St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-31
ONE OF A NEW TYPO.

The gunboat Helena is one of the 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 for
e1gn stations, and also to enable them
to be used in carrying the United
States flag into many ports of South
and Central America which are now in
accessible to our war ships owing to
the Shoal water. So the Helena, when
complete with al, stores aboard will
draw only nine feet of water, and may
go where any schooner able to navigate
the seas can enter, and, while not a
battleship, in the sense of possessing
armor and big guns, will carry eight
four-inch rifles, guns quite large enough
tc meet anything short of armored
craft and heavy Notifications, and
number Of smaller machine guns, so
mounted as to afford an extremely de-
structive fire upon mobs or troops on
shore or boarding party. To enable
the Helena to make up and down mar
row and crooked channels, she has
double rudders, giving great turning
power, and these are SoI shielded that
the stern may be run into a soft bank
and the bow swept around by the cur
rent as is customary in some of our
Florida rivers. 4esg
To give the screws sufficient water
to work in, and at the same time to
protect them from snags and drift
in the freshet streams, they are placed
in two tunnels worked in the bottom
of the boat. The general lines of the
boat above water are broad, and this
results in giving much more than the
usual allotment Of space for berthing,
so that the boat will sbe peculiarly fitted
for service in the trepicss and will also
be able to give refuge to, many people
in time of stress. There will be no
sails upon this vessel, and her one mast
is big steel tube, large enough to
permit of spiral staircase inside, CIV
ing access from the deck to the top,
where four machine guns are placed,
to sweep the shores and the steersman
may sit In safety, forty feet above the
water, and thus look clear over the
narrow bends in Chinese rivers. The
Helena is $50 feet 9 inches long, by
40 feet l inch broad, with a speed of
Is knots and will carry ITO officers and
men. She is built of. steel throughout,
and is launched just, two years after
the award Of the contract for building
ing company, at s2S0.oOO, although the
appropriation for the entire ship was
not to exceed 100000. In her construc-
ton, every device calculated to give
efficiency and comfort has been placed.
She has double bottom, as a guar
antee against collisions and groundings
and Is believed to be model gunboat
for the special service she was designed
to meet.
The Grand Duchesse is 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 the require
ments of the subsidy act, she, is sub
ject to call by the government at any
time to serve as a vessel of the auxi-
liary navy. She issfullS half as big
again as the Helena and is finished
throughout in the latest style of the
shipwright's art with elegantly fur
nished and appointed f.saloons and
the safety and comfort, of the pas
sengers. She is 404 feet long, by %