The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

1901.) MARINE REVIEW. 15 A RACE HALF WAY AROUND THE WORLD. The coming race to the orient between the sailing ships Acme and Brilliant of the Standard Oil Co., now loading oil at Bayonne, N. J., for Yokohama, has excited great interest in Maine, where the Acme was built, and to old timers it recalls the excitement of clipper days when Donald McKay of East Boston and other builders tried in vain to pro- duce a ship that would beat the Red Jacket of Rockland, Me. The Red Jacket made the passage from New York to Liverpool in 13 days, 1 hour and 25 minutes. Many ships tried to beat that run but failed. It is part of the gospel of the sea that nothing that ever carried sail could equal the speed in all weathers and in all seas of the fast wooden ships that were built in Yankeeland in the days before the war. Steam navigation was then in its infancy, and the few steamers running on ocean routes The four-masted ship Acme, built by Arthur Sewall & Co., Bath, Me. were slow, so. that there was great profit in sailing clippers, which made the long voyages around the Horn and to the far east, carrying passengers as well as cargo. Alb these ships had racing models, everything being sacrificed to gain speed, and the way they traveled around the world was something surprising to the sailors of other nations. When the steamers began to crowd the sailers, just after the war, the full clipper model was discarded, because it was found that to make any money the ships must carry more, and so the half-clipper style came in. Some of these ships, like the Annie H. Smith and the Centennial and the Young America made great passages, ninety-six days from New York to San Francisco having been recorded to the credit of one of them. In recent years very few ships have been built in Maine or anywhere else in the United States, for the reason that long distance carrying long ago ceased to be profitable except in special lines, and there is more money to be made in the building and sailing of big schooners. Only a few of the last batch of wooden ships built in the state now hail from The four-masted ship Brilliant, built by Russell & Co., Greenock, Scotland. Maine ports, many having been sold to foreign account and to the Pacific coast, others cut down to barges and a good many lost, and in the course of a few years the last of them will have disappeared from the registry. Now, however, Bath has taken to building ships of steel, and the Acme, which is to race the Brilliant to Japan, is one of the best of her class ever turned out at Bath or anywhere else. Besides the Acme Bath has already built the Astral, while the Atlas and the William P. Frye are to follow, the first three named being for the Standard Oil Co. and intended for the trade to the orient. The race between the Acme and the Brilliant has stirred up a lively discussion as to the sailing qualities of the two ships but there is no way as yet of reaching a satisfactory con- clusion, for while the Brilliant has made a good passage from Greenock to New York, 27 days in ballast, the Acme is yet to make her first passage. The Astral, sister ship to the Acme, made the passage from New York to Shanghai in 129 days, arriving out June 17, but that is nothing to go by, for there is often a great difference between sister ships in the matter of speed. The Brilliant was built at Port Glasgow, and is 375 ft. long, 51% ft. beam and 3,609 tons net register--622 tons larger than the Acme. The Acme is 332 ft. long, 45 ft. beam and 2,987 tons net register. She will carry about 1,500,000 gallons of oil, while the Brilliant is expected to carry about 1,800,000 gallons. Both are considered to be first-class ships and it is said of the Acme that she is the best sailing ship yet turned out in America, being built by well paid men, of the finest materials and fitted with all the latest labor-saving and safety-securing appliances. Whether she will sail fast is another question, but, notwithstanding the fact that she was designed more for carrying than for racing, there is reason to expect that she will keep along with the best of them. She is a four- master, long-yarded and will carry a great spread of canvas, while her master, Capt. Reuben S. Lawrence, is one of the ablest deep sea sailors that ever went from Maine. Capt. Lawrence, who is said to be a descen- dant of Commodore Lawrence of the famous United States frigate 'Chesa- peake, has been thirty-four years at sea, twenty-one years as master. His first ship was the George Peabody, his second the Columbia; then he commanded the Triumphant, and lastly, before he took the Acme, the John Currier. It was while in command of this vessel that he ran up the American flag at Cebu in the Philippines. Neither ship has as yet made a trip in cargo and the outcome is, of course, problematical. The Standard Oil Co. is building a fleet of sailing ships at Bath and on the Clyde and there is naturally great rivalry among the natural