A HUGE SAILING SHIP.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5462, 14 January 1896, Page 3

A HUGE SAILING SHIP.

It will bring comfort and encouragement to those who love good seamanship, and the kinds of craft which ccfnduce to it (says the London Daily Telegraph of Nov. 27), to hear that the largest sailing ship ever yet constructed has just been launched. We regret to state that she has been "made-in Germany." It would have been far more pleasant to know that the gigantic clipper lately put into her element would fly the red ensign, but the melancholy truth is that she was built and is owned at Bremen. And that she was duly put afloat last week, a truly magnificent ship, propelled only by canvas, innocent of boiler and stokehole, of coal and smoke. She is named the Potosi is of the majestic burden of 6150 tons, and is rigged with five masts. These, together with all her heavier yards and spars, are of steel, of which material the hull of the stately vessel is also constructed. The Potosi measures in length 393 feet,' in beam 49 feet 10 inches, and will carry on a comparatively light draught some 8000 tons of cargo. We liave nothing among the sailing craft of the United Kingdom to match this Queen of the SeaS as regards merchant ships entirely, driven by the winds.' The largest vessel of the sort which was launched at an English port during the past two or three yeara was, if we are not mistaken, the Royal Forth, of 3130 tons ; a splendid ship, but not so much as one-half the size of the German Potosi,