So, on February 25, 1902, the Varyag arrived in Port Arthur. Failures in attempts to develop full speed (breakdowns followed already at 20 knots) and examination of the cruiser's power plant by the available specialists showed that the ship needed extensive repairs. Preparatory work was carried out on the Varyag for two weeks (until March 15), and then the cruiser was enrolled in the armed reserve and repairs began, which lasted six weeks. The Varyag sailed into the sea only on April 30, having begun training, including as part of a detachment of other ships - however, on May 4, 5 and 6 the ship was at anchor, celebrating the namesake. On May 7, combat training resumed, and on the morning of May 8, when shooting from anchor, the collector of one of the boilers burst. That is, the accident occurred 5 running days after a serious repair with the "shaking up" of machines and boilers.
Nevertheless, in the period from early May to July inclusive, "Varyag" was engaged in combat training. R. M. Melnikov mentions the presence of problems with the chassis (damage to the tubes) but does not elaborate on them, so we will not talk about this either.
But from July 31, the cruiser will be repaired again for 2 months - until October 1. Here it turns out that at least 40 of the 420 collectors of its boilers require replacement. I must say that the Maritime Department was concerned with the problem of collectors for Nikloss's boilers back in the spring of 1902 - having acquired two collectors as a sample, it sent out proposals to organize their production in Russia to four plants: Franco-Russian, Baltic, Metallichesky and Putilovsky. All of them refused (only Putilovsky asked for 2 months for experiments and reflections), so it was decided to order collectors for the Varyag abroad, but just then a tragedy happened on the battleship Retvizan. A pipe burst in one of the cauldrons, scalded six people, and three of them died.
On this occasion, a whole investigation was undertaken, headed by the chief inspector of the mechanical part of the fleet and the head of the mechanical department of the MTK N. G. Nozikov. The result was the conclusion that the design of Nikloss boilers as a whole was defective, and although N. G. Nozikov gave recommendations, with the help of which it would be possible to reduce the chance of severe accidents; in his opinion, it was impossible to completely exclude them.
The contract for the supply of collectors with water-heating pipes was concluded only in December 1902 - in addition to 30 collectors for Varyag (I wonder why only 30?) similar problems.
Be that as it may with the "Retvizan", October 1 "Varyag" began sea trials. Two days later, an "epoch-making" event took place - during preliminary tests, the rotation of the shafts was brought to 146 revolutions per minute, which corresponded to a speed (under normal load) of 22.6 knots, and the ship withstood it. However, it should be understood that this speed was only achieved for a short time. But when on October 19 the cruiser tried to give full speed for a long time (gradually increasing the number of revolutions), the results were completely different. Everything was fine up to 100 rpm, but 125 was achieved only by flooding the bearings with water (to cool them). However, after five hours of travel, the dynamo failed, leaving the ship without light, so the speed had to be reduced. Then, having repaired the dynamo, they again raised the speed to 125, but after a little over an hour, the HPC bearing of the left car began to warm up again and again had to resort to "water cooling". But in the late afternoon, because of the bursting metal rings of the packing, the oil seal of the HPC of the left car broke through and the cruiser could no longer hold 125 rpm, so their number was reduced to 80 fatal) received three stokers … In general, even a 20-knot speed (corresponding to the rotation of the shafts at a speed of 125 rpm) was unattainable for the cruiser for some time.
The commission, which was present at the tests, came to the conclusion that with the current state of the machines, the cruiser cannot go at high speeds and is forced to limit itself to medium ones. In addition, it was noted that at an economic speed of 9 knots, low-pressure cylinders develop power of only 54 hp, which is not enough to rotate the crankshaft - on the contrary, he himself began to rotate the mechanisms of the machine, which is why, instead of smooth rotation, he turned with sharp jerks. In addition, the commission determined a list of measures that should be taken in order to ensure the cruiser is able to sail at high speed - this required a new three-week repair …
Governor E. I. Alekseev was, of course, extremely dissatisfied with this state of affairs - he did not understand how the newest cruiser, having made the transition to the Far East "without any haste" and carrying an easy (in terms of load on its power plant) service, found itself in such a deplorable state … Indeed, for 8 months of its stay at Dalny (from March to October inclusive), the ship was under repair and preparation for it for 4 months, but at the same time in October it could not keep 20 knots for any length of time. The governor proposed to withdraw the Varyag to the armed reserve from November 1 again and thoroughly repair it, and then check its operational capability by running at full speed for 250 miles.
