THE PATENT SLIP.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4357, 8 March 1875, Page 2

THE PATENT SLIP.

The Patent Slip Company's shipwrights are fully employed at present, effecting repairs to the three-masted schooner Melaine and the barque Edwin Bassett. The former vessel, it will be remembered, was taken up about three weeks ago for the purpose of receiving an overhaul, but it has since been found that the repairs necessary to her are of a much more extensive character than were at first supposed to be required ; in fact she will receive such a renovation as to make her almost as good a, vessel as when she was first launched. The Melaine now looks a perfect wreck ; she has been entirely "gutted," stripped of her lining,, rigging, decks, bulwarks, and all her spars excepting hpr lower masts ; her cabin and forecastle are demolished, and altogether she appears in a sorry condition. Her bottom has been found to be in fair order, but her decks, deckbeams, and stanchions were in a very shaky and rotten state. The repairs necessary to again fit her for sea are : New deckbeams", new waterways, new decks, new stanchions, partially new topsails, everything new 'tween decks, new bulwarks, rails, fore-yard, bowsprit, and jibboom. Her cabin and forecastle will be newly fitted, and there will also be new deck fittings. The schooner has been taken off the slipcarriage, and dropped on the stocks, so as to allow of the carriage being used for the ordinary work of hauling up vessels which require but slight repairs. Quite a month will elapse before the Melaine i 3 again afloat. Captain Williams' barque Edwiu Bassett, which had lately received an overhaul to her rigging and top sides, besides alterations to her cabin, was on Saturday morning last; hauled out of the water on the patent slip carnage. Her bottom shows signs of having scraped on s something harder than sand, but a few days will suffice to put her to rights. About a-, hundred feet of her keel requires to be recoppered, aud several sheets of new metal will : replace lost ones on her port bilge. She will, in all probability, be enabled to resume her , voyage by the end of the week. With the view of always having a staff of shipwrights engaged, so that urgent repairs to vessels may be rapidly accomplished, the Patent Slip Company will, when the Melaine has been repaired, commence building a craft on their own account. She will be built whilst no other job offers, thus providing work for a fair number of men. The vessel -will be a topsail schooner, of eighty tons register. The timber to bo used in her construction will be principally Tasmanian hardwood, kauri alone being used as lining, on account of its lightnesß and adaptability for the purpose. The schooner will be of such a model as to adapt her to the New Zealand coasting trade—good carrying capacity, with light draught of water. She v will be of the following dimensions ;—Length; i 80 feet ; breadth of beam, 19 feet ; and depth of hold, 7 feet 6 inches, with a registered ton-i nage, as before stated, of eighty tons. If.the>. timber for the keel is x>n board the barque'; Malay, now in quarantine, a start will be made,* —if no other work offers in the meantime—itfi about six weeks. ...