THE PRINCE CONSORT IN A GALE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1190, 30 January 1864, Page 3

THE PRINCE CONSORT IN A GALE.

The thorough failure of one of the new iron-dads in a heavy gale m St. George's Cliannel must be accepted as conclusive evidence of how far those vessels are capable of supplying the place of the old ships of war. The Prince Consort, one of the newest frigates of this class, and we may therefore presume one of the best, constructed, had the narrowest escape from foundering through the weight of her armour, and consequent lack of buoyancy; and that not in a regular tempest, but a gale of no extraordinary severity. It was prophesied from the beginning that those mailed monsters would never beguiled for sea-going—could never be ventured on long voyages; and the problem must be now regarded as finally solved. To the co.i.-'ts and the narrow sens the sphere of their operations must at best be limited, and so any nation which needs a navv for other purposes than mere home defence, will be unable wholly, or even mainly, to dispense with the old style of naval architecture. It is the first time that "the practical experiment has been really tested. The Warrior or La (jloirc bad no trial' but in fair weather. The foundering of the Monitor in a storm was no fair criterion, because the American ships are but adaptations not originally designed as iron-dads, or else hastily built under the stress of a sudden emergency, and^ so in neither case are they the most scientific; specimens of t he innovation. A lighter cont of armour is. of course, the remedy for the want of buoyancy which sank the Monitor, and was so near sinking the Prince Consort. But then their armour cannot be lightened if those ships are to retain the impenetrability which is their value. On the contrary, if they are to preserve that utility, it is almost; certain that they will ere long require a still thicker skin of metal, inasmuch as the improvements in artillery and the power of ordnance are quite sure to enlarge. And as improvement of the power of cannon has a long way to run before it reaches a maximum, while the power of fortifying a vessel to resist cannon has even now reached its maximum, the question naturally suggests itself, will those iron-clad,s have a future at all—can this most curious of modern naval experiments have more th;;n a temporary existence? Indeed, judging from present and prospective facts, the logical conclusion is, that ships in armour will depart as completely before the development of fire-arms as men in armour did before the introduction. The task of constructing fortifications which ' can float—fortifications strong enough to resist the

tremendous force of the missiles propelled by modem science, and yet at the same time portable and buoyant—is so much of a desperate contest with nature, that it is not easy to believe in its longcontinued success.

After reading the details of the Prince Consort's trip, everybody must be satisfied that those ironclads are already weighted as much as they can bear to be, even for coast service, and putting voyages aside altogether. The Prince Consort left Devonport 011 the 28th October, on her way to Holyhead or Liverpool. At ten o'clock the following morning, the bad weather set in. " The vessel was no sooner in the gale than she laboured heavily, tearing herself to pieces. Things became so bad that at four p.m. it was decided to be unsafe to make Holyhead, although it was but a dozen miles distant, and the ship was put head to sea to seek shelter on the Irish coast." At six o'clock in the evening, the engineer reported to the captain " that there were three feet six indies of water in the ship," and he soon after reported that " the water was within six inches of the lires, and he could not keep her clear with the engines working at full speed with all the boilers." ihe captain immediately had ail the pumps rigged, and set to work; " but althought they were incessantly worked for ten hours, throwing out 200 tons of water per hour, the water in the vessel slowly but steadily increased." During this time we are told:—

" The vessel was like a half-tide rock, the officers and men 011 her decks—upper, main, and lower were up to their knees in water, and frequently the seas would make ft clean sweep over all. All the ship's head gear was washed away: the cutter and <rjg were stove in, the latter very badly. Things looked very serious : wi:h the utmost strain 011 the pumps, it was as much as could be done to keep the ship afloat. At one time the water in the after stokehole was nearly up to the fires, and, had it put the fires out, the chances are the Prince Consort would have come to a sad and untimely end. It would have been hardly possible to have made sail on her in the faec of the gale, and her storm sails had blown awav."

Soon after things were at the worst, the Bailey Light, off Dublin Bay, was sighted, and between twelve and one the vessel was brought to anchor. The gale having abated, the steam-pump was got into order, and by noon next day the ship was nearly free from water:—

" The Prince Consort is the first of her class to experience a heavy gale, and from the above narrative it will be seen she had a very narrow escape. It is said her great fault was a want of buoyancy. She was too much like an over-laden and fatigued beast of burden; in sea phrase, she had no life in her, and did not rise to the sea. The consequence of this was, that the water on the lower deck never iound vent at the scuppers. She shipped 'green sea' after ' green sea,' and from her labouring and straining, her ports looked like sieves. The opinion of the officers and men on board is, that no ship could have behaved worse in a gale, and they all hope never to be sent to sea again in an iron-cased ship." To apply, as immediately concerning ourselves, the knowledge thus acquired, there is no possibility in war time of an iron clad coining with hostile flag to an Australian port. Such a ship can cross the English Channel, or at some risk the Mediterranean, but never the ocean. The very ordinary gale which fell foul of the Prince Consort almost every vessel has more than one visitation of on a long voyage. But had that gale, not to speak of an Atlantic hurricane, caught the mailed frigate far away from port, she never would have been heard of again. The service of such a . ship for simply defensive purposes is, however, little touched by this proved incapacity for seagoing. Indeed, the circumstance would render of more special value as a guardu costa to Melbourne, for instance, than to any European port, just because here no vessel of the same kind could be brought against her. Her assailants could be only ships of ordinary build, which, as matters yet stand, could work her little damage. But there is this grand objection to our looking for such defenders, that after the immense expense of procuring one or more of them, we cannot say for how long such ships in armour will maintain their hold in "any form in scientific faVour. They are built to resist the present power of the Armstrong or Whitworth gun; but the Armstrong or Whitworth will be brought to greater power, or else other ordnance in their stead—for we are only on the threshold of marvels in the application of gunpowder—and nothing which can float will be invulnerable to that. In such case, armour on the sea will as surely go out of use, as, long ago, armour on the land; and, on the one element, as on the other, we shall cease to raise a bulwark against irresistible missiles. Light ships, will, in a word, become as necessary then as light troops, and when such changes are in prospect, we may doubt the wisdom of an enormous outlay for iron-clads. The great nations of the old world are compelled to incur the expense for even a temporary service, for they must be abreast of the dangers of the time, even in their briefest demands; but Victoria is not in the old world, and she can aflord to trust to other defences until she better knows the value of these mailed ships.—Argus, January 12.