However, the head of the squadron had his own opinion on this matter - apparently, he understood that something went wrong, since such lengthy repairs of the cruiser did not give any effect. It is likely that O. V. Stark (who replaced NI Skrydlov in this post on October 9) suggested that the next bulkhead of everything and everything would not lead to success, and that it was necessary to "dig deeper" and identify the real reasons why the repairs of the Varyag did not lead to success. Therefore, he did not send the cruiser for repairs, but ordered to draw up an expanded commission and continue testing the ship.
The results were depressing. The safe speed of the cruiser was determined to be 16 knots - it should be understood that this speed was not meant to be in such a state of the power plant when everything was going well (because on the Varyag, a sharp knock in the mechanisms was now heard at any speed)., in which the knocking became threatening and the heating of the bearings increased sharply.
The only plus was that the work of the commission, in general, did not interfere with the combat training of the ship, which was carried out quite intensively. So, on October 31 "Varyag" showed a very good result of counter-galls firing, and the signal addressed to him "Admiral expresses his special pleasure" was raised on the halyards of the flagship cruiser "Russia". The cruiser completed the campaign on November 21, 1902 and prepared for new repairs - by this time the port had finished replacing the cylinder of the battleship "Petropavlovsk" vehicle (after which he easily showed the 16 knots assigned to him according to his passport).
It is also interesting that the Governor, in his report of December 16, 1902, praised the Varyag's engine crew and wrote that the cruiser's malfunctions stem from a fundamental miscalculation in the design of the machines - designed for full speed, they quickly fell into disrepair, because in a peaceful time, the main mode of travel is economic.
The year 1903 has come. For almost a month and a half, from January 2 to February 15, repairs continued, and then the cruiser entered the campaign: but in fact, repairs were still ongoing. Now they did so - "Varyag" went out for a short while for sea trials, after which there was a check and a bulkhead of the bearings. So, for example, on February 20, in the presence of a commission made up of ship mechanics, we walked at 12 knots for 4 hours, briefly bringing the cars up to 140 revolutions - this corresponded to a speed of 21.8 knots. in normal load, but taking into account the actual overload, the cruiser showed just over 20 knots. In the course of further exits, it turned out that the winter repairs did not eliminate the main shortcomings of the cruiser's power plant - everyone also warmed up and knocked bearings, the boiler tubes broke twice - five stokers received burns.
Well, on the first of March, a significant event took place - to replace V. I. Beru has arrived a new commander of the cruiser - forty-seven-year-old Vsevolod Fedorovich Rudnev.
In what condition was the ship handed over to him?
The tests of the cruiser, which began in mid-February, continued until mid-April, that is, the cruiser was tested for 2 weeks, being under the command of V. I. Baer and a month and a half - under the command of V. F. Rudnev. Let us ask ourselves a question - could it be that V. F. Rudnev somehow influenced the test results? Almost all tests of the cruiser's power plant were carried out under the supervision of members of the ship mechanics' commission, and during the tests, the chairman of the commission I. P. Uspensky and from 2 to 5 mechanics from other ships. Accordingly, the likelihood that some erroneous orders of V. F. Rudnev led to breakdowns, tends to absolute zero - he simply would not have been allowed to do them, and if the new commander abused his power "the first after God", then this would certainly be reflected in the conclusion of the commission. I. P. Uspensky himself was the commander of the battleship "Poltava" and V. F. Rudnev couldn’t.
