The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-24 00:00:00

TRIAL OF TILE RECTOR.

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THE ARMY.
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served as a btigade.
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served at Roleia and Vimieria, and
1 with the cavalry
year he entered the Por-
under Lord Anglesey at Salia
taguese army as a British major and Portuguese
gun and Benevente in
1808, In the following
lic4tenW'colonel, He served in all the campaigns

The official trial of this frigate commenced at
Portsmouth yesterday, and will be completed to.
day, weather permitting. The Hector is the first
vessel of her class, at present confined to herself and
the Valiant, that has been put through the test of
the measured mile ; is one of an intermediate class
as to tonnage between the Warrior and Defence
classes, and is an intermediary as to armour between
the Warrior and Minotaur classes. For these
reasons, some description of her is necessary pre-
vious to recording her performances
yesterday.
The Hector was laid down in Messrs. Napier's
l buildingyard at Glasgow in March, 1861, the draw-
ings, &c., being furnished from the Controller's
Department of the Admiralty, and was launched on
the 21st September, 1862. Her principal dimen-
sions are—length between perpendiculars, 280 ft.;
breadth,
extreme, 56ft. 3in.; depth from under-
side of keel to spar-deck, 40ft. Tonnage, builders'
measurement, 4,123 tons. Launching weight, 3,050
tons. Draught of water when launched, lsft. Nin.
forward, 19ft. Bin. aft. Displacement at load water-
line, 6,400 tons. Weight of iron used in construc-
tion of hull, exclusive of armour, 2,588 tons; weight
of armour-plates, 873 tons ; weight of armoured
shield on upperdeck inside stem, 121 tons ; weight
of rudder, 91 tons; weight of engines, 165 tons;
do. boilers, 220 tons; do. water in boilers, 90 tons;
do. propeller and shafting, 641 tons; do, coal boxes,
37 tons ; do. cupola for hot shot, 7 tons ; do. spare
fans, 12 tens ; weight of coal railway for transport•
ing coal from coal bunkers to furnaces, 5 tons
weight of auxiliary engines, 91 tons ; do. spare
engine gear, 20 tons; do. sundries, 23 tons.
The propeller is a two-bladed Griffith, hav-
ing a varying pitch from 22ft. Gin. to 27ft. Gin.,
and set now at 26ft. bin. Space for coals in
bunkers, 450 tons, the amount she had at the com-
mencement of her trial yesterday. The masts are
of tubular iron, and weigh—main, 171 tons; fore
17 tons; mizen, 5 tons. When the ship came round
from Scotland she was also fitted with an iron tubu-
lar bowsprit, which could be topped up by means
of a massive brass hinge, fitted on the stemhead,
weighing 251 cwt. Since the ship has been lying
at Portsmouth, however, this complicated affair has
been taken out of her, and she is now fitted with a
running bowsprit, simple and light in character,
and that can be run in and laid along the vessel's
deck with the greatest ease at any time it may be
wished to dash the ship's "beak" into the broadside of
an enemy. The engines are 7ft. below the ship's esti-
mated water line, as shown in the drawings, and
occupy a space of 27ft. longitudinally. They are
on Messrs. Napier's horizontal trunk air-pump
principle of 800 horse-power, nominal, and are mar-
vels of engineering work and beauty in casting.
The cylinders have a diameter of 82 inches, and the
pistons a stroke of Oft. The boilers are six in num-
ber, three on each side the stoke hole ; each boiler
having four firer, or 24 in all. The arrangement of
the boilers in the Hector is precisely the same as in
others of her Majesty's ships,--the fires face each
other, and the stokers work in a kind of iron tunnel
some 10ft. or 12ft. in diameter, with burning fur-
neces on each side, and all but literally roasted
alive. Sonic day this may be remedied by simply
placing the boilers back to back, when the fires
would then face the coal bunkers, and save the cost
and trouble of transporting, as is now the case, the
coals from the bunkers to the different furnaces in
the Stokehole and for the accomplishment of which
