474
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.
besides facilitating the working and reefing of the sail. These sails act best sailing
by the wind; and there being no depot of coals in China, to return to Singapore
with a fair wind, a fourth mast was fitted in an iron step or trunk immediately in
front of the boilers; with a square-sail, top-sail and topgallant-sail, with their
studding-sails. While steam power was used, this mast was lowered fore and aft,
as shewn by the ticked lines.
PLATE XCVIII.
HERNE BAY STEAM PACKET RED ROVER.
The engines, two 60 horse power, are by Messrs. Boulton and Watt, and the
vessel was built by Messrs. Fletcher, Son, and Fearnall, London; launched 28th March,
1835, for the Herne Bay Steam Packet Company.
PRINCIPAL DIMENSIONS OF THE HULL.
Ft. In.
Length between the perpendiculars . . . . 154 0
Breadth to the outside of the bottom plank . . . 22 4
Depth at shaft from top of floor timber to the under side
of deck . . . . . . . . . 104
Burthen in tons, 376-fir (builders’ measurement).
This vessel was constructed for the conveyance of passengers and luggage to and
from London to Herne Bay with the greatest possible dispatch, and comparing her
displacement and power with other similar vessels, was and continues the fastest
running out of the Thames. This superiority of speed was chiefly effected by a
novel mode of building, a mode combining the fourfold advantages of increased
buoyancy, a more uniform diffusion of strength, prevention of rot by exclusion of
surfaces, and affording the greatest possible facility to repairing.
The bottom, or that part of it on which the engines and boiler were fixed, was
composed of stout floor timbers going from bilge to bilge, placed close together and
dowelled and bolted to each other, and planked externally with the best well
seasoned four-inch Dantzic deals, fastened in the usual manner; but above, before,
and abaft this part of the bottom so wrought, the timbers of the frame used in
common were omitted, and the plank continued of the same thickness to the top of
