What was the typical speed of a tramp steamship in their heyday? I mean cruising speed, not flank speed; the figure you would divide into distance to see how long it would take to travel between ports.
The Wikipedia article on the Tramp Trade says
The size of tramp ships remained relatively constant from 1900 to 1940, at about 7,000 to 10,000 deadweight tons (dwt.).
This is a fairly narrow size range, and the Wikipedia article on the steamship suggests the technology of steamships was mature by the late nineteenth century, and remained so for the first few decades of the twentieth century until replacement by diesel engines, which suggests there should be a correspondingly narrow speed range.
But all the steamship speed figures I can find, are for the big famous liners, e.g. the top speed of the Titanic was 23 knots (more than 26 miles per hour). The article Booking Passage On A Steamship - 1910 says
There are many factors connected with the price of staterooms; the time of passage must he considered, for every increased knot of speed means a vastly increased coal consumption, which is almost inconceivable to the layman; the saving of a day in passage may mean double coal consumption.
which confirms a tramp steamer should be slower.
So what was a typical speed? (If there exists a record of tramp steamer journey time between two ports, the distance between which is known, that would also work.)
