LAUNCH OF A CIGAR SHIP.

Evening Star, Issue 3690, 19 December 1874, Page 2 (Supplement)

LAUNCH OF A CIGAR SHIP.

The ‘ Mail ’ of September 25, contains an account of a launch at Hull of a vessel called the Bessemer. She was built at Earle’s yard, and is intended for the passage trade between England and France. She is named after one of her designers, Mr Bessemer ; the other being Mr Reed, well- • known as a builder of ships of line. She is intended |to destroy liability to sea-sickness of passengers, and at the same time to secure the highest possible speed. She is cigar-shaped at both ends, has a swinging saloon 70ft. long, is so constructed that she can be propelled in either direction, and is ex pected to realise eighteen to twenty miles an hour. Her dimensions arelength at the water line 350 ft, raised central portion rising Bft. above the low bow, and stem 254 ft. The saloon is in the centre, and forward and aft are two pairs of paddle-wheels, moved by two engines of the combined power of 750 horses, but working up to 4.600. Each paddle wheel is 27ft. lOin. in diameter. In addition to the saloon “ the greatest wonder of its kind since the hanging gardens in Babylon”— and on the deck below, is a second-class saloon 52ft. long. The interior of the swinging saloon measures 70ft. in length, 35ft. in width, and 20ft. in height. It will be well lighted through large ground-glass windows, and ventilated and warmed by fans and tubes. Considered apart from all considerations of profit, the ‘ Mail ’ says:—“ The Bessemer ship is one of the most novel and interesting attempts in naval architecture made during this generation. The design of the constructor has been to render the swinging saloon perfectly steady, no matter how the vessel rolls.” After describing the vessel as minutely as words admit of, the ‘ Mail ’ says : It was by rle-ire of Mr Bessemer, and with the object of checking the tendency to pitch, which the Bessemer ship, in common with every other, must possess, that Mr Reed gave her at each end ihe very low freeboard of 3ft., rounding off thei-e low ends both above and below water. Looking yesterday at these very unusual extremities of the Be semer steamer one could not heip speculating upon the effect of driving auch a bow thro gh the sea at the enormous estimated speed of 18 or 20 mi es an hour. It is not likely that the phenomena produced by an ordina y ram bow will be repeated, because the fact of the upper portion overhanging the lower must greatly check the tendency of the water to heap up in front of til© bow and to fall in cataracts forward Jhe lowne&s of the bow above water will favor the rolling over of the sea upon the fore deck, and on the whole it seems probable, considering the high rate at which the vessel is to be driven, that this low outlying bow will always be covered with w-der when the ship is at full speed, and that in routh weather the behaviour of this bow with the sea will afford interest an i amusement to those travellers who do not Had it necessary to keep below. Betumiug to the saloon itself it is necessary to sweep entirely away at the very outset all ideas of this saloon being a mere * pendulous ’ csbin It is not pendulous in any true sense, for instead of being swung loosely upon centres, it is place; underthecontrol of enormous hydraulic engines, which will have it, it is hoped, uaoer absolute command. It is true that it is mounted upon steel centres, three in number, one at each end and one at the centre, but it is j.lso laid hold*of at the sides by the hydraulic machinery, which will impart to it such rotary motion as may be found necessary. As the saloon and the machinery are all* to he carriedinthe rolling ship—for 4, must be presumed that neither her size nor all her de signer’s precautions will prevent the ship itself from rolling in heavy weather-it is obvious that if the occupants of the saloon are to be relieved ot the rolling motion, the saloon must itself have motions the reverse of those of the ship imparted to it. And this is precisely what is proposed—viz., to roll the saloon within the ship just as much as the ship rolls, but in the opposite direction, so than the occupants of the saloon may feel no rolling motion at all Another way of viewing the matter is that of considering the ship to roll abound the saloon, the object of all the machinery being to prevent the ship from carrv ing the sa'oon round with it