TOO FAST TO BE SAFE OR SERVICEABLE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7813, 4 June 1909, Page 1

TOO FAST TO BE SAFE OR SERVICEABLE.

Speed has been purchased at too high a. price m the new cruiser Boadicea, which has lately been running her acceptance trials. ; She was designed far twenty-fiVe knots, but has actually touched twenty-eight knots on her full-power trial. And at high speed she is like a racing motor boat, so smothered m spray from stem to stern. It has boon an almost daily spectacle at Devon port dockyard to witness the landing of tho working party from the Boadiccan bleached white with salt spray. As a model tho Boadicea is pretty to look at,'with her four dwarfed funnels and tall raking masts. But no seaman would view her knife-like bows and wall-sided shoulders without misgiving. He .would guess instinctively that she is a terrible plunger. . ',' We have had no heavy weather throughout tlw trials," said one of the working party to an Express representative. " Nothing more than fresh easterly winds anel a moderate roll of sea. Yet the little ship has be r hayed so badly that it would have been impossible to drive her at full power for foar of drowning her. , " She simply dips her nose every time, and cannot recover herself until the whito'water is sluicing m torrents off her forecastle. : "We have passed Brixham smacks riding comfortably to their trawls under reef and topsail canvas, when we have not been able to stand on the fore deck. ■ "This simply means that m dirty 1 weather it would bo impossible to drive the Boadicea at more than half power. At anything more than fifteen! knots she would coase to be habitable,, oven though she might be safe. This means thati her value as an ocean scout is very limited." Indeed, so far is, this true that it; is understood important modifications! have been made m tho design of the, now "Town" class of light, fasti cruisers, to ensure the elementary quality of seaworthiness.