SALE OF OBSOLETE WARSHIPS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 31 December 1913, Page 4

SALE OF OBSOLETE WARSHIPS.

For the first time in naval history submarines were offered for sale at an auction of obsolete warships at Portsmouth dockyard during last 0& tober. The first British submarine was jaunched in 1901 at Barrow. Three submarines of the Holland type, the boats which formed the nucleus of the present magnificent submarine flotillas of Britain, were sold at auction. TTiey were sold with their 160 h.p. engines and also thoir torpedo-tubes, but it was a condition of sale that the tubes should be broken up under the inspection of an Admiralty official the removal of the boats. The. engines and other fittings wcjre dismantled so aa to be useless, and the boats were really little more than shells. The submarines were built to sink ships, now they are to be used to raise them. One of the buyers said they would be turned over to the salvage companies for use as "camels" (large cylinders sunk Feneath a wreck and filled with air for the purpose of liftin"- it).; The higTiest price realised, was, £4lO and the lowest £36o.Theold battleship Royal Sovereign, built at Portsmouth for £824,000, and named hy Queen Victoria, was &old for £40,000. The Ramillies, another battleship of this type, wan sold for £42,300. The latter "cost £1,000,000 twenty years ago.