The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1896-02-14
TWO SHIPS LAUNCHED.
The Gun Boat "Helena" and Plant.
New aGrand Duchess

Ahe Gun Boat "lAeleua' ana ItHntH
New "Craad Duchess"
The third warship constructed by
private southern ship yard since the
var, and also The largest merchant
steamer built In this country with The
exception Of the two American trans
Atlantic liners built by the Grams,
we're launched successfully Of Newport
News, Va, by the Newport News Ship
Building. Company at high tide Thurs
day morning in the presence Of dis
tinguished party from Washington,
members OF the house naval affairs
committee, Admiral Brown, CONE
manding the Norfolk navy yard, aud
a large concourso of people, estimated
at five thousand, from adjacent towns.
Both vessels are the fines. type of
their class ever turned out by this
yard, which soon begins the oonetruc-
tion of the mammoth battleships Ken
lucky and kearsarge, authorized by tho
last congress.
Grand Duchess a Plant ship.
In order to take advantage of the
food.t tide .he launch OF the vessels
took place before II o'clock, one fol-
lowing the other as fast as the work
men could knock away the shores and
wedge up their keels. The FIRST to
take tho water was the merchant yes-
sci whose name had been kept a secret
until she began to slide down the ways,
when Miss Nellie S. Eldridge, of Bos-
ton, broke the usual bottle Of wine
and ehristened her the "Grand
Duchess"
As the stern Of the great hull
caught the water the shrill whistles of
the steamers, foreign ships at the
yards and the hoarse steam siren of
the battleship Indiana gave greet
ings, while thousands of people showed
their appreciation byprolonged cheers.
The "Helena"
Thirty minutes after the "Grand
Duchess" entered the water and had
been towed out of the way for the
new war ship, the "Helena" was ready
to take her natural element, and with
at first q slight hesitation, due 50 lack
of sufficient tallow and with stately
precision she glided off into the James
river, as Miss Agnes Belle Steel,
daughter of Mayor Steel, of Helena,
Mont, smashed the champagne bottle
and named her in honor of Montana's
capital city.
The Grand Duchess is q merchant
steamer built for the Plant line and
designed to run between Tampa and the
Bahamas, but as she is built in strict
accordance with requirements of the
subsidy act she is subject to call by
the government at any time to serve
as a vessel of the auxiliary navy.
She is fully half as big agliR
as the Helena and is finished through
out in the highest style of the ship
wright's art, with elegantly furnished
and appointed saloons and state rooms
and every appliance for the safety and
comfort of the passengers.
She is 404 feet long by AZ feet
inches beam, and she is37 feet inches
deep from the top of the deck to the
base line. She has double bottoms,
water tight compartments, tubulous
boilers, deck obserbatories, fire alarm
system, electric lights, twin screws,
carries 800 first-class and 400 second
class passengers and is built of steel
throughout.
The gunboat Helena is one of two
ships of peculiar design built for the
navy by the Newport News company,
| her sister ship, the Wilmington, having
been launched last October. The pur-
pose was to secure an efficient type of
vessel for the navigation of shallow
and shifting rivers, such as are found
in China, which might still possess sea-
going qualities sufficient to ensure safe
passages from the United States to
foreign stations and also to enable
them to be used in carrying the United
States flag into the many ports of
South and Central America, which are
now inaccessible to our warships ow~
ing to shoal water.