Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1874-07-02
The New English Twin Ship.

twin ship just launched
"One at least of the many rival
schemes for transporting passengers
across the Channel in moderat., comfort
is likely to have fair trial. The Eng
lish Channel Steam1hipI Company YES.
terday launched their twin ship Casta-
liza from the slip of the Thames Iron
Works and ship-building Company, in
the presence of very large assemblage
of spectators. This vessel is built upon
what is known az Capt. Dicey's princi-
pie, but which, as far as the general
scheme of a double ship is concerned,
is no novelty whatever, although it has
never before been tried upon SO large q
scale. We can perfectly remember a
steamer Of about the size of the ordina-
~ Greenwich steamers upon exactly the
same principle-namely, that of ship
cut in half long ways, the two halves
being connected by deck, and having
a waterway between them in which the
paddles worked. This steamer lay for
two or three years at a short distance
from shore off the Isle of Dogs. This
must have been eighteen years ago, and
the fact that she did so lie idle would
seem to prove that she was failure.
We are not arguing from this that
the Castalia will be . failure-far from
it, for We believe that she will prove a
great success the fact being that, in a
small craft there would be no advan-
tage whatever in placing the two halves
of vessel at some distance apart in
stead of uniting them, for even when so
widened heship would notbesufficiently
large to meet ordinary waves without
being influenced by them. In shipof
the size Of the Castalia, 900 feet long by
60 feet wide, the great lesideratum Of
steadiness in anything like an ordinary
Channel sea, will, wethink, beattained.
We donot think thatshe would be a good
sea boat in an Atlantic gale, for large
as she is, she is by no means sufficiently
so to dominate Atlantic waves but in
anything but a very heavy gale she
ought in the Channel to be absolutely
steady, the fact, therefore, that the
precursor of tho Castalia may, perhaps
from want of engine power, have proved
failure as a river boat in, no way
initiates against the chance of success
Of the Castalia as a Channel steamer.
and no doubt Capt. Hely has produced
various improvements which will 60 far
to insure success. The deck, or. rather.
the network of iron which supports
the deck and connects the two compart-
ments, is OF immense strength, and had
well need to be so. The strain when a
great wave takes one compartment upon
the broadside, lifting it up while the
other remains in the trough, will be
enormous, as the portion which rises
must as it does so heel over the other
compartment to the same angle which
itself takes. This strain would. in
heavy ocean seas, be 80 great that it is
hardly likely that the principle can ever
pc applied to great seagoing steamers
but in the, Channel the seas, even in
storms, are SO short and chopping that
9 vessel OF the size of the Castalia NAV
be expected to ride fairly over them.
Large as she is, she can enter the har-
bors of Dover and Calais at all times.
tor she will draw only five feetof water.
Both ends are alike, md provided with
rudders, SO that she will not have to
turn in habor. The engines, nominally
of 260-horse power, CONSTRUCTED by
Messrs. }. 4 A. sBlyth, work up to l.
60O-horse power Her outside lines are
clean and promise speed, and as the in
side works are perfectly straight, and
will offer no resistance whatever to her
passage through the water beyond that
OF friction, there is no reason why she
should not be nearly as fast as she
would have been had her halves been
placed together, instead of being sepa-
rated by an interval of twenty.six feet. .
In this interval are her paddles. They
are not, of course, as yet in position in
the Castalia herself, but, as shown in
large model exhibited in one of the
offices, they appear to be altogether
disproportionately small for the size of
the vessel"