In addition, the supporters of the point of view “Under V. I. Baer, everything was fine, and then V. F. Rudnev and broke everything”there is a logical contradiction of a psychological nature. The fact is that critics of the Varyag commander usually portray him as a cowardly and “sensitive to political moments” person. However, if V. F. Rudnev was such, then what actions would he have taken, taking under his command a cruiser, whose malfunctions in machines and boilers have already become the talk of the town? First of all, an illiterate and cowardly careerist commander would hide behind the broad backs of the members of the commission, in no way challenging its actions and in everything obeying its recommendations. That is, such a person would be concerned first of all with the fact that the blame for the ship's malfunctions would not be blamed on himself, and what could be the best way for this, but not to delegate responsibility to the commission that turned up so conveniently?
Based on the foregoing, the author of this article draws a conclusion, being fully confident in it: the state of the cruiser, described in the conclusion of the commission of ship mechanics chaired by I. P. Uspensky of April 17, 1903, cannot in any way be imputed to V. F. Rudnev. By the way, what was it like?
In accordance with the conclusion, the cruiser could go at an average speed, but not more than 16 knots, it was allowed to increase its speed to 20 knots for a short time, but it was noted that the Varyag could not maintain any lengthy speed at 20 knots.
In other words, the long-term repair of the cruiser and its subsequent tests were deemed unsuccessful; it was based on their results that it was decided to involve engineer I. I. Gippius, who supervised the assembly of vehicles and boilers of destroyers built here by the branch of the Petersburg Nevsky Plant. Without going into the details that we listed in one of the previous articles, let us once again quote his conclusion:
“Here it naturally suggests itself that the Crump plant, in a hurry to hand over the cruiser, did not have time to adjust the steam distribution; the machine quickly got upset, and on the ship, of course, they began to fix the parts that suffered more than others in the sense of heating, knocking, without eliminating the root cause. In general, it is undoubtedly an extremely difficult task, if not impossible, to straighten a vehicle that was initially faulty from the factory by ship means."
Without a doubt, one can argue for a long time about what caused such a deplorable state of machines and boilers of the Varyag - mistakes and defects of the cruiser builder, Ch. Crump, or the illiterate operation of his machines and boilers, as well as unskilled repairs. The author of this article has already presented his point of view, according to which it is the Americans who are to blame, but recognizes, of course, the readers' right to different conclusions. However, regardless of the reasons that caused the inability of the ship to develop more than 20 knots, and even then - for a short time, there is an absolutely reliable fact: Vsevolod Fedorovich Rudnev received a cruiser with such characteristics at his disposal, and did not bring the Varyag to them himself.
Then, alas, everything went on the knurled one. As we said earlier, the tests of the cruiser continued until mid-April, and then the cruiser entered the campaign - but it turned out to be very short for him, because after 2 months, on June 14, 1903, the ship again entered the armed reserve for another repair, from which it came out only on October 5th. In fact, work on the cruiser continued further - the right vehicle was assembled only in the first half of the day on October 9, and at the same time the cruiser entered the first tests. The speed was increased to 16 knots (110 rpm), but at the same time there was again a case of heating of the HPC bearing in the left car. Then … then the tests took place, the results of which are like to cite the supporters of the version that in Chemulpo the cruiser could well develop much more than 20-knot speed.
So, on October 16, during 12-hour tests, the cruiser was able to bring the number of revolutions to 140 without any problems (which, as we said earlier, corresponded to the speed of 21.8 knots in normal load), and then, on November 15, the cruiser held 130 revolutions (which gave a speed value in the range from 20 to 20, 5 knots, again, with the normal displacement of the ship). It was these achievements of the cruiser's power plant that made it possible to declare to the “overthrowers of the foundations” that the Varyag in Chemulpo could easily give 21-22 knots of speed, or even more.
