DESTROYER'S DASH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9608, 30 September 1909, Page 3

DESTROYER'S DASH.

BOOM AT PORTMOUTH CUT IN TWO.

DARING NAVAL EXPLOIT.

( The perilous experiment of setting a war vessel to charge the massive timber boom at Portsmouth was ; made recently, says the London ; "Daily Mail." To the sniprise of j many of the experts, the torpedoboat destroyer Ferret swept through the defence, "as though," in the words of one message, "it had been a cobweb." The object of the experiment was I to test the vulnerability of the boom ! defences which have been used by the Admiralty for many years for protecting harbours against an enemy's warships. The Ferret's exploit proves that these booms are worthless. The experiment took place at five a.m. For the purposes of the trial the Ferret's bows had been strengthened; and, as the work was regarded as perilous she carried a crew of volun • teers. The Ferret had to charge a boom consisting of massive bauls of timber, seven or eight feet long, stretched across the upper reaches of the har > hour. The boom consisted of baulks of timber about seven or eight times the size of an ordinary railway sleeper, pointed, and laced together with ' great chain and wire cables, with similar cables placed below water to foul the propellsrs, and others arranged to.fly up and catch the destroyer's upper works and her nose down on the ugly steel spikes I which fringed the edges of the tim bering. The Ferret made her dash from Spithead, coming into harbour at a good fifteen knots an hour. The onlookers fairly thrilled with ecxitement as she headed straight as a dart for the little red flag which indicated where the blow was to be delivered. The Ferret charged the obstruction with a froward draught of sft lOin, and she must have cut clean through the submerged protective hawser because she struck the boom fair and square. Her bows did not rise an inch", she wa3 not "jumped"' up by the submerged wire on the spikes, which, until this decisive moment, it was claimed would [rip the boctom and side plates to shreds; and the watchers plainly saw the 3in hawser stretched above the boom snap when it came in contact with the destroyer's strengthened bows, lpaving little more than a dent as a record of the impact. There was not much else to be seen, however, for the moment the boom gave under the weight of thi3 325 ton destroyer, forced against it at sixteen or seventeen miles an hour, the wreckage swished back and clouds of foam hid the vessel from view. The volunteers on board had been told that they night shut off steam before the impact and come and lay flat on their faces on deck, in case the Ferret was swept by the steel wire or was spiked and foundered. But not a man left bis place. Just as Lieut. Hodgson and the helmsman stuck to their po*t3 on deck the engineers and stokers k pt to their work below, and, in 1 ict, felt so little oi the shock that they did not know that the biom had ba<n rushed until the hurried orders "Stop," "Go astern," were tinkled down from the bridge. A launch, in its hasle to render first aid to the Ferret in case she wanted it, dashed through the gap in the boom to join the swarm of vessels that steamed up alongside the destroyer. They found Lieut, Hodgsun with his hands in his pockets, the very personification of cool.iess, and, if anything, rather amused at the pressing anxiety. The Ferret could have returned to dork under her own steam, but it was part of thj programme that she should be taken in charge by the dockyard tugs, and as she surrendered I herselt to them rumours that she J was spiked and foundering were ! current. As a matter of fact, the j destroyer was scarcely scratched. The ship's complement is about fifty, but for Wednesday's dangerous duty fewer than ten volunteers were called for, just enough to command, drive, steer, and stoke the vessel. They were readily forthcoming, and they had the satisfaction of having thrown light on a very knotty problem of Naval defence. Tne Portsmouth boom was supposed until Wednesday to be invul- i nerable, but nothing could have been carried away with more ridic- ' ulous ease than the obstruction of i beams, spikes and wire, which has its counterpart at various points round the coast. It has to be re cogj nised that the contraption, which Mas | stood tne test of years (in theory) has failed the first time it has been put to a practical test. The operation was witnessed by Commundarin-Chief Admiral Sir Arthur Fanshawe. and his staff. Afterwards the Ferret was dry docked, but the only damage she had sustained was a denting of some of the plates' of the bow, which had been strengthened and knife-edge fitted. The hull and propeller were undamaged, aud not a 1 rivet was strained.