The Ship
The whaleback was designed by Captain Alexander McDougall to carry cargoes of iron ore or grain economically around the Great Lakes. A pair of coal-fired Scotch boiler engines provided steam for the three-cylinder, triple expansion steam engine which drove a single screw propeller. The hull was built of heavy steel plates double-riveted to steel angle frames. The bow and stern were of a conoidal shape, with the center part of the hull being roughly cigar-shaped. The ship was 308 feet (94 m) long, with a 38-foot (12 m) beam and a 24-foot (7 m) deep hold. The hatches on the deck had no coamings, vertical sections that would have prevented water from coming into the hatches. Instead, the hatches were designed to be flush with the surface of the deck, and were simply bolted to the deck. The Wilson was the last whaleback built without hatch coamings.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Wilson (shipwreck)
Famous quotes containing the word ship:
“No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was still as she could be;”
—Robert Southey (1774–1843)
“A ship’s not a ship to me ‘til she gets her teeth into green water.”
—John Rhodes Sturdy, Canadian screenwriter. Richard Rossen. Evans (Walter Sande)