BRITANNIA’S LATEST WATERBABY.

Evening Star, Issue 3486, 25 April 1874, Page 3

BRITANNIA’S LATEST WATERBABY.

The London Daily Telegraph? thus refers to the new war ship recently launched at Portsmouth:—“ The Shah will surely be a wonderful ship. Her ‘ differentia’ is speed; she has been built for a warlike flyer; and when she gets her mighty engines on board, and all her sails bent, she will—if not a lamentable failure—show herself the quickest craft in the world upon the high seas. She will be, in point of fact, nothing if not a thorough-bred ocean racer, for the massive armor which her sisters carry is laid aside by the new-comer. The Shah wears no more than an inch of iron plate under an outside skin of teak) and the smallest service-gun earned now- a-days would send its shot through sides of such a vessel at a mile range. It is not solid round, or elongated shot, however, which do much mischief, unless they strike between wind and water. shells are the deadly missiles which have led to so much piling up of plate «pon plate; and the nine inches of the Shah s side would be, perhaps, enough to explode a percussion shell externally , where the shocck does comparatively little damage. But it is meant to be the ob&h s own lAult if shot or shell ever get much chance of falling upon her ; she is to prove agile and nimble enough to run round and round almost any antagonist, avoiding or delivering battle as may suit so veritable a falcon of the waters, r lhe new vessel is nevertheless, of ■ magnificent proportions being 335 feet long, with 52 feet beam, and a capacity of 4,039 tons. M er splendid engines will work up to 7,000-horse power, and her sails will cover an area of an acre in extent, being twenty-nine in number when all are set. These fine proportions are seemingly

diminished by the extreme beauty of her hull. Sharp and clean below, with the entrance a , raciD S schooner and the run of a steam yacht, she does not look the powerful frigate which she is—just as the beautiful proportions of a handsome woman conceal her stature. The Shah brings us back again to the old days when a ship of war was glorious m grace as well as strength. She will be as symmetrical and comely as most of her modern consorts are the reverse ; and even her own sisters, the Inconstant and the Raleigh, will be put in the shade by the appearance of this really beautiful new vessel. What

will the Shah do ? Her constructors promise and vow for her as follows:—With a fair wind, a clean copper bottom, and all plain sail set, she will make thirteen or fourteen knots an hour—which is fourteen and a-half to sixteen miles. Under full pressure of steam, without anything but a steadying • sail or two, she will do fifteen knots; and with steam and sails combined she is expected to accomplish eighteen knots —which is nearly twenty-two miles, or more than a mile in three minutes. Let us compare this rate of speed with that of some of our finest war-ships. The Shannon and Diadem—triumphs of construction after their kind—logged no more than twelve knots in 1855. Ariadne and Orlando touched thirteen knots, and this was the limit for our fastest wooden line-of-battle ships and frigates ; while the best of our corvettes and sloops of the same date never equalled such

performances. Weight and engine-power are what tell most in respect of speed, along with good lines ; and therefore the ponderous ironclads, with their jhuge screw-engines, outdid lighter and weaker craft. The Black Prince, Achilles, Minotaur, and Monarch have each exceeded fourteen knots per hour in their best trim; and the Agincourt has shown ®[ lght |y better speed even than this, although it was not in sea-going trim. Nothing in the heavier classes of foreign navies goes beyond the limits of speed which we have named, unless it be the Bochambeau, and in our own the Inconstant

alone has achieved fifteen and fifteen and three-quarters. It will be clear, therefore, how remarkable a rate is promised for this new frigate, which is to sail as fast as the best armor-plated ship can steam, to steam as fast as the Inconstant can fly, with sails helping her engines, and to travel at the pace of an ordinary railway train, when the wind is abeam or on the quarter, and when her canvas can be all set, as well as her crew

kept going. Furthermore, she is to have a great stowing capacity for coal, enough to take her out to New York and back again, even witn a dead head wind blowing both ways. And now for the teeth of this sea queen. Of these she carries twenty-six, namely, sixteen guns on the main deck, each of six and a half tons, with two sixty-four pounders, and six more of these last on the upper deck, besides a heavy pivot gun fore and aft, each of eighteen tons, firing in a line with the keel at an advancing or retiring enemy. Such a ship, with her large crew, would be of magnificient utility in case

our commerce were threatened by Alabamas. dew will she fare when she meets an.ironclad foe ? The answer lies in her speed and in those two heavy guns which she carries under her poop and forecastle. They are long range pieces, weight of missile being subordinated to distance of flight and aeonracy. If the Shah, while she audaciously approaches, can pelt a gigantic enemy with four hundred pound pellets from her bowgun, while she shows no more than the knife edge of her stem ; and then, when obliged to retreat, can hurl bolt after bolt from her stern-chaser, in the Parthian manner, upon her foe, she may prove formidable against any single antagonist, however mail-clad.