The rapidity with which the ‘Dunottar Castle’ was got into working order speaks well for the resources and the organising power of the Clyde shipbuilders. When the ship was launched at Govan, on May 22d, she was a mere hulk—a huge steel case intersected with a few floors and partitions. When the trial trip took place on August 28th, exactly fourteen weeks later, she was completely finished, furnished, and manned, and was ready in every particular to undertake a long voyage. Those who saw her at the Tail of the Bank, off Greenock, at the latter date, had some difficulty in believing that she was the same vessel. Everything was in its place, down to the minutest curtain-ring and the smallest carpet-tack; and every man was at his post, from the Captain to the cabin-boy.
The behaviour of the ship on the trial trip was admirable, and left nothing to be desired. The day was splendid, and everything went well. The ship attained a speed of 17½ knots on the measured mile, off Skelmorlie, and both builders and owners were satisfied with the results, as they had good reason to be.
The Ship on the Stocks—May 22, 1890.
II
IN THE FIRTH OF CLYDE
The trial cruise will not soon be forgotten by those who were privileged to take part in it. The trip was worthy of the great ship, and worthy of the famous ‘Castle’ Line. The strangers and foreigners, the Englishmen and the colonists, who were of the party, had an opportunity of seeing all that is grandest in Scottish coast-scenery, such as is enjoyed by few natives; and every Scotsman on board must have felt proud of his country.
The course taken was the converse of that of Agricola, when his galleys sailed round Scotland, and proved for the first time that Britain was an island. While the Romans sailed, or rather rowed in open galleys, from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde, the ‘Dunottar Castle’ pleasure-party steamed from the Clyde to the Forth in a veritable floating palace, replete with the comforts of advanced civilisation, and embodying the most recent developments of science in the applications of steam and of electricity. The contrast is almost too great to be appreciated even by the most imaginative modern mind. It is difficult to realise what the feelings of James Watt, or of Henry Bell, would be were they permitted to see to what perfection the results of their inventive genius have been brought by their successors.