THE LOSS OF THE AMAZON

West Coast Times, Issue 316, 27 September 1866, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LOSS OF THE AMAZON

(fROM,THE TIiUES, JULY 13.)

The Amazon was not only a perPtvlly new ship, but was the first of so novel and interesting a class of vessels that the following particulars of her construction and. armament will be read with interest. She was designed about two years ago by Mr E. J: Reed, chief constructor of tlie navy, in obedience to the directions of the Board of Admiralty and controller of the navy, for the purpose of replacing the slow and weakly-armetl sloops of the Royal Navy with vessels of higher speed and more powerful guns, 'and in a very early stage of her progress she obtained Considerable notice from the circumstance of Lord Clarence Paget, who was then the organ of the Admiralty in the House of Commons, stating in Parliament that she was the first of what he was pleased to call the " Alabama class" of our men-of-war, the fact being however, that the %Amazon really differed in all essential respects from the. Alabama much more thajn the latter vessel dinvre.l from the existing types of Admiralty sloops. The first thing aimed at in the design of the Am izun, which was an unar.noured ship, was a speed superior ito that of the Rinaldo and Roebuck classes, who.se maximum speed was 10*25 and li-1 knots respectively Tho speed of the Amazon proved to be 12*4 or very nearly twelve and a h,alf knots,

and in a valuable Parliamentary paper, printed by order of the House of Commons on the 23rd of March last, on tho motion of Mr Graves^ the controller of the navy shows, ..that a speed of even thirteen knots,, in this vepsel of only 1,080 tous,.[w.ould have been obtained but for an- increase in the weight of her armament and complement, and tho submergence of the " counter " of the sliip, intended to screen the rudderhead. With these drawbacks, however, the speed of the Amazon greatly exceeded that of all previous men-of-war •of her size at load draught, and placed her in tKis uespect among the' fastest of our unarmoured frigates. . The next peculiarity in the Amazon's design was the adoption of what is j known as the economical class *of ,pro-, pelling engine, which had been adopted with great success, as regards the economy of fuel, in^the Enterprise, Pallas, Bellerophon, and other, armor-plated ships, and in the experimental wooden - frigates, but which ;was not in use in any wooden sloop of war belonging to • the Royal Navy. The adoption of this class of engine, in association with the French form of screw propeller, led to some very singular and unexpected results in4he early trials "of the Amazon, all of which are set forth, in the detail that professional persons require, in the Parliamentary paper before referred to. The characteristic feature 6f these engines is the Employment of very small boilers, and consequently' the consumption of very little fuel in. proportion to the power developed by the engines, the large' development of power being secured by the great expansion of the steam, the use of surface condensers, and the system of super-heating the steam on its way from the boilers to the engines. The machinery of the Amazon was made by Messrs Ravenhill, Salkeld, and Co., and although in this case, as ' in that of the Pallas and of the Bellerophon, the usual excess of power over and above the contract power Avas not developed, the result of the experiment was highly satisfactory, and the consumption of fuel for the speed of the ship proved exceedingly small. Perhaps the most interesting changes made in the hull of the Amazon depended in some degree upon the great indicated power which it was proposed to develope in her (engines. The bow was»for,med with greater length below than above the water, somewhat iv tho form of a swan's breast* not, as some of our contemporaries are presuming, to adapt the vessel for use as a " ram," but with a view to superior speed and behaviour in a sea-way, exactly Jn the same manner and for the same reason as the Helicon paddle-steamer was formed at the bow, with an obvious advantage in point of speed. There WoS no iron forging or casting upon the stem, as some accounts hate represented, but merely a light brass cut-water, to cleave the water smoothly and- easily, as in the case of the when the vessel was driven at the high speed contemplated. It may be added that the bow , of the Amazon received none of those 1 interior bracings and strengthenings which were fitted to the Pallas and other wood-built "rams," the use for ramming purposes, of so light a vessel, built without armor, forming no part of the intentions either of the Admiralty or of Mr Reed, her constructor. At' the- stern, of the vessel on the contrary, where it was known that the great strain of her engines must come, an entirely new system of iron bracing was expressly introduced, under the personal direction of Mr Reed, the power to withstand the strain of her engines and screw at, that part being the crucial test of a wood built ship of great engine power, and this difficulty being enhanced in the case of the Amazon by the submission of the " counter" 'before refeiTed. As other vessels of the Amazon class are coming forward, it is satisfactory to know that" the stern of the Amazon, with the new system of strengthening, proved fully able to withstand all the strain brought upon it even when the engines and screw were running for many hours together at their greatest speed. The armament of the Amazon con"sisted of four gnns, two of them being of six and half tons weight, and firing 1001b'. round shot, with 251 b. charges of powder. These formidable guns were carried in the centre of the ship, and. by a new arrangement of the gun-slides and pivots, were so contrived/that both of them could quickly be brought to bear and fought on either side of the ship — a system which has also been carried out in most 'of our sloops of war that have undergone a refit siuce the Amazon was designed. In addition to these two heavy guns amidships, the Amazon carried a revolving 64-pounder rifled gun at the bow, and another at the stern, 'each capable, like the central 'pivot guns, of being fought on either side. By. these devices the Amazon was enabled not only to steam -after an enemy at an unusually high speed, but also to engage her with an armament far more formidable than 'any sloop of like size had previously borne into ac.tibn. ' The " Western Morning News" gives! the following partiexilars respecting the recent most calamitous collision in the I English Channel, briefly noticed in our columns of yesterday : —

