TERRIBLE ACCIDENT ON A BATTLESHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13193, 2 June 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

TERRIBLE ACCIDENT ON A BATTLESHIP.

STOKERS KILLED AND INJURED. The admiral superintendent at Malta transmitted to the Admiralty the following message received iby him from the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, by wireless telegraphy. : Inform Admiralty by telegraph regret to inform that at eight p.m., April 16, during full-speed trial, accident occurred on Prince of Wales, of which details are as follows: Engine-room connecting-rod' bolt, of port high-pressure engine broken, and port highpressure cylinder cover fractured. Three stokers were killed, Frank Charles Osman, Winter, Sydney Ralph Hooker, and Edmund, J. Sputhall, ana two men were slightly injured. ' The victims of the accident on the battleship recently took part in the celebrations in Honour of the King and Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales. Lord Charles Berosford, . with practically the whole Mediterranean fleet, left Corfu, ou Sunday for Malta, and in accordance with custom the opportunity was seized to carry out the usual full-power trials. Apparently, during the time when the ship was proceeding at her best speed, and all attention was devoted to keeping a. good head of steam, one of the great boltssolid pieces of steel of four or five inches diameter—suddenly broke. These bolts hold the connecting rod in the crank pin, c.nd when they break the- piston, instead of being confined w'thin its usual " travel," is freed— fact., runs amokand thus is enabled to strike the top-cylinder cover. The Prince of Wales has water-tube boilers of the , Belleville type, with a pressure of steam of about 3001b per square inch, reduced to 250 at the engines. The battleship is under the command of Captain Reginald G. 0. Tupper, who is in tne first rank among post-captains, and the officer responsible for" the engine and boiler rooms is Engineer-Commander Alfred Rayner, who has been associated with this ship since she was completed for sea in 1904. This battleship is one of five, and is of the improved Formidable class. She displaces 14,900t0ns of water, and carries four 12in and 12 6in guns, besides many smaller weapons. Like her sisters, she is fitted with two sets of three-cylinder vertical inverted triple expansion engines, and steam in the case of the Prince of Wales is supplied from 20 Belleville boilers, with a heating surface of no less than 37,000 square feet. The engines and boilers were made by the Greenock Foundry Company, the firm which was responsible lor the installations on board the battleships- Oanopus, Barfleur, and Centurion.

The accident- will spoil the reputation of this battleship. She has -had the honour of being the swiftest vessel of her class and size in His Majesty's fleet. Indeed, she has ■repeatedly steadied quicker even than cruisers which have, been her consorts. At her last trial at sea, under full power, she maintained a rate of- over 18£ knots, a. rate in excess of that of any of her sister ships, and even batter than was recorded at the time of her official trials. She 1 ha«, indeed, proved an excellent ship in all respects, particularly quick and handy in fleet evolutions, and lias been repeatedly subjected to the .same full-power test as has now occasioned this lamentable loss of life. She cost £1,224,804.