CHANNEL PACKET “CASTALIA.” (BETWEEN DOVER AND CALAIS.)
The Bessemer.
The other vessel, the Bessemer, is in many respects as different from all other steam-ships afloat as the Castalia; but was constructed with exactly the same objects in view, viz., to insure great speed, light draught of water, and, more especially, the smallest possible rolling or pitching motion. In a word, to afford to passengers crossing the channel the quickest means of transit with the greatest amount of ease, at an immersion so small, that the vessels could enter the existing English and French harbours at all times of the tide. This was the problem to be solved, and each inventor set about it in a wholly different way. Nor was this surprising, considering that each had been trained in an entirely different school. The projector of the Castalia is a sailor of great nautical experience; the designers of the Bessemer are an engineer and iron worker together with a scientific shipbuilder. Perhaps, had the originators of the two schemes consulted, amicably, instead of entering on a needless rivalry, they would have produced a better and much swifter ship than the Castalia; and a considerable sum of money expended on experiments would also have been saved.
The Bessemer, of which an illustration is given [on next page], was designed entirely by Mr. E. J. Reed (late Constructor to the Royal Navy), with the exception of the so-called “swinging saloon,” and was constructed at Hull by Earle’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Company: she is built entirely of iron, is a vessel of immense strength, and has, as may be seen from the illustration, very much the appearance of a breastwork turret ship of war. Her form is the same at bow and stern and, for 48 feet from each end, she has a freeboard of about 3 feet only. Her extreme length at the water-line is 350 feet, and the raised central portion, rising 8 feet above the low bow and stern, is 254 feet long, and, extending the whole width of the vessel, is 60 feet over all. The ends, as will be perceived, are very sharp and low. The engines and boilers, which drive the two pairs of paddle-wheels, are fitted in the hold at either end of the raised portion of the vessel. A series of deck-houses for private parties, refreshment bars, and other rooms are carried fore and aft of the paddle-boxes on the breastwork deck; there is, also, a covered walk between these and the windowed sides of the “swinging saloon,” which rises about 8 feet through the breastwork deck, with a flat roof pierced by two companion hatches.
S.S. “BESSEMER,” BUILT FOR SERVICE BETWEEN DOVER AND CALAIS.
The nominal horse-power of the engines of the Bessemer is 750, but they can work up to an indicated power of no less than 4600, and were calculated to drive the vessel at a speed of from 18 to 20 statute miles an hour. The two pairs of paddle-wheels are placed 106 feet apart, and each wheel is 27 feet 10 inches in diameter, fitted with twelve feathering floats. Many of the inventions first produced in the Great Eastern have been adopted also in the Bessemer, such as hydraulic gear for starting the engines and for steering, telegraphic wires leading from the bridges to the engine-rooms, and various other ingenious contrivances to facilitate the working of the ship and her machinery.
Her swinging saloon.
The “swinging saloon,” the invention of Mr. Bessemer, is in the centre of the vessel, and is entered by two broad staircases leading to a landing connected with the saloon by a flexible flooring. The saloon itself is upheld on its axis by four steel supports, one at each end and two close together in the middle. The aftermost of the two central supports is hollow, and serves as part of the hydraulic machinery for regulating the motion of the saloon itself, a spacious and elegant apartment 70 feet in length, 35 feet wide and no less than 20 feet high. It is presumed, that the hydraulic machinery will enable the person in charge of it to keep the floor of this cabin perfectly level, even when the ship herself is rolling violently in a heavy sea.[456]