" The steam sloop of war Amazon left Spithead on Monday for- Halifax, Nova Scotia, having been appointed to the North American station. She was commissioned at Devonport in April last, by Commander James E. Hunter, an active officer of high standing in the service, and left Plymouth Sound on the 4th of June, for a cruise in the North Sea. She had on. board a crew of 130 of all ranks, and about twenty supernumeraries. The ilmazon was a four-

guv screw sloop, of 1080 tons, and 300horse power, was contract Tpuilt and

constructed of wood, having been designed by Mr E: J. Reed, the chief constitutor of the navy. The ship on Thursday morning, ;:l)ont one o.' clock, was' ou her voyage down Channel ; it was the watch of oiie of the lieutenants ; the night w.is clear, and the weather fine, with a light breeze. The Amazon had her reguliiuon lights brightly burning, and at the hour named a steamer was reported about two points on the starboard bow. She proved to be ,the screw steamer Osprey, 450 tons register, Captain Bertridge, belonging to the Cork Steam Navigation Company As they readied each other, the Amazon put her helm hard a-starboard and exhibited the green liglit, but the Osprey put her helm hard u-port and .exhibited the red light. The result of these measures was that, as the Amazon fell off, the ( Isprey came across the Amazon's fore-foot, and the Amazon ran into the Osprey on her port quarter, striking her at about one-third of her length from her stern. The Osprey was fearfully crushed belpw her water-line 'by the prow of the Amazon. On board the Osprey the ,greatest confusion ensued on the collision ; the majority -of the cfew clambered in over the bowsprit of the Amazon, which protruded over the deck. It was instantly found that, the Osprey" was settling down by her stern, for, although she was built in three compartments, she was "struck at the stokehole, at w,hic{h. point the two after compartments joined, and the partition being crushed in, the compartments were of no service. A great body of water rushed into the engine-room, where the second engineer was in charge, and he, having stopped the engine on hearing the first concussion, rushed on deck, barely in. tiine^ to escape the flood of ■waters. By that time most of the crew and passengers — the latter in various stages of nudity — were running to the forward part of the ship, and an attempt was made to get out a boat. The crew of the Osprey had by this time clambered into the Amazon, hand-over-hand up ropes from her bow ; and two boats , were promptly lowered from the Amazon, and the captain and one or two men were picked up by one of them. The captain's wife, who was attired only in her nightdress, was hauled in ojjer the Amazon's bows,' as also were one or k two of the erew — one of whom, a Dutchman, had a very narrow escape, as he succeeded in grasping a rope when he was on the point of sinking for the third time. But, though by these means the captain, crew, and captain's wife were rescued, the captain's three children — girls aged fifteen and twelve, and a boy aged ten — were swallowed up •in the vortex caused by the sinking steamer, in which also were engulfed the whole of the saloon passengers — Mrs Hubbard, widow of -. a Dublin barrister, and her two daughters aged respectively twenty-two and fifteen years ; Mrs Rea, the wife of the master of the ship Seaflower, and her two youg children ; „and Mary Ann Keating. The stewardess, Mrs Rea, was seen at her cabin door a moment after the collision, and the second engineer helped her on deck. But her children wore below, and she frantically called for them, and made as if to go below in search of them. The moment in which safety might have been secured was spent, and, neglecting