Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/61

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC for the round trip from England to America, which was necessary before she could claim the government subsidy. In the run to the eastward, the ship had averaged for the whole passage 25 knots; therefore to win the coveted prize, it was necessary, on the return passage to New York, to maintain an average of 24 knots. As it happened, two hours out from Queenstown it began to blow hard from the southwest, and for the next four days the wind, veering from southwest to northwest, never fell below the strength of half a gale. On the fourth day out the wind rose to full cyclonic force, and against the most tempestuous weather that the North Atlantic can show, the ship was driven for twenty-four hours into what the captain's log-book designated as "enormous head seas." She averaged a speed of 23 knots for the whole four days of heavy weather, and came through the ordeal without starting a single rivet, or showing any signs of undue strain in her roughly-handled hull.

The large and powerful passenger steamer of to-day is proof against fatal damage due to wind and sea. True it is that these ships occasionally reach New York after a stormy pas- [ 39 ]