Swift Ships Planned

Fleet of Four Day Atlantic Liners Proposed.

Would Be Driven By Turbines.

Crude Texas Petroleum to Be Used as Fuel, and the Vessels Would Make Thirty Knots--Great Saving in Expense--C. R. Flint's Forty Knot Yacht.

Charles R. Flint has a fondness for fast boats. An ordinarily fast craft won't do for him. He must have something that will go through the water faster than any other vessel afloat, says the New York Sun. A few years ago he had a world beater, but somebody built a boat that was as fast or faster, and Mr. Flint then gave a commission to Charles D. Mosher to design and to Ayres of Nyack to build a boat, called a yacht for convenience, which should be able to travel 40 knots an hour. The boat has been called the Arrow, and in a few days she will have her official trials.

Since Mr. Flint gave the commission for a 40 knot boat others interested in fast vessels have been trying to figure out whether it would be possible and profitable to build not a yacht, but an ocean liner, that would cross the Atlantic in four days. One of the persons who took up this problem was George Wilson, president of the Atlantic Shipping company of New York city. Mr. Wilson believes that his engineers and designers have solved the problem by the use of turbine engines driven by the direct impact of the combustion of crude Texas petroleum.

Mr. Wilson says that his company is now making arrangements for the building of ships to cross the Atlantic from New York to Berehaven, in the southwest of Ireland, in three and a half days. He says that, allowing two hours from the company's pier in New York to Sandy Hook and 13 hours from Berehaven to London, passengers and mails would be carried from New York to London in a little less than four and a quarter days, taking into account delays incident to customs examination and the handling of baggage. He says that the vessels contemplated will have an average speed of 30 knots clear across the Atlantic.

This great speed is to be attained, and the company building the ships is going to make money out of the project through the use of the turbine engine and of crude petroleum for fuel. Hitherto it has been supposed that the cost of running an ocean liner much faster, for instance, than the Deutschland, would be too great. and too much cargo space would have to be sacrificed for boiler and engine rooms just to make such vessels profitable. Just by way of showing that his company intends to make a good thing out of its four day boats Mr. Wilson says: "Our intention has been to construct and run first class mail steamers to Europe which shall cross the Atlantic in four days, conveying the Saturday's mail from the New York postoffice to the London postoffice on the following Thursday. At present it is not distributed in London until Monday morning of the next week. The compensation allowed by law for the mail matter which left New York for Europe on Saturdays in 1900, if it had been conveyed in vessels of United States register, would have been $545,086, or $10,500 for each weekly voyage. The Cunard line, which actually carried it, received the reduced rates allowed to foreign ships, or only $184,721. The postoffice department gives the mail to the fastest ships without regard to nationality.

"To enable our ships to cross in four days and pay their way it was evident that great improvements were necessary in the engine room to reduce the cost of fuel and wages. The machinery in our ships will occupy a comparatively small space in the stern.

"It takes 3,200 tons of coal, costing about $9,600, to carry the Deutschland across in 5½ days. It will take 800 tons of crude Texas oil, costing $4,000, to take our ships across in four days.This represents a saving of $5,000 a trip, or $291,200 a year in fuel alone. Besides this we save the wages of all stokers, coal trimmers and half the engineer, which may be estimated at $2,200 a trip or $114,400 a year.

"The difference in the cost of machinery on the Deutschland and on our boats will be about $1,575,000 on one ship. Another thing that must be borne in mind is that we require none of the valuable parts of the ship for the storage of fuel. Our fuel is carried in ballast tanks in tbe bottom of each vessel, thus economizing the immense amount of space used on the ordinary steamers for fuel."

Mr. Wilson doesn't say when his company is going to begin the construction of the four day ships, but the probabilities are that the first one will not be ready for service during this year at least. The Scientific American evidently thinks there may be sometbing in the four day steamers, for in an article on "Atlantic Steamships--Present and Future," printed awhile ago, it said:

"If a 30 knot transatlantic steamer makes its appearance within the next few years, it is safe to say that it will be driven by the combination of water tube boilers, using hot, forced draft, with fast running reciprocating engines, using superheated steam, or wltb turbines of the Parsons type. So great will be the reduction of weights and saving of space achieved by this change that it will be quite within the possibilities to produce on a displacement not much greater than that of the Deutschland a 30 knot ocean steamer that shall have equal accommodations for passengers."