POINTS ABOUT THE FLAGSHIP

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1339, 17 January 1912, Page 4

POINTS ABOUT THE FLAGSHIP

IS SHE A MONEY-EATER? Quite a big sum of money lias just been spent in refitting our new flagship, the Drake. According to recent advices from Home this namesake ( of .the great Elizabethan sailor has absorbed no less I than in having her engines, boilers, guns, shields, plates, and tophamper overhauled and renovated. This is more than one-ninth of her first cost, for the Admiralty paid =£1,002,977 when they took her over from the builders at Pembroke in 1002. Tho wear and' tear of ten years' cruising seems to hiivo been considerable. Strokes of Krupp steel on her sides raise her to tho dignity of a "plated ship," and, in that respect, she figures as the (second plated ship which has dono duty on the Australasian station, tho first being the Euryalus—a much more modern craft than the Drake. It was the necessity for having all the modern plated ships massed in Home waters which took tho Euryalus away. A rather remarkable point about the Drake is the sizo of her complement. She carries no fewer than 900 men, whereas tho Dreadnought's complement is oulv 800.