THE "HORNET" TORPEDO CATCHER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2738, 15 November 1894, Page 3

THE "HORNET" TORPEDO CATCHER.

The latest addition to the British navy, in the shape of a torpedo catcher, is the fastest ship in the world. In three hours' continuous steaming in the estuary of the Thames it maintained a mean speed of 27.624 knots —or nearly thirty-five miles an hour. The new boat is a sister to the Havoc, which vessel is capable of 26J knots, and forty-two more of her kind are on the Blocks at various yards in the country. The Hornet is not a pretty Teasel She is built on the lines of a torpedo boat, but with four funnels. Her length is 180 ft, and her beam at the waterliue lHJft. She is built, as to her hull, of mild steel, and divided by ten water-tight bulkheads. Her eleven com partments are thus utilised:—Right forward, chain locker and bow torpedo tube; then forecastle containing men's berths; at the after end of these, and terminating the turtle deck, is a conning tower, containing the forward steering wheel; next are the officers' quarters, which are right above the magazine; cooking apparatus and utensils, etc., occupy the next compartment; and the next two are sacred to the boilers, etc. These boilers are the Yarrow water-tube patent, and develop four thousand horbt power with ease. On each Bide »>f .them are coal bunkers. Iu the next compartment are two sets of triple expansion engines and their addenda. So splendidly balanced are these engines that even when spinning at the rate of four hundred revolutions to the minute there is no appraciable vertical vibration. The Hornet's offensive armament cousists of a twelve - pounder quiok firing gun, mounted on the conning tower forward, having an all-round fire, and "two bixpounders abaft the tower, one on each side, with a range from direct ahead to well aft of the beam. On a pedestal aft there u another six-pounder quick firing Sin. Besides the bow torpedo tubes, the ornet haß two swivel tubes placed on a turntable aft. The evolutionary capabilities of the boat have been fully tested. She turnß almost in her own length. Thu builders state that vessels of her type can steam ten knots an hour on coal con sumption of SJcwt, so that by bringing extra coal in the stokehold, as sup Elemental to the bunker supply, it wouk. e possible to send the Hornet fum thousand miles without recoaling. The improvement in the speed of the Hornet, •) compared with the Havoc (the first of the type) is attributable solely to the Yarrow boiler, in which the watei circulates in short tubes of small diameter, with the fire playing round them, inverting the plan adopted in boilers of the locomotive typea with whioh the Havoc is provided. When the whole fleet ot torpedo catchers are in service, the strength of England's fire line of defence will be tremendously increased.