to go forward, she was seen no more. Less exciting, but almost equally serious, incidents were meanwhile occurring on board the Amazon. In* the shock of the colli-, sion the prow of that ship became twisted and wrenched round, and thus a large hole was made in that' vessel, through which water was found' to be pouring in great volumes. The ship's pumps were were in?tantly set to work, and great exertions were made to keep the vessel afloat; but the water gained on the crew, and the engineer soon came on deck; and reported to the captain /that the fiies were extinguished, and the engine-room half full of water. Capt. Huntsr received the news with that remarkable coolness which seemed to characterise all hands, but it was seen from that moment that the Amazon would go down. Still no exertions were relaxed; and the five boat* of the vessel were got out with as much order as if for a holiday trip. Each boat was laden to the water's edge, some of the men lying flat in the bottom, and had any sea been running, or a breeze sprung up, all must have perished. The boats left the Amazon at half-past three a.m., the ship beiug then . settling jdown -in the sea, although,' as a fog shortly afterwards set in, she was not actually seen to founder. They were then about eighteen miles off land, and -somewhere off Dartmouth. No provisions, water, or property of any kind wasta-en on board, and the seamen of the Osprey were only partly clothed,- and, the captain's Avife had on only her 'nightdress, over which a blanket had been thrown. In the early morning the boats fell in wi'.h three, fishing smacks, which, were boarded, and which rendered a double service! in relieving the boats of somepart of their too jfreat load and in piloting them into harbor. Thus aided, the wrecked men reached Torquay shortly after four o'clock on Weduesday afternoon. They were 'provided for v@py kindly by several of the inhabitants\ and, after their moi'e immediate wants had been supplied, the officers and men of the Amazon were forwarded' by special ti;ain to Portsmouth, the captain and crew, of the Osprey going to Plymouth. -The Osprey's captain, Mr Bertridge, and his wife were greatly distressed at the event, .which has de.pri'ved them of three children ; and the officers- and men of the Amazon and Osprey h-.v > -.V).l >sf everything. The Osprey \v..o m .-150 tons register and 250-horse power. Her crew .consisted of the captain, Wo mates, two engineers,

seven firemen, seven seamen, cook, steward, and stewardess ; and at the time she b,ad also on board the captain's wife and three children, a little boy a friend of the family, seven saloon passengers, and a man as deck passenger. She was on her passage from Liverpool for Antwerp, having left the former port at six p.m. on Saturday.- The crew were provided for on Wednesday night at the Plymouth Sailors' Home. Further information from Portsmouth states that the crew of the Amazon were sent ont o Exeter on Tuesday night, and thence to Portsmouth, where they arrived on Wednesday afternoon, and are now berthed on board the Duke of Wellington.^ All the -crew have answered to their names, with the exception of aya v supernumerary boy named Compton, whose absence is not accounted fbr. The question of responsibility as the cause of the collision will, of course, form the subject of officialenquiry ; but in the absence of any information on the subject, it is unaccountable how, with a proper look-out on both vessels, and on a clear night, they could have approached each other so closely as to render a collision in* evitable without' being observed. A court-martial on the officers and crew of the Amazon will, no doubt, be held as soon as the necessary formalities have been gone through." *