SS Governor Cobb
SS Governor Cobb
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| History | |
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| Name: | Governor Cobb |
| Operator: |
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| Route: | |
| Builder: | Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding and Engine Works |
| Launched: | 21 April 1906 |
| Completed: | 1906 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Passenger |
| Displacement: | 3,500 tons |
| Length: | 300 ft |
| Beam: | 51 ft |
| Draft: | 14 ft |
| Propulsion: | 3 × Parsons LP impulse turbine, center turbine high pressure, outboard turbines, low pressure; 6 × Scotch boilers, 5,000 SHP; triple screws |
| Speed: | 17.5 knots |
SS Governor Cobb was an American coastal passenger steamboat built in 1906. The ship has the double distinction of being not only the first American-built ship to be powered by steam turbines, but also, late in her career, of becoming the world's first helicopter carrier.
Governor Cobb was ordered by the Eastern Steamship Company of Charles W. Morse from the marine engine specialists W. & A. Fletcher Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey. W. & A. Fletcher had recently licensed the revolutionary steam turbine technology from the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company of Great Britain, and a Parsons design was utilized for Governor Cobb's powerplant.
The powerplant consisted of one large high-pressure central turbine for providing the motive power to a central propeller, and a pair of low-pressure turbines driving two outboard screws which were used for manoeuvre, and which were shut down when the vessel was under way. Steam was provided by six single-ended, forced draft Scotch boilers delivering a pressure of 150 pounds. W. & A. Fletcher subcontracted the hull to the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding and Engine Works of Chester, Pennsylvania.
Construction of the engines aroused considerable interest, and when the vessel had been completed, the Department of Naval Architecture received permission from the President of the Eastern Steamship Company, Calvin Austin, to conduct a number of tests. The tests were conducted by the Bureau of Steam Engineering, which was obliged to borrow one of only two instruments in the United States capable of determining the horsepower of a steam turbine. The turbines were found to deliver a total of 5,000 horsepower, which gave the vessel a speed of 17½ knots.
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