adherents of both localities. The great corporation itself is not unmindful of the contest. Mr. Philip Ruprecht, who manages the foreign shipping department of the Standard Oil Co., writing to the Review, says that an effort will be made to let them go to sea together and he naively adds: "Each captain will naturally try to get there first." MORGAN LINER TO BE LAUNCHED SATURDAY. __ Newport News, Va., July 24----The Morgan line steamship El Siglo will be launched at the ship yard next Saturday morning and will be christened by Miss Susan S. Usher, sister of Lieut. Com. Usher of the United States navy, who will be executive officer of the United States battleship Illinois, which will be placed in commission here early in August. The fact that El Siglo will be launched ahead of the Pacific Mail leviathan Siberia does not preclude the possibility of a double launching, as the Morgan liner El Libre is still on the ways and almost as far ad- vanced as El Siglo. The Siberia and El Libre will go overboard in Sep- tember and probably together. The public, especially the business men, 1s anxious to see a double launching, as it will unquestionably draw at this time one of the largest crowds ever seen here on a like occasion. The largest launching crowds in the country, probably in the world, are seen at Newport News, as was evidenced when the battleships Kearsarge and Kentucky went overboard in the presence of probably 33,000 people, when the battleship Illinois was launched in the presence of something like 25,000 spectators, and on the occasion of the launching of the Pacific Mail leviathan Korea in March last, when the number was estimated at from 20,000 to 25,000. The launching of a Morgan liner is such a frequent thing here that usually the crowds are not large, numbering probably 5,000 and 6,000 people, but nevertheless the Morgan ships are the largest and fastest in the coastwise service, and those who have inspected them say there are none finer. El Siglo is being built under the superintend- ence of Horace See of New York, consulting engineer for the Morgan and Cromwell lines, and is an improved type of the United States auxil- iary cruiser Buffalo, which broke the record for speed between Manila and New York by arriving at New York May 18 last in thirty-six running days. The Buffalo was formerly the Morgan liner El. Cid and was built here in 1892. El Siglo is built entirely of steel and has the following dimensions: Length, over all, 406 ft.; length between perpendiculars, 380 ft. 8% in.; molded breadth, 48 ft.; depth molded to awning deck, 33 ft. 9 in.; gross tonnage, 4,666; net, 2,905; displacement, 6,000 tons. The engines are of the vertical triple expansion type. Steam is supplied by three double-ended boilers. The ship is lighted throughout by electricity and has all con- veniences for loading and unloading freight. It will have excellent quar- ters for the officers and crew, for which the Morgan line is celebrated. The drawings for the keel of the new battleship Virginia have just been completed at the ship yard and the keel will go down in a few days. Rapid progress has been made on the drawings for other parts of the ship. The Virginia will be the first of the five new battleships to go down. Her sister ships will be the Nebraska, Georgia, New Jersey and Rhode Island, each of which will be 485 ft. long, 76 ft. 21%4 in. beam; 23 ft. 9 in. draught, and 14,590 tons trial displacement. The drawings for the other warships under contract are fast taking shape. The monster North German Lloyd liner Main, which was partly de- stroyed in the great Hoboken fire and is being rebuilt here at a cost of nearly $1,000,000, will be taken out of dry dock this week and her com- pletion is now a matter of only a short time. As she lies in dry dock No. 1 the Main presents the appearance of a ship which has been built in the dock, with her new plates on and a staging extending her full length on both sides, resembling a ship on the ways. She will re-enter the passen- ger and freight service of the North German Lloyd and will be as good as new when turned over. This is the largest repair contract ever awarded in this country, if not in the world. The 7-in. tunnel leading from the old dry dock to the new pump house was completed this week. The tunnel leading from the new dry dock to the new pump house is 9 ft. in diameter. The two dry docks are now as easily handled as the one was before the $1,500,00 basin was finished. - The Holland-American Steamship Co., which operates a line out of Newport News, will add six more ships to its line, three of which will be new, now being under construction abroad. The North German Lloyd Steamship Co. is constructing another training ship at Bremerhaven. The experiment of training officers for the North German Lloyd service has proved so successful that the com- pany finds one ship not sufficient. The vessel will be built of steel, will have a double bottom throughout and will be fitted with six water-tight bulkheads. :