Chapter 174: Tugboats, Transport Ships
The tugboat dock is located on the river bank of the shipyard and is 35.9 meters wide and 97.4 meters long. Its components are mainly purchased from France, and are divided into two parts: underwater and onshore. The mud was excavated in the water near the river bank, the foundation was laid, and the dock base, consisting of 42 iron frames, was installed, and all of them were installed in the water on the morning of March 26, 9070. Fearing that the tide would impulse the iron frame, the workers filled the gaps between the connecting frames with stones, and the base was 11.2 meters high near the river bank, and the height of the section near the river was only 0.3 meters, and the whole base was like a slope stretching from the river bank to the middle of the river.
After installation, workers installed two more rails on the surface of each frame to carry the tugboat's tire frame. The 42-piece tire racks are divided into two groups, 17 pieces of 37.7 meters long and 25 pieces of 59.7 meters long, so that small boats and medium-sized boats can each use one section without having to start the entire tugboat machine, and if a large boat is docked, only two groups of tugboats can be started at the same time. Corresponding to 42 pieces of tugboat tire frame, a steam engine with a power of 44 horsepower is installed on the shore of the tugboat dock to drive 42 tugboats, and there are steel cables in the tugboat machine to connect to 42 tugboat tire frames respectively, and the ship sails to the top of the tugboat tire frame at high tide, and automatically sits on the tire frame at low tide, and the warship can be pulled horizontally from the water to the shore by starting the tugboat.
The towyard of the shipmaster adopts the method of horizontal traction to tow the warship into the dock. The advantage of using horizontal traction is that it can ensure that the entire warship can be pulled out of the water, and once the longitudinal traction is too large, it may occur that because the length of the tugboat track is not enough, half of the warship is out of the water, and the other half is still in the water.
The shipyard's tugboat dock was designed to tow warships with a displacement of up to 2,500 tons ashore, and the project was completed in the spring of 9070 under the guidance of French engineers. On April 3, the tire frame of the small tug was first started for testing, and the "Changsheng" steamer was towed ashore, which took two hours. On April 7, the "Fuxing" slowly approached the river bank and moored above the tire frame of a 59.7-meter-long medium tugboat, becoming the first warship to test this group of machines, and the 25 tugboats were started together, and the "Fuxing" was pulled ashore four hours later. After that, "Wan Nianqing" was close to the tugboat dock, and the small and medium groups of tugboat tire frames were started at the same time, and they also went ashore steadily in four hours. Since then, the basic maintenance equipment of the shipyard and warship has been solved, and there is no need to rely on foreign shipyard oil repair.
As early as June 12, 9070, Shen Youdan, the Minister of Shipping, reported to the imperial court that the third steamship "Fuxing" had been successfully launched, and at the same time mentioned that another 150-horsepower steamer after the "Wan Nianqing" had started construction, and had been pre-named "Fubo".
After the completion of the renovation project of the "Wan Nianqing", when Lin Yizhe reported to the imperial court, he once again elaborated on the shortcomings of the "dual-use" ship type, and the imperial court officially ordered the shipmaster not to build a dual-purpose ship for military and commercial purposes. This means that the Harbour Master is truly free from the shackles of the erroneous guidelines left by Zuo Jigao. Since the warship built by the Harbour Master was already quite large, Shen Youdan decided to use the rebuilt 150-horsepower steamer as a special transport ship.
According to Shen Youdan's request, the chief engineer of the shipyard, Da Shibo, and the technical personnel of Qianguo redesigned the No. 1 steamship "Wan Nianqing" and created a new 150-horsepower transport ship scheme. On the basis of "evergreen", the length of the transport ship was shortened and the width of the ship was appropriately increased. It seems that the "Fubo" ship, which has been designed in this way, can be regarded as an improved version of the "Evergreen". However, in fact, the new 150-horsepower steamship "Fubo" has not only been adjusted in scale, but also has been fundamentally different from the "Evergreen" in many other aspects of its design, and belongs to the new type of ship created by the shipmaster's foreigners and Chinese technicians on the basis of existing experience.
After completion, the "Fubo" class is still an all-wooden gunboat type, with a displacement of 1,258 tons, and the hull part below the main deck is very similar to the "Wan Nianqing" in appearance, but the cargo capacity has been greatly increased, reaching 720 tons, and it is a transport ship specially designed for transporting cargo.
When the keel of the "Fubo" was laid on the slipway, the newly-born shipmaster already had experience in building large warships, and the shipmaster's technicians and craftsmen were familiar with how to build this transport ship with a style similar to that of the "evergreen." In addition, a large number of workshops and workshops have been completed one after another, and the equipment conditions have been much improved compared with those in the beginning, so the construction speed of the "Fubo" ship is quite fast, and it took only six months to basically complete the construction under the auspices of the chief engineer of the shipyard, Da Shibo. Compared with the original "Evergreen", the construction efficiency has been rapidly improved.
After the establishment of the China Merchants Bureau of Qianguo Steamship, it was difficult to compete with foreign companies because of the small scale of the ships and the weak strength. In order to expand the fleet of China Merchants Steamship Bureau as soon as possible, the founder Li Shaoquan tried to buy larger ships, but he was unsuccessful, because the foreign brokers sent them for purchase, without exception, were second-hand goods, "high price and poor quality", just when Li Shaoquan felt that he had no way to do anything, the news of the launch of the "Fubo" class transport ship of the Harbour Master came, and Li Shaoquan was overjoyed and immediately decided to buy these new transport ships from the Harbour Administration.
Before the establishment of the China Merchants Steamship Bureau, when Li Shaoquan applied to the imperial court in a report, he proposed that the ships of the China Merchants Bureau should be collected from the ships of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and the Fujian Shipbuilding Administration. It's just that at that time, the Shipbuilding Administration and the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau were building warships, and there were no ships available. Unlike Zuo Jigao, who regarded Li Shaoquan as a great enemy all his life on the grounds that the Huai army had crossed the border and entered Zhejiang, his sphere of influence, when the bandit army was exterminated, Shen Youdan did not restrain Li Shaoquan because of this, but put the overall situation first in everything, and when Lin Yizhe established the Shipmaster Gun Institute to manufacture Lin's machine guns, he received Li Shaoquan's strong support, so the cooperation between the two sides was not barrier-free. Shen Youdan understood what the establishment of China Merchants meant to Qianguo's shipping industry, and after understanding the difficulties of China Merchants, Shen Youdan was determined to vigorously support China Merchants in competing with foreign shipping companies.
After consultations, Xia Xianlun, acting minister of shipping, decided to hand over the first two "Fubo" and "Yongbao" of the "Fubo" class transport ships that had already been built to China Merchants for use first, and the four newly built "Haijing", "Chenhang", "Daya" and "Yongqing" ships of the same class will also be returned to China Merchants after they are completed. All six Fubo-class transport ships can be paid only half the price. After the news broke, the Western media in Shanghai were all jealous, especially the British steamship company, "We heard that the Fuzhou authorities sold two of the largest steamers built by the Fujian Shipyard to China Merchants at half price, and this gift of course greatly helped China Merchants to operate at a lower rate than a foreign rival who had already reduced the minimum freight rate, and in this way it was profitable." โ
โโโโDividing Lineโโโโ
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