But in reality it was this - yes, indeed 12-hour tests took place, but the fact is that during this time the Varyag covered only 157 miles, in other words, its average speed in these tests barely exceeded 13 knots … That is, the cruiser really reached 140 rpm and, fortunately, nothing broke, but this achievement was very short-lived and did not in any way indicate that the cruiser could go at such a speed for a long time. As for the tests on November 15, here, as a rule, supporters of the version of the "high-speed" Varyag "in Chemulpo" cited R. M. Melnikov: "The tests lasted only three hours, the speed was brought to 130 rpm", but at the same time, for some reason, they "forget" to quote the end of the sentence "… but then they reduced it to 50 - the bearings were warmed up again."
And besides this, you need to understand that such crankshaft revolutions corresponded to the indicated speeds only with a cruiser displacement corresponding to the normal one, that is, 6,500 tons. At the same time, under the conditions of daily service, the Varyag could in no case have such a displacement - it is known that at the end of the repair the cruiser received 1,330 tons of coal and its displacement exceeded 7,400 tons. Accordingly, with its normal load with other supplies, in order to "fit" into the 6,500 tons laid down in the passport, the cruiser should have on board not more than 400 tons of coal, which, of course, "for the campaign and battle" was categorically insufficient. Well, taking into account the actual displacement of the "Varyag", its speed at 130-140 rpm barely exceeded 19 -20 knots.
Until the battle in Chemulpo, the Varyag did not undergo more major repairs. We also see how quickly the cruiser's power plant became unusable during operation, so we can assume that by the time of the battle with the Japanese squadron, the Varyag's vehicles and boilers were in a worse condition than during the October and November tests (V. F. Rudnev spoke about 14 nodes, and in view of the above, this figure does not seem unrealistic). However, we cannot firmly know this, but in any case, the condition of the boilers and machines of the cruiser in Chemulpo could not be better than after their last repair.
Thus, in the battle on January 28, 1904, the maximum that even theoretically could be expected from the Varyag power plant is the ability to confidently hold 16-17 knots and briefly increase this speed to 20 knots, but the latter - with the risk of damaging the mechanisms. Most likely, the cruiser's capabilities were even lower.
And now, in order not to return to the question of the state of machines and boilers of the "Varyag" and move on to the issues of its combat training and the circumstances of the battle in Chemulpo, we will try to formulate the answers to the main questions and the opinions that have arisen among the readers during the reading of the cycle and the opinions expressed by them.
As we have repeatedly said earlier, the main reason for the failure of the Varyag machines can be considered its incorrect setting (steam distribution), which is why at the economic speed of the ship and at a steam pressure below 15.4 atm. the low-pressure cylinders stopped turning the crankshaft (they lacked energy), and instead began to be driven by the crankshaft themselves. As a result, the latter received an uneven load that was not planned by its design, which led to a rapid failure of the frame bearings of high and medium pressure cylinders, and then to a complete breakdown of the machine. The author of this article argued that the plant of Ch. Crump was to blame for such a state of machines. However, a number of respected readers have the opinion that the Varyag team is to blame for such damage to the machines, since if it maintained the appropriate steam pressure in the boilers (that is, more than 15, 3 atmospheres), then there would be no problems. Objections that such pressure could not be maintained in the Nikloss boilers without the risk of accidents are considered by such readers to be untenable on the grounds that nothing of the kind is observed on the battleship Retvizan, which also had Nikloss boilers, and besides, after after the "Varyag" and "Retvizan" ended up in the hands of the Japanese, there were no complaints about the operation of their boilers.
