavorable mind such a journey will smack decidedly of foolhar o the minds,of the men who are 1 in the submarine the proposed ranks with a-trip on the Kaiser ar the De hland. , T ad- wiil go slower, but that is all. vage to Lisbon is to take sixteen ‘ 7" will travel all the way under power. Her speed will be ap- proximately nine and a half knots for the She will not travel at sea as did Verne's fan- Most of the way she will Occasionally, how- she will go under, and remain for or forty miles, at a depth varying Her inventor entire voyage. the bottom of th c craft. g0 on the. surface. er, th! from thirty to sixty feet. claims for her that she can safely go 400 feet beneath the surface and maintain herself there, resisting successfully the terrific pressure of the water. No such depths will be attempted on this trip, however, and except for purposes of sci- entific investigation or explorations for sunken vessels no object would be gained Ly diving very deep. At thirty feet be- neath the surface the craft is as secure against discovery as if she were a hun- dred times as far down, and can pass safely beneath the keel of the greatest of ocean liners. Now and then in shallow mlaces she will touch bottom just to show i that she ‘can, ‘and to seé. what she will age have -been very: ¢ ully and. thorgughly lald out and no feir of fafluré is entertained. The trip 15 taken for a two-fold purpose. Tt to dem: trate in the first place, the fal- the opinion still entertained in s that submarine boats can- n themselves-far away from a that they are useless s agair a country on f the sea, and that their have any at all, is for t defense merely. The second object the trin is to present the boat In for- sn harbors to foreign governments. Mr. Holland has the utmost confidence in the ability of to make the trip to Europe in safety. He himself, will be in command. Including the inventor there will be eight men aboard the little craft, Their quarters will be pretty close, but they feel certain that they will not be too close for comfort. Whenever the possi- bility has been discussed of navigating a submarine for & lorg distance it has al- ways been asserted that it would be im- possible for a crew to stand the confine- ment. The voyage to Lisbon is expected to determine this matter. As the project- ed trip is a first experiment an extra crew will be carried in a tender that is to con- voy “No. 7" to guarantee the men against actual hardship. This tender will be a small tramp ship. She will keep her lit- tle consort constantly in sight if possible, =0 long as the Jatter remains on surface. But, as the stormiest perfod of the year is to be selected for the journey, it is more than probable that the two vessels will part company long before the end of the game. It is a pretty difficult thing to keep in sight such a small speck as “No. 7" will present, when the sea is high and the wind is battering the convoy about. But whether thé consorts lose each other miesion, if they 0. T THE SUNDAY. CALL or mot, 6ne thing has been -defiiftely de- termined by that t the e subm Holland offictals This 18 n power, that all her pwn fuel for the t ‘e must subsist on her own pro- e is to be thrown out s, the frip is to be con- and the experiment will be tried over again. Comparatively marine’ traveling wiil be’ done in should the ‘weather be plea Iniring storms, however, “No. 7 will remain mueh of the time beneath the waves, only her turret showing. This will add very much to the comfort of her crew. Should it prove desirable she may dive into the absolutely still waters below the reglon of wave disturbances.! “The fellows on the other ship will wish they were with us when it comes to blow,” Mr. Holland said in describing his storm tactics. “While they and the other un- fortunates who may be aboard on the sur- face, are being knocked about by the waves, we will calmly sink to where it is ‘still and placid. A boat bullt on the lines of our submarine rides much more easily than surface boats. She acts like a water-soaked log when running awash. The water rolls over and off her, impart- ing little or no motion. The most squeam- ish person would not get seasick. We will be amply provisioned against all possible delays on account of weather. I cannot well concelve how anybody could be much better off or any safer against accident. I look forward to an easy journey.” “How will you rest at night “In hammocks swung from the celling. ‘While we will not have room enough to take exercise on a bicycle, we will be able to get our sleep about as comfortably as most sailormen, and we will not have to eat our meals standing.” The vessel will be driven by a gasoline engine of the Dalmlier pattern which 1 s time an SHIEYARD . I THE- e thres seconds as she is ristng, thus =it lm.wmmw:-am:fia water for the purpose of observing ma snemy. Almost at the same Instant the tank is again filled from the outside, s¢ that she up and then down again with incredible rapidity, giving her cap- tain in the turret just time enmough to get & full view of whatever may be on the surface, and the enemy no time i3 sight his guns and fire. The most striking quality possessed by “No. 1, according to shipbuilders, is t.