A NAVAL EXPERIMENT.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 779, 21 February 1871, Page 3

A NAVAL EXPERIMENT.

In November last, oft" Portsmouth ■dockyard, at four, p.m., on board FJ.M.S. Monarch, Captain Commerell, V.C.,C.8 an experiment of a singular nature was tried, viz., the bringing up of the anchor from underwater by an instrument called a " Shark's-jaw Grab " fastened to the end of a pennant, with the object of catting it and bringing it tn'Vrithout the use of the cat-hook, or having to send a man " over the bows " to serve the tat at the hawsehole. The intention, as we understand, is that it is to be always in position, so as to be able to apply it whenever the anchor shall be a-peak, and the cable " up and down." When it is made to act, the jaw opens and runs down the cable to the anchor ring, while, by the action of the pennant, it is made to grab by the closing of the two crooked levers which form the'jaw which seizes the anchor. As the pennaut is laid over or rove through the cat-head roller, so soon as a strain is pTlt upon it, the anchor is brought plumb to the cat-head, by which means the contingency known as "fouling the is hindered. The labor of hauling up, also from the weight being brought up over the cathead roller, instead of being dragged up through the hawse-hole, is reduced by the absence of the friction now generated hy the grating of the cable loaded with the weight of the anchor over the surface ■Mid across the edge of the hawse-hole. But whatever the advantage to the maritime world in reduction of wear-and-tear

and in facility in handling the anchor by the introduction of this instrument, it is •by the able seaman that its benefit will be most sensibly felt, as in future it will never be necessary to have recourse to the dangerous, not to say at times cruel, process of sending a man over the bows in desperate weather to serve the cat, —the act, hitherto essential, by which so many lives have been sacrificed in the needful service of the ship. It is to Mr. Glover, the owner of the steam yacht Mayflower, that the sea-going public is indebted for this valuable application of mechanical device to the service of their ships, and it is satisfactory to note that the value of the discovery is enhanced by the facility with which the instrument is worked, and the certainty of its action is realised.