It is worth mentioning here the verdict of the ITC, drawn up by him based on the results of the report of the governor E. I. Alekseev and numerous reports and reports of technical specialists who participated in the inspection and repair of the mechanical installation "Varyag". In their opinion, even if the cruiser's cars were fully operational, it would still be impossible to give the cruiser a speed of more than 20 knots, since maintaining the steam production required for this on Nikloss's boilers would be extremely dangerous for his stokers. Back in 1902, the chief inspector of the mechanical part of the fleet, N. G. Nozikov carried out a great deal of work to assess the results of the operation of Nikloss boilers in the fleets of various states. In addition to accidents at the "Brave", "Retvzan" and "Varyag" N. G. Nozikov also studied the circumstances of emergencies of the gunboats Deside and Zeli, the battleship Maine, the steamer Rene-André and several cruisers. He came to the conclusion that accidents in these boilers occur even “when the water level in them is normal, in the absence of salinity, and in a completely clean state of the water-heating pipes, i.e. under such conditions, under which water tube boilers of Belleville and other systems operate flawlessly."
When asked why the “Retvizan” power plant with Nikloss boilers and machines assembled by the Ch. Krampa, turned out to be quite efficient, should be answered as follows: in fact, the state of the "Retvizan" during its transition to Port Arthur requires additional study and analysis.
Unfortunately, Russian historians have not yet written detailed monographs on this ship. Usually they mention the only accident of the "Retvizan" on the way to Russia, and then, as if everything was fine. But, if so, then why, at the end of 1902, 15 collectors for boilers were ordered for Retvizan? In stock? This is extremely doubtful, because, as we know, 40 collectors were required to be replaced from Varyag, but only 30 were ordered, and it is extremely difficult to assume that 15 collectors were purchased for the battleship unnecessarily. Rather, we can assume that they ordered the very minimum for the repair required by the ship. You can also remember that R. M. Melnikov casually mentions the problems with the blowdown valves of the Retvizan boilers, without, however, explaining the seriousness of these malfunctions.
But the most important thing is that the unverified steam distribution of the Varyag machines does not mean that the same problem exists on the Retvizan. In other words, it is quite possible that the "Retvizan" machines worked perfectly even at reduced steam pressure, and the low-pressure cylinders on them did not create the prerequisites for "loosening" the machines that were on the "Varyag". Thus, we can state that the history of the "Retvizan" power plant is still waiting for its researchers, and the information we have about it does not refute and does not confirm the version of Ch. Crump's guilt in the deplorable state of the "Varyag" machines. As for the exploitation of "Varyag" and "Retvizan" in Japan, it should be understood that we know absolutely nothing about it. Japan is a very closed country in terms of information, which does not like to “lose face”, describing its own failures in anything. In fact, we only know that both "Varyag" and "Retvizan" were introduced into the Japanese fleet and were operated in it for some time, but this is all - neither about the state, nor about the capabilities of the power plants of these ships during the "Japanese service”no information.
Sometimes, as an example of the reliability of Nikloss's boilers, it is indicated that the Japanese, having raised the Varyag, flooded in Chemulpo, did not tow it to the shipyard, and the ship reached it on its own using its own boilers. But at the same time, for example, Kataev points out that the Japanese decided to move the Varyag under their own boilers only after they replaced the faulty hot water pipes and collectors, that is, we can talk about the overhaul of the boilers before the transition, so there is nothing surprising in this no. It is also known that the Varyag, after its lifting and long-term repairs in Japan, was able to develop 22, 71 knots on trials, but it should be understood that the cruiser managed to reach such a speed only after a major overhaul of machines and mechanisms - for example, they were completely replaced bearings for high and medium pressure cylinders.