an overhead railroad has to be fitted to transport the
coal bags,—in the Hector, as shown by foregoing
figures, weighing in the aggregate five tons,
The difference of temperature, and comfort to
the men in their work and improvement in
its healthfulness, would, under the proposed
alteration is the position of the boilers, be
almost beyond belief. The means existing on board
for assisting in the ventilation of the stokehole is a
fan wrought by a 40-horse power auxiliary engine,
which is also used for general ventilating purposes,
clearing the main deck of smoke when in action
with an enemy, and supplying the blast to the
cupola furnace, and supplies the liquid iron for hol-
low shot. The pumps on boards consist of Down-
ton's patent, from 9 to 12 inches in diameter, worked
by cranks on which upwarls of 100 men can be
employed at one time. In the formation of the or-
dinary iron hull, the Hector is very similar to the
Black Prince and the Warrior; her frame, floor,
bulkheads, outside planking, &e., being nearly of
the same dimensions with those two ships through
out. Like our other iron ships, she has no external
keel, it being built np internally at about 3ft. in
depth, and 'with the longtitudinal girders and floors
form sections of cells which are plated internally
and externally, and thus bind together the bottom
and frame of the ship. The topsides are built of
10-inch" angle iron frames, with lin. plates, over
which are two layers of teak, the outer layer being
Bin. thick and fixed perpendicularly, the inner
layer being 10in. thick and fixed longitudinally,
and thus next the ship's inner skin. On the teak
cushioning rest the armour-plates, 41in. ill thick-
ness on the broadsides, and tapering round the stem
r
and stern. So far the ship is very similar to
but
other iron-armoured ships afloat and building,
in the disposition of her armour she, with her sisterFo
For a
vessel, the Valiant, differs from all others.
length of 220 out of her 280 feet the Hector carries
her armour-plating from the level of
her upper
deck down to 5 feet below.her estimated low-water
of plating 9 feet in
band
line, and continues a stern, thus nciosinn•
width round the stem and i
Used externally on the
the gun deck with armoron each bow
ship, but leaving
the lower edge of the gun-deck
about 30 feet
and quarter from
strengthened by a mass
water line
below the•
unpro-
armour band set this weakness or
aPParent weak-
o andne
teeted. To me
ness, the ends of the ship arel sta.,
perpendicular and transverse,
of bulkheads rising
high as the under
part of the
asmain deck. Her
plate bulkheads, which in
armour- the Warrior and
other iron ships in commission extend across the
gun deck and confine the fighting • portion of t h
eship
in close action to a rectangular box, rise only to a
level with the under part of the gun deck from the
orlop deck. One of the
se she carries athwartships at
each end of the 220 ft, of 1 p ating which protects the
ship below the water line, and would thus arrest
any shot or shall before or abaft the
coming in from
the broad belt or armour. It is a question, however,
whether the armour plates on these transverse bulk-
heads in plat-
would nut be more sensibly used up
Plat-
ing the unprotected portions of the bow and stern.
As the Hector is built to act as a ram when engag-
ing an enemy of less speed than herself, a strong
semi-circular bulkhead is built up across her foree
'
castle and just inside her stern, and plated with 41
her upper
inch armour plates, intended to
preventbrondside when
compareddeck being raked by the enemy•
's broadside
of
the
running down
°Pun '6l. isntelma o°nft3ak planking, laid on
shin
are
compared
of
-
1-in. rolled iron beams, the whole supported on 12-
beanie The height between
in. and 15-in.rollediron
un deck is 71ft. in the clear. There
decks on the g
water-tight compartments in the ship's bat-
are nine
has also the usual wing passages,
torn, and shen
divided by bulkheads, running fore and aft at the
beck of the armour plating and its teak backing.
IThe ships maindeck is open throughout its entire
length. The port holee are,l3ft. apart, 311. Gin. deep,