THE NEW ZEALAND TORPEDO BOATS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3851, 20 November 1883, Page 4

THE NEW ZEALAND TORPEDO BOATS.

A Crew of "Daub Devils" Requihkd

Referring to tho new torpedo boats ordered for New Zealand at a cost of ,Ctf,ooo, the Pall Mali Gazette says :—" Navnl men _are, of course, well acquainted with these curious sea monsters. But they will probably astonish their New Zealand proprietors not, a little when they first see them alloaf. The crowds on the bridges and the , curious looks of the local navigators as the novel craft steamed down the river from Westminster to Piirfleet justify a description of their peculiarities. Imagine, then, v dainty little vessel G3ft long, 7ift wide, its forepart filled with exquisite machinery so delicate as to bear the same relation to the engine of an ordinary sccrw steamer that one of FrodRham's chronometers bears to an ordinary eight day clock. This machinery drives tho little screw round (it is 2ft lOin in diameter) at tho rate of over 600 revolutions in a minute, about ten times the speed of the screw of a first-class steamer, and also works the tiny fan which, revolving sometimes at tho rate of nearly 2000 revolutions in a minute, causes tlic draft which regulates the fire, and consequently tho supply of steam. As the vessel moves among the barges and steamers that almost block the river at some points on the way down, the inexperienced travellers (for besides tho Agent* General of the colony, the Admiralty Inspector of Torpedoes, and the representatives of Messrs Thorneycroft, one other passenger is privi'vgod to be present; recalls tho sensation he experienced when he was driven rapidly by a New York expert behind a pair of American trotters among tho vans and omnibuses of BroadWay to the Central Park. At the measured mile tho speed attained was satisfactory, eighteen miles an hour being about the maximum. At this pace the wave that follows is higher than the vessel's deck, and when she turns sharply round at the end of her mile the water , spouts upwards from tlio rudder like a small Niagara. The pace was then pronounced satisfactory. As to the gear by which the torpedo is to be exploded some doubt was expressed, and some little alterations may be required to ease its working, which is on tho following plan:—The vessel bing about 00ft long, is fitted with a spar about half that length, which is arranged so that it can be pushed out at tho bows like an extraordinarily long bowsprit. At its end is fixed the torpedo, a canister containing explosives, and ehuped like a large gingecr-beer bottle with a percussion cap for a cork. When this bowsprit has been run out almost to its full length of 30 feet, it dips into tho water, and tho end of it, with the torpedo attached, is driven against the enemy's ironclad, about ten feet below tho water-line, where no armour protects it. On striking the ship's side it ought to explode with fatnl effect to the enemy, and it is to be feared with some efi'cct also on the little torpedo boat and its crew of seven or eight daredevils, for dare-devils they must be who man such a craft. May the mission of theso pioneer warships to New Zealand be preventive and deterrent merely, and may tho devotion of the colony never be called upon to man thorn against an enemy !