BRITAIN'S OLD BATTLESHIPS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 179, 29 July 1903, Page 8

BRITAIN'S OLD BATTLESHIPS.

There are two or three firms on the banks of the Thames whose sole busiuess is that of buying battleships and breaJting them up, auu during the last ten years they have bought about 170 of them, for a total price of about £180,000, ranging from £20,000 "for the Agamemnon, down to 15/ for a steam cutter. The Admiralty have recently-decid-ed to offer 40 more obsolete vessels in the same way, including the Inflexible, Ajax, and Neptune, lv 20 years a battleship goes on to the "condemned list." In the process of breaking up, the engines and boilers, the last actings to be built on the ship, are the first to be removed, and her body ia finally shattered by dynamite. She then becomes so many tons of old iron and timber, which are sold to ironfounders for smelting and remanntacture. The iron of a warship varies in value from £2 to £3 10/ a ton. The most valuable are the snip-plates, the least valuable the old galvanised iron. In the days of wooden vessels, warship timber was largely used fot nrewood, for no wood burns so well, and ship timber logs were famous for a beautifully coloured flame. Another great use for ship's timber is for railway blocks. Brewers also find that poles constructed from warship wood support beer barrels in damp cellars where any other wood would certainly rot. so they are • large purchasers from the ship-breakers. Messrs Castle posa Ueet of 60 barges constructed from tne TC"ood of old warstilps. -wiucn are let out at rents varying from £40 to £S0 a year. It takes about 12 months to break up a battleship. One of the conditions of sale of His Majesty's vessels is that they must not be transferred to a foreign flag.