Sprague (ship)
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The Sprague was an American river tugboat from 1902 that was designed as a stern wheel steamer . To date, she is the largest steam-powered ship of its kind in the world. Since the Sprague, like the other river tugs ( towboats ), contrary to its name, basically pushes its loads instead of towing them, it is technically strictly a pushboat . After many years of service, it became a museum in 1948 , burned down in 1974 , and was scrapped in 1981 after its hull had broken two years earlier.
history
Design and construction
The ship, designed as a stern wheel steamer, was built by the Iowa Iron Works in Dubuque in 1901/1902 and was a superlative ship in several ways:
- The construction costs of around 500,000 US dollars correspond approximately to today's equivalent of 11.3 million dollars and were considered exorbitant for the construction of a river steamer at the time.
- The size of the ship was sensational. With a total length of 96.92 meters and 19.71 meters width, the Sprague was still the world's largest steam-powered river tugboat. Its draft was 2.13 meters, its water displacement in 1996 was metric tons, and the deadweight was 1,502 metric tons. The huge rear paddle wheel was 12.20 meters high and wide and could reach up to 91 revolutions per minute at full engine power.
- Two twin composite steam engines with a stroke of 3.66 meters , the cylinders of which had a diameter of 71 and 160 centimeters respectively, produced an impressive total output of 1,500 hp (1,120 kilowatts ) at the time .
- The Sprague was built almost entirely of steel , which was absolutely uncommon for river steamers. At the beginning of the 20th century, experienced American shipbuilders and captains believed that a steel hull was too rigid to withstand the strong and complicated currents of the Mississippi for long periods of time. It was believed that only wooden hulls could twist flexibly in adverse currents and protect the ship from damage. The Sprague later showed that this view was wrong.
Active service
The Sprague on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers demonstrated its previously unattainable performance several times. In 1904 she pushed at the same time 56 Light with a coal load of about 60,780 metric tons. (Although the paddle wheel-driven river tugs in the USA were always referred to as towboats , they only pushed their load). The barges took up a total area of more than 26,300 square meters. In 1926 she pushed tankers with a cargo of approx. 41,639,530 liters of crude oil without the support of other tugs .
In 1948 the Sprague was decommissioned after it could no longer be operated efficiently in comparison with more modern and more powerful tugs.
Time after 1948
For the following decades it was firmly moored as a museum near Vicksburg in the shallow waters of the Mississippi. She only left this anchorage once, when she was towed up the Ohio River to Pittsburgh and back for celebrations in 1959 .
Until 1974 the Sprague served as a floating theater hall at its berth in Vicksburg , after the steam boiler had been removed. The upper deck was used as a restaurant. On May 15, 1974, the ship burned out. The badly damaged Sprague was moved to another anchorage. In the following years the Sprague was neglected and fell into disrepair; Vandalism and flood damage made the condition even worse, while restoration efforts repeatedly failed. On July 5, 1979, the ailing hull shattered. The condition of the Sprague has now been classified as irreparable; in January 1981 the wreck was finally dismantled with cutting torches and explosives . Remains of the Sprague are still at its last mooring; some smaller parts are exhibited in the "Old Court House Museum" in Vicksburg.
literature
- William C. Davis: Portraits of the Riverboats . Thunder Bay Press, 2001. ISBN 1-57145-493-4