THE EX-WARSHIP WOLVERINE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 168, 16 July 1894, Page 2

THE EX-WARSHIP WOLVERINE.

Tho Wolverine, now ab Sydney, a vessel which has seen exciting times when on the Australian station ac a warship a good many years ago, is being converted into ft sailing ship. Tho owner at a good deal of expense bad the boilers taken out in pieces rather than cut into the ship's splendid decks. All her spars are good, bub the vessel's old-style single topsails will be altered and a lob of running gear supplied. Those who are competent to guage, looking at the old warship say thai) her lines are liner even than the few old-feimo clipper ships ihat now and then visit Australia. Tho Customs officials have completed her tonmtfro measurement, and find that shehasa gross of orer 1,300 tons. The net) register will be about 1,250 toas. Tbe Wolverine was built in 1863, at Woolwich, and in point of structural strength there is nothing like her amongst wooden-built ships excepting those that, like her, were built for the British navy. Her timbers are half as heavy again as those of wooden merchantmen, and instead of boing from 2 to 3 foet apart are close together and caulked between, so that, in fact, the ship would float before a foot of outside planking was put on. Her beams are strengthened by tons of iron, and the decks are three times the thickness of those on the ships built: for the mercantile marine, while tbe copper sheathing on her sides and bottom is equally massive by comparison.