It should be understood that the Varyag's machines were not initially vicious, they were, so to speak, unfinished, not brought to mind, and their deficiency (steam distribution) could well have been corrected. The problem of the Russian sailors was that they did not immediately figure out the true causes of the problems of the cruiser's machines, and for a long time (during the transitions to Russia and Port Arthur) they tried to eliminate the consequences - while they were doing this, the machines came into complete disarray. This does not indicate any inexperience of the ship's engine command - as I. I. Gippius, such repairs are beyond the competence of the crew. And, of course, if the "Varyag" carried out its service not in Port Arthur, but, for example, in the Baltic, where there were adequate ship repair facilities, then its machines could be straightened. But "Varyag" was in Port Arthur, whose capabilities were very, very limited, and therefore did not receive the required repair: the Japanese, most likely, made such repairs, which is why the cruiser was able to show 22.71 knots on tests. A completely different question - how long could he maintain this speed and how quickly did he lose this ability? After all, when the Varyag was bought out by Russia, the officers who examined it noted that the cruiser's boilers were in very poor condition and would last a maximum of one and a half to two years, and then they should be replaced. All the old problems that Varyag faced were evident - both cracks in the collectors, and deflection of pipes, and in addition, there was "some deflection of propeller shafts." By the way, the Japanese were "ashamed" to demonstrate the cruiser even at low speed, although the battleships (the former "Poltava" and "Peresvet") were taken out to sea.
Accordingly, we must understand that the lack of information about breakdowns and other problems of power plants during the service of "Retvizan" and "Varyag" in Japan does not mean that such breakdowns and problems did not arise.
Another very reasonable objection to the author of this article was made about the statistics of the cruiser repairs (one running day required almost the same amount of repair time), during its transition from the United States to Russia and then to Port Arthur. It consisted in the fact that such statistics make sense only in comparison with the results achieved by other ships, and this, no doubt, is true. Unfortunately, the author of this article was able to find information only on the armored cruiser Bayan, equipped with Belleville boilers, but it is also very "talking".
"Bayan" was preparing for the passage to Port Arthur from the Mediterranean Sea, being near the island of Poros - there he waited for the battleship "Tsesarevich" for 40 days and there, together with him, made all the necessary preparations for the ocean crossing. Unfortunately, it is not known how much work was done on the part of boilers and machines, whether their bulkhead was done according to the model and likeness of how it was done on the "Varyag" - but in any case, we can say that the commander of the "Bayan" did everything necessary for the ocean crossing.
After that, "Bayan" went on a journey along the route of about. Poros - Port Said - Suez - Djibouti - Colombo - Sabang - Singapore - Port Arthur. In total, the cruiser spent 35 days on the way and 20 - at the stops at the above points, on average a little more than 3 days for each, not counting Poros and Port Arthur. There is no information that the ship had to repair vehicles at these parking lots; upon arrival in Port Arthur, the Bayan was fully operational and did not require repairs. The first information about problems with his car appears on February 5, 1904, after the start of the war and the participation of the cruiser in the battle on January 27. On February 5, the cruiser was supposed to go along with the Askold for reconnaissance of the Bond Islands, but on the Bayan one of the bearings of the right vehicle got very hot, which was corrected during a four-day repair and the ship continued its combat service.
"Varyag" was preparing to leave the Mediterranean Sea, being near the island of Salamis - we will deliberately omit all its misadventures up to this moment (the bulkheads of the car in Dunkirk and Algeria, nothing like the "Bayan" did), but we will stop at Salamis because it was there IN AND. Baer was ordered to leave the Mediterranean and follow to the Persian Gulf. And we know for certain that the Varyag's machine team spent at least two weeks rebuilding machines - they most likely took longer to do this, and we are talking about two weeks only because V. I. Baer requested them additionally for the repair of the power plant.
So, after entering the Persian Gulf and before arriving in Colombo, the Varyag cruiser spent 29 sailing days at sea and 26 days at various stops. During this time, the cruiser had three accidents in boilers and repeatedly repaired its own cars and boilers, not only in the parking lot, but also on the move (a bulkhead of 5,000 boiler tubes and evaporators in the Red Sea). However, upon arrival in Colombo, V. I. Baer was forced to ask permission for a two-week delay for the next repair of the power plant. She was given to him. Then the cruiser went out to sea again, but again had a problem with the heating of the high-pressure cylinder bearings, so after 6 days of sea passage she got up in Singapore for 4 days, of which 3 was engaged in the bulkhead of cars, and then 6 days of passage to Hong Kong and a week of repair work in him. It took a total of 7 days at sea to travel from Hong Kong to Nagasaki and from there to Port Arthur, but upon arrival in Port Arthur, the cruiser immediately got into a six-week repair.
