A DESTROYER'S DASH.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 14013, 18 September 1909, Page 6

A DESTROYER'S DASH.

An extraordinary experiment was conducted at Portsmouth a Mr weeks ago, when the destroyer Ferret tested ~ the boom method of harbour defence. The obstruction prepared consisted of lengths of timber about seven or eight times the siae of an ordinary railway sleeper, and laced together with great chain and wire cables, with similar cables placed below water, with the ostensible object of fouling, the propellers, and others strung above the deck of the boom to catch the destroyer's upper works and force her nose own on the ugly steel spikes which fringed the edges ox the timbering. A three-inch hawser was stretched well above the tangle with the idea of catching the vessel's funnels. The plan was simply to charge the boom with the destroyer. The Eerret's bows had been specially strengthened with steel plates and had been sharpened. She steamed into the harbour at full speed, and when she was within a hundred yards of the obstruction steam was shut off and the . engine room staff hurried* on deck. ( The onlookers fairly thrilled with excitement," we are told, "as she headed straight as a dart for the little red flag which indicated where the blow was to be delivered. There was a whiplike swish, and then the roar of a tear, but the Ferret never wavered in her course. Great bouncing waves, mingled with the debris of the shattered boom, were hurled from her sides, but the Ferret never trembled, and it is said that a glass of water left in a forward compartment of the ship was not even spilled. As the Ferret shot through the boom her crew could be seen look•ing in astoniahment over her side at the swirl of timber and cable." The test was certainly an extraordinary one. The destroyer scarcely lost way. The boats that moved towards her, anticipating that she would be wrecked, had no work to do, and their crews looked on in amaxement. Beyond a few dented plates the destroyer was uninjured. Evidently no ordinary boom would prevent a modern battle ship from entering a harbour.