The San Francisco call., 1899-01-23
NEWS OF FOREIGN NAVIEs.

Two sloops of war to be named Vestal
and Shearwater, were laid down at Sheer
ness dockyard on January .. They will be
$50 feet in length, 80 feet 1912 inches beam,
and draw 10 feet forward and 13 feet aft,
displacing $50 tons They will be sheathed
with teak a inches thick to a height of 2
feet above the water-line. The engines of
1400 horsepower will be built at the
Thames Shipbuilding Yards, and are cal
culated to give speed of 1926 knots.
The Dutch Government has laid down
coast-defense ship at Amsterdam. She
will be an enlargement and Improvement
of the Kortenaer, 322 feet in length, so
feet inches beam. and 1850 tons, with en-
gines of $500 horsepower, intended to give
a speed of 16 knots and radius of action
of 5000 miles at 10 knots. Three protected
cruisers-the North Brabant, Utrecht and
Gelderland, of 1886 tons are building at
the dockyards at Amsterdam, Rotterdam
and Flushing.
The Coquette, torpedo-boat destroyer,
built by Thornycroft, had a preliminary
trial on December IA and made 30.3n
knots under 215 pounds of steam, develop
ing $40 horsepower. The boat was draw
ing feet forward and feet 724 inches
aft, being inches light Her contract
speed is 30 knots for a continuous run of
three hours.
The German navy personnel list for 1899
provides for Ills officers of the executive
branch 142 surgeons, 1119 deck officers,
5193 non-commissoned officers, 1909 men
and 1000 cabin boys. This is an increase
over 1898 of 545 officers Of all classes, $50
men and $50 boys.
The use of torpedo-boats as dispatch
boats proved a failure during our recent
war with Spain, but German navy off,
cials have come to a contrary conclusion
'and strongly recommend torpedo-boats as
sea-messengers. Awo boats of 125 tons
and 25-knot speed went with the Hohen-
zollern when the Emperor visited Norway
and were frequently used as dispatch
boats. They encountered heavy weather.
but performed their service with the
greatest punctuality, and when the cruise
was over the lieutenants in command
were decorated for their good work. The
boats had no regular engineers, skilled
machinists serving instead
Last May Irregularities were discovered
in the dockyard administration at Malta
and the commission appointed to investi-
gate has just submitted it's report. 1t
found that Secretary Vela had been using
forged vouchers for his own benefit, and
that the frauds, extending over several
years, amounted to a large sum-
Torpedo-boat No. 2S recently stranded in
Kalb Bay, South Africa She was got off,
but found to be so badly damaged as to
be beyond repairs, and was towed into
False Bay and sent adrift. The admiral
of the station then obtained permission to
use the boat as a target and four ships
opened fire with u and 3 Founders on the
craft. OF the first three shells fired by
the Doris, two passed through the spaces
in which the engines and boilers had been
located and one shell penetrated the con-
ming tower AS the swell heeled the dere-
lict the Tartar sent a shell through her
bottom and the boat went down almost
Immediately. The performance occupied
only about five minutes.
The Russian battleship Gangoot, which
sank in the Gulf of Finland June "a, 1897,
has not yet been raised. The contract for
recovering the ship was given to the Nep-
tune Wrecking Company of Sweden and
operations were begun June 1 last year
The first procedure was to right the sunk
en- ship, to accomplish which the steamer
Hyacinth of 5000 tons displacement was
loaded with 2400 tons of stone ballast and
sunk $40 feet distant from the Gangoot
and parallel with her. A pontoon was