Thus, it is quite obvious that on the way to the Far East "Varyag" spent longer in repairs than "Bayan" spent time at all stops (regardless of what he was doing there) on the way to Port Arthur, despite the fact that the armored cruiser arrived in good working order.
Also interesting is one more remark - the history of acceptance tests of the armored cruiser "Askold". Here, the author's respected opponents point to many problems identified during the tests of the cruiser, guided by the following logic: since Askold had such significant difficulties, but he fought quite well, it means that the “root of evil” was not in the design of the Varyag power plant. but in the ability of his machine commands.
What can I say here? Yes, indeed - “Askold” surrendered for an exhaustingly long and difficult time, but …
The first exit took place on April 11, 1901 - malfunctions of the feed pumps, rupture of tubes in boilers, strong vibrations, and all this at a speed of some 18, 25 knots. The cruiser was returned for revision. The next exit - on May 23 of the same year: the plant representatives expected that the cruiser will demonstrate the contract speed, but the Russian observers, having recorded the sound of machines and vibration, interrupted the tests and returned the ship for revision. The release on June 9 showed that the mechanisms work better, and N. K. Reitenstein allowed the cruiser to go to Hamburg to continue testing. The ship docked in Hamburg, and then went to Kiel around the Jutland Peninsula by the North Sea and the Danish Straits - the company's management wanted to test the cruiser for a longer voyage. In the North Sea, the cruiser went under two machines at a speed of 15 knots. It seems that everything turned out not so bad, but the tests of the ship are postponed for another month. Finally, on July 25, "Askold" leaves … no, not at all for the final tests, but only for grinding in the bearings - the cruiser's machines gave at least 90-95 rpm, the selection committee did not satisfy the result and the ship was sent back for revision.
And finally, the cruiser leaves on August 19 for preliminary tests - a speed of 23.25 knots was reached, and during 10 runs the average speed was 21.85 knots. But the caustic Russians again do not like something, and "Askold" returns to eliminate comments on the work of its mechanisms - this time very insignificant, but still. On September 6, "Askold" goes to the Danzig measured mile and fulfills the terms of the contract - but there is a knock in the cars and oil seals soar. The result - the cruiser is returned for revision. After 9 days, the ship is admitted to official tests and goes well - there are no complaints about its power plant.
Everything? Yes, it never happened. On November 3, the cruiser goes to additional tests, shows everything that is required under the contract, the machines and mechanisms work without comment. And only then, finally, the selection committee is satisfied and announces the end of the Askold's sea trials.
Now let's compare this with the acceptance tests of the Varyag. We will not list them all, but remember that during its final tests on the cruiser, a tube of one boiler burst, the refrigerator leaked on the night after the tests, and the revision of machines and boilers in the field of testing revealed many defects.
Thus, we can talk about a fundamental difference in approaches when conducting sea trials "Askold" and "Varyag". If the first was adopted by the commission only after its members were convinced that the contractual speed indicators were achieved with the normal operation of the mechanisms, which did not cause any complaints, then for the second, the basis for acceptance into the treasury was only the fact that the contract speed was achieved. The fact that at the same time the boilers and machines of the "Varyag" showed a very unreliable operation, alas, did not become the basis for the return of the cruiser for revision. In other words, the selection committee under the leadership of N. K. Reitenstein “didn’t get off” the Germans until they eliminated the comments on the reliability of the Askold power plant, but E. N. Schensnovich, alas, could not achieve this from Ch. Crump. It is difficult to say what was to blame - the peculiarities of the contract signed with Ch. Crump, or a direct oversight of the supervising commission, but the fact remains: after all the modifications, Askold's machines and boilers turned out to be quite reliable, but Varyag, alas, could not boast.
