FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10767, 13 May 1913, Page 2

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

A SHIP OF MANY ASPECTS, i PICTURESQUE SCENES AT LYTTELTON. , Seldom in the history of the world has a, fighting ship received sudh as-, siduous attention from the,artist, the journalist and the photographer as the ' battle-cruiser New Zealand. The ap- . pearance of the great vessel has been ' rendered familiar to the people of the British dominions throughout all the * southern seas in* a thousand photographs and' sketches. ' A" great marine painter has deemed the ship"' a subjefct worthy of his brush, and a hundred newspaper writers,have vied with each other in attempting to present a word- ■ picture which should convey a jfaithful impression of the mighty war-Sna-' chine" given to the Empire by the youngest of the dominions. And yet after all these praiseworthy efforts to place before lis the counterfeit present- . ment of New Zealand's gift, the first glimpse of the" ship brings to the aver- r age mortal a feeling that the descriptions and the photographs and; the ; drawings have failed to familiarise him with the spectacle. He expects merely to strengthen- and vitalise impressions obtained at second hand, but instead" he finds a whole hosft of fresh and novel : impressions. It is not that the camera has lied, that the descriptive writer lias failed, qrUthat the artist has lacked 1 the capacity to catch tlie spirits of the ship," but that the big vessel has so jnany aspects to be viewed, bbth ' visually and mentally. She is a thing of life; she has her moods and metamorphoses, arid-pictures, photographs , and statistics fail to present the livikg' reality* • .. ' 1 The crowd of sightseers which thronged the decks of the vessels that steamed out to meet the New Zealand at Heads had an opportunity of viewing ' the big ship under a variety of aspects. As the moles were cleared those aboard the Outg&ing* t-ifcvft caught their first ; glimpse Sf r tp' Worship five miles distant, lying'ait anchor just inside the heads, a little silhouette against the bright morning sky. Even at this dis- • tance the general outlines of the ship were as clear and distinct as in one of those silhouette drawings provided for the information of naval officers by the enterprise of Mr F. T. Jane. The suii was lightly veiled behind a bank of clouds, and as the Lyttelton flotilla drew nearer to the grim sentinel at the • entrance of the harbour the clouds mo- . meritarilv Shrouded the sun in deeper gloom. Tlie New Zealand was then perceived to have weighed anchor and to be steaming slowly up the harbour. The first impression of the New Zealand at anything like close quarters was received, ih grey seas and under leaden skies, and presented a gloomy and forbidding appearance. In that dull light the whole vessel appeared; of sombre hue, her outlines harsh and repellent. She recalled of the writer who described the original Dreadnought as " a floating tin mine." Grim, ugly and- menacing, the land drew nearer and nearer, until nve could distinctly see the long twelve-inch guns in the big'barbettes, a spectacle which brought the unpleasant reflection that one punch from one of those hardhitting weapons would send any" of the boats of the welcoming fleet to Davy JonesV'locker with promptness and despatch. . - But the New Zealand, like a, clever actress, was shoving herself first in her least agreeable mood, in order to delight her audience later by reveianon? of a more pleasant character. , The sun rose above the bank of clouds as the battle-cruiser drew level with the vessels which had oome out to meet jner, and immediately the whole scene war; changed. The hills turned from dun" to gold, the sea from grey to green," and the New Zealand in a trie* was transformed into a stately, gallant * ship, formidable still, and full df the' dignity of conscious power, but full of grace and elegance, and carrying herself with the "grand air." Th 6 sunshine broke up the heavy outlines of the giant hull and massive superstructure into mabscs of light and shade, revealing the beautiful iines of the ship, tapering in one long curve; from bow to stern So sweetly did the great ship cleave tlie water that at ten. knots an hour there was scarce a ripple or a splash as the wavelets of a calm sea ran past her forefoot and lost themselves in her wake. The sunshine also threw into bright relief against the hillside the white ensign which topped each towering mast, and gave a splash of colour and an air of vivacity to the scene.

While she lay in. the shadow of the clouds the general configuration o! the cruiser contained nothing to please the aesthetic eye. The fact that her. funnels were unevenly spaced, that they were of varying thickness, and that the foremost one was much higher than the others, gave the ship an uncouth, ungainly appearance, viewed on the broadside, as if her builders had determined to emphasise her deathdealing potentialities by a deliberate and designed lack of symmetry and beauty. But in bright sunshine, and viewed from a different angle, the peculiar irregularities that annoyed thi eve at the first glimpse disappeared. The tall foremost funnel and the piled' up protuberances of conning tower and chart-room grouped themselves around the foremast and reared themselves uj: like the turrets of some picturesque medieval fortress, crowned by 8b George's scarlet cross. From the standpoint of the practicalminded person who insists on size and quantity, the New Zealand at first sight is" somewhat disappointing. It is difficult to appreciate that her length is 090 feet and her beam 80 feet, that she is almost twice the length, for instance, of the cruiser Pyramus, considerably over twice the beam, and over seven times the displacement- Unless other vessels are placed alongside her for purposes of comparison the New Zealand gives no impression of monstrous bulk. Her hull, superstructure and guns are proportioned to her size, and until the ship entered the moles at Lyttelton harbour and approached the shipping berthed there, her enormous dimensions were in no way apparent. Viewed from just outside the molps as she was being mameuvred into yositiou i» the inner harbour, thu Xaw.

Zealand gavo her finest impression of huge ana ponderous built. Outlined against the sun-illnir.ined smoke and steam which clothes the water-trout at Lyttelton on a sunny morning, she loomed up against tho really rcs-\pectaHle-sized* vessels at the wharves like Gulliver among the inhabitants or . Lilliput. Her great beam seemed to almost fill up the whole oi tho wav between wharves Nos. a ana ■ , and even when she was brought riglit up alongside No. 3 her bow projected into the basin for a considerable distance. The Pyramus, on tho other side of the wharf, was dwarfed by this close proximity of a big sister into something not very much more important than a torpedo-boat- • . . Ensconced in safe berthage at the ■wharf the battle-cruiser dominated the harbour. Kxpectnnt sightseers arriving in Lvttelton by tram will have no need to ask whether tile New Zealand has reached port. The big ship rears her great freeboard, her enormous funnels and her lofty, tripod masts high above the wharves, and proclaims to all the world that Lyttelton is temporarily under her patronage and protection.. , Vr rj Seen at close Quarters, the New Zealand presents such a bewildering variety of objects of interest that columns would be required to attempt a detailed description.. Tho impression of moderate site given bv the vessel in the open seaway and at a distance vanishes as soon as one steps, on to her decks. Everything is on an heroic scale, everywhere, above or below decks, appear fresh and intricate devices representing the latest achievemerits of science iti the mechanism thatSeals death- The phrase a floatmg citv," which applied to most, ships : appears mere hyperbole, fits the New Zealand like a glove.