DULUTH, MN; CIRCA 1906
Only one whaleback steamer, the last one built, had a “normal” bow. The Alexander McDougallwas launched with a convention- al bow rather than the usual snout. This 1906 photograph (above) shows the craft with two masts and conventional bow anchors. It is shown tied up in Duluth early in the navigation season of 1906. The coloration shown in the card is not consis- tent with the “Tin Stacker” livery employed by the Alexander McDougall’sparent, the Pittsburgh Steamship Company, a sub-
3. “crew comfort”–the difficulty in transiting between the fore and aft of the ship while it was underway. In ad- dition, ventilation was thought to be inadequate for extended voyages. 4. cramped navigation facilities. 5. hatches which are part of plating of the superstructure, batted down with screw bolts and sealed and kept tight with packing. This incurred unac- ceptable delays in loading and unload- ing. 6. the lack of masts and sails (as
backup power) which makes the whalebacks vulnerable to the danger of machinery failure. The Institution was particularly un- nerved by Captain McDougall’s inten- tional stinting on the “spare buoyan- cy”.12
sidiary of US Steel. Canadian recording artist Gordon Lightfoot made the term “the gales of November” a part of every day jar- gon. This postcard view, shot late in the navigation season of 1909, also shows the whaleback steamer Alexander McDougall, under steam, tied up at a wharf in Montreal. The steamer had ob- viously navigated some stormy “seas” prior to docking at the Canadian port. Steel surfaces coated with several inches of ice must have been tricky to negotiate for crew members.
Institution could find no fault: 1. the spare buoyancy issue, while a possible hazard, was also an advantage because it allowed more “dead cargo”; that is, payload. 2. the shape above the load-line and
MONTREAL, QUE., CANADA; CIRCA 1909
the engine placement at the extreme aft of the vessel made the whalebacks considerably stronger than ordinary ocean steamers. 3. the small superstructure of the whalebacks produces reduced air and
UK vessels were typically built and loaded with 25-35% spare buoyan- cy; the whalebacks typically had less than 10%. The Institution feared that with this little spare buoyancy a breach of the hull would make sinking almost inevitable. There were, however, positive fea- tures of the whalebacks with which the
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 75
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