“:: n operate at will In fresh wa 2 well as fn salt. This no other subs marine has ever been able to do. She can pass from the ocean into a river, and dive freely in either. And, what even more remarkable, with equal freedom at 1S sev The Holland the lack of this ab i s the end of en R\ N W A Count Zeppelin uses in his navigation of the air. Five tons of gasoline carried in at a nine and a half k speed, and'leave a safe ma she is traveling on the (: generate power for an electric engine that drives her bhelow the er. ‘When she dives the gasoline engine is cut off en- tirely. The-power will be accumulated in storage batteries that welgh 70,000 pounds. The stored power will carry her under the surface for fifty miles at an elght- knot speed; then.she must come up to re- charge. The cooking will be done by electricity. The arrangements for this department are such as would fill the average flat dweller with delight. When you have not an inch of space to spare for anything except wec-, essary equipment the problem of fitting, in your domestic outfit is a pretty one. the kitchen arrangements of “No. 7 problem has been fully met. In this The uten- sils are models of completeness and com-- pactness, The electric range Is a model. The lighting, too, will be done by eles- tricity and such heating as may be re- quired s similarly provided for. There will be little need for heating, however, as the quarters are so close. The ventlla- tion/ will be perfect, more perfect than could possibly be found on ‘the best ap- pointed ocean grevhound, and this whether the boat s running on the sur. face with her hatch open or under water ‘with everything battened down tight. There is an automatic arrangement for - discharging the air In the ship and renew- ing it with a steady supply from the compressed air tanks, that are always kept filled under high pressure. As a re- sult Of this arrangement there will be nene of ‘the usual stickiness found In the atmosphere of surface ships. Like the Holland, No. 7 1s cigar-shaped. The dimensions and form.of the new boat are considerably greater, however, than those of her predecessor recently turned over to the United States Government The Holland is 54 feet 4 Inches long with a diameter of 10 feet 3 inches. Her dis- placement on the surface is 6 tons, sub- merged 75 tons. Her engine 45. horsepower, - as against 160 horse- power In the new boat. The length of No. 7 1s 63 feet 4 inches; dlameter 11 feet 9 inches and her ‘interior arrangements are such that there is about twice as much room for her crew as there is for the men in the Holland. Her displace- ment when on the surface is 103 tons ana has only - submerged 120 .tons. Though. a larger and a heavier boat than the Holland, “No. 7" 1s much live- lier and easier to handle. She represents the extreme type in size, according to Mr. Holland. A larger vessel, he declares, will riéver be' practicable. The Plunger, one of the earlier hoats that was puflt according to Government demands, is over eighty feet long. Mr. Holland was . forced to make her that size, but he glves it as his opirilon that she will never be feally valuable on this account. Bhe is stlil'bullding, having been changed again and again, ‘according to suggestfons from the Navy Department. It is considered doubtful if the Plunger will ever be placed regularly in commission #s the Hoiland has been.” She is awkward to handle cven under the-most favorable conditlons, and sho has been so loaded down inside with clumsy ‘machinery and appliances that there 1§ scarcely ‘room to get about in. iNo. 7, though about twenty feet shorter, ‘has fully three.times as much room. A unique arrangement has been intro- duced in “No. 7" for handling the water Dballast, a particularly important element in submarines. Nearly a ton of water can be ejected from the ballast tanks in before the long journey is begun. proves as sat be made as Mr. Hol if he sing storm the'1 An ¢ . uid not erty before her launching ut, however, decic hing was to be gal o as fore details have been rece Necessarily tt ents were fissued gave a complete desc: device employed in six of the for secrecy is with, The six boats buf ment are patterned e of No. 7. Four are to be Nixon's shipyard v Iron Works in to cost $175,000 pany has sub struction and it is one of the transaction knows exactly wh ing to cost. The profits and his associates In the ¢ measured until at 1 are finished. It may be make on each beat or | 000 or even less. building the ot guide in the matter has been much exp only mow that the expe sald to have been completed. as Mr. Holland's ss as a bullder of submarine craft has not come ‘wi!hnu! long years of apparently fruftless en- deavor. Twenty-five years ago he sube Department plans for torpedo boat to be opsrated :,.'“g,fi":fi‘in. pS(‘(‘reLlr,V of the Navy Robeson referred the matter to the naval officer in command at Newport in 1875, who reported that a vessel of that ly;llg was impracticable; first, because It would not be possible to get any man to operats it; and, second, because it could not be directed under the water. The plan for that one-man boat, which seemed to the naval men of that time an impracticabla dream, was the prototype -of the sub- marine No. 7, in which Mr., Holland will soon sall for Eurove, mitted to the Nav