Walks and Talks - Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla tells me he has patented an improvement in marine propulsion that will reduce the time to Europe to three days. He is very sanguine.

But I cannot forget the Secor marine propeller, which was heralded as “the doom of steam.” Mr. Secor, a man of large experience, proposed to burn petroleum in a steel tube opening upon the water astern of a boat and to propel the vessel by the exertion of the force developed by the explosions of the vaporized oil. More than a hundred thousand dollars were sunk in the experiment; but the boat wouldn’t go! Not meaning to compare Tesla’s invention with an acknowledged failure, I only want to say that I view with danger any attempt to drive as large a vessel as the Lusitania through the water at a speed exceeding 25 miles per hour.

The chief drawback to the propeller of the present is that it cannot be revolved rapidly enough. The turbine engines are capable of a speed of 1,000 revolutions per minute, but the oftenest that a sixteen foot propeller can be turned is 150 revolutions per minute. Therefore the full energy of the turbine engines, with their appalling coal consumption, cannot be utilized.

Mr. Tesla began working along that line and hit upon a method of doing away with the clumsy, speed-retarding propeller. He is a remarkable young man and his triumphs in many branches of electrical science justify a hope that he will accomplish what he has set out to achieve.