DIRECT STEAM SERVICE.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 536, 22 June 1880, Page 3

DIRECT STEAM SERVICE.

Messrs Money, Wigrarn, and Son’s steamship Norfolk arrived at Lyttelton last Saturday. She left Plymouth with between three and four hundred passengers on the 19th April, so that she was fifty-four days out. Her cargo for Lyttelton was about 100 tons, besides which she has some for Wellington, whither she proceeded from Lyttelton. The bulk of her cargo is for Sydney, to which port she will proceed direct from Wellington. After discharging there it is the intention of her owners to send her to Hong Kong to load with new seoson’a teas for Home. The steamer is not, as has been supposed bj> some, the well-known old Australian trader of the same name, and belonging to the same owners. As will be gleaned from the following, she is a full-powered, magnificent boat, and is now on but her second voyage. [The Norfolk was built by Green and Go., Blackwall, from whose yards she was built last June, and shewed a speed of fifteen knots on her trial trip last September, Her maiden voyage from London to Melbourne was accomplished in forty-one days six hours actual steaming time. Her dimensions are—Length, 332 ft 6in; beam, 40ft lin. ; depth of hold, 32ft 9in ; gross register, 3196 tons ; net register, 2227 tons (about 500 tons more than that of Stad Harleam). She is flush decked and barque rigged, The engines have four cylinders—two high and two low pressure—and they indicate 3000 horse-power. The bunkers at the sides of the engine and boiler rooms have a capacity of 1350 tons of coal. There is ample accommodation of a very superior order for all classes of passengers, the msin saloon being 110 feet in length, and having a breadth of 16ft inside the state rooms. She is full-powered up to tonnage, but her owners usually work their steamers as sailing vessels with auxiliary steam power for use when the wind is not favourable. Her voyage of 54 days out is moderately quick steaming. This experimental trip ought to pay handsomely from passenger fares, irrespective of cargo, of which she has brought a fair quantity, the bulk of it being for Sydney Riobably she might have loaded up fully for this colony, if the owners had made their plans accordinnly.