The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-28 00:00:00

NEW MAIL BOATS FOB HOLYHEAD.

The design and erection of the Britannia Tubu•
lar Bridge was not only a gigantic engineering
triumph, but a work which marked the commence-
ment of a new epoch in this country, when every-
thing was to be made subordinate to the economy
of time in our means of internal communication.
Quick travelling was the first object, and as long
as that was secured expense way often but too
little regarded. The Britannia-bridge was erected
at a cost of some £600,000 or £BOO,OOO sterling to
save a delay of half an hour on a 12 hours' jour-
ney from London to Dublin, and this bridge, with
the Saitash Viaduct and others, became types of
a class of works which overcame at any cost the
most stupendous engineering difficulties to gain a
few minutes on 300 miles, or save a passenger the
trouble of carrying his carpet bag from one lug-
gage van to another 100 yards distant. The Lon-
don and North-Western Railway Company, with
the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, have
been foremost in their efforts to secure all the
facilities which engineering skill and money could
accomplish, and of which, as we have said, the
Menai-bridge is so striking an example. To cross
these straits in two minutes, and to lose two hours
by inferior steamboats in crossing the larger straits
which separate Holyhead from Dublin, was, of
course, nor to be thought of, and thus the Menai-
b ridge principle!, as we may call it, was pushed to
its utmost in order to secure the fastest seagoing
steamers in the world. During the whole history
of the rise and progress of fast steamships—from
the tune that the Royal Sovereign was built for the
station in 1821 till the Caradoc and Banshee were
sent forth to eclipse everything in speed, and so on
down to the present day, the packets between
Holyhead and Dublin have always been considered
to number among them the best and fastest
steamers in the world. Such a reputation, how-
ever, c,sn only be gained and maintained by the
most incessant vigilance and the most rapid adop-
tion as to form and means of locomotion which
the progress of either naval architecture or
steam machinery can supply. The boats of the
Caradoc and Banshee class were an improvement
on all which had gone before, as much as
the Eblana and Prince Arthur vessels improved on
these again. The time for further progress in these
latter has again arrived, and another step in ad-
vance is about to be taken, which will place on the
Hol3 head station such boats as it is confidently
expected will surpass, both in speed and power, any
which have yet been attempted. Some idea may
be formed of their capacity when we state that the
four new vessels which are building—the Ulster,
Munster, Connaught, and Leinster—will each be
upwards of 2,000 tons' burden, 350 feet in length,
and propelled by 800-horse power at a rate of speed
contracted to be not less than 18 knots an hour.
But for the gigantic increase which is made almost
monthly in the speed and seagoing capabilities of
our ocean steamers, such dimensions and such power
and speed might well be thought extraordinary in
• packets intended for a run of 64 miles. They are
likely to be among. the steam wonders of the next
12 months, by which time there are certain to be
some that will equal them, the number of which
will continue to increase till the mail service must
in time take another well considered step, and pass
ahead of all as heretofore. Three of these splendid
vessels are being or are nearly built by Messrs.
Laird and Sons at Birkenhead, and the fourth by
Samuda and Co., on the Thames. The first, the
Ulster, was launched by the Marchioness of Chan-
dos from Mr. Laird's yard on Saturday last; the
second vessell, with -that building in London, will
be sent afloat about the end of next month, and the
last from Birkenhead in April next. The dimen-
sions of the Ulster, which was launched on Satur-
day, were—length extreme, 350 feet ; depth of hold
20 feet ; width, 35 feet ; draught of water, 12 to
13 feet ; tonnage, 2,300 ; nominal horse power, 750 ;
estimated average of speed, 20 miles an hour. The
engines are to be oscillating, and will be supplied
by Bolton and Watt, and the paddlewheels are, of
course, to be fitted with tvathering floats. Mr. Laird
has adopted his wave-lithe principles in the form of
the hulls of these vessels, and, like other cele-
brated fast-going steamers which have been launched
from his yard, all the three Holyhead packets
have a considerable spring in the keel forward, and
some slight rise aft. Both the entrance and stern
of the packets are exquisitely fine, the former to a
great extent reminding the spectator of the bows
of the Great Eastern, All the packets are, for