HKB
forefoot away, and by the introduction of powerful steering-gear, worked amidships,--the captain was able to navigate the Persian, 90 feet longer than the Venetian, with much less anxiety and inconvenience.
Until the building of the Persian, we had taken great pride in the modelling and finish of the old style of cutwater and figurehead, with bowsprit and jib-boom; but in urging the advantages of greater length of hull, we were met by the fact of its being simply impossible in certain docks to swing vessels of any greater length than those already constructed. Not to be beaten, we proposed to do away with all these overhanging encumbrances, and to adopt a perpendicular stem. In this way the hull might be made so much longer; and this was, I believe, the first occasion of its being adopted in this country in the case of an ocean steamer; though the once celebrated Collins Line of paddle steamers had, I believe, such stems. The iron decks, iron bulwarks, and iron rails, were all found very serviceable in our later vessels, there being no leaking, no caulking of deck-planks or waterways, nor any consequent damaging of cargo. Having found it impossible to combine satisfactorily wood with iron, each being so differently affected by temperature and moisture, I secured some of these novelties of construction in a patent, by which filling in the spaces between frames, &c., with Portland cement, instead of chocks of wood, and covering the iron plates with cement and tiles, came into practice, and this has since come into very general use.
The Tiber, already referred to, was 235 feet in length when first constructed by Read, of Glasgow, and was then thought too long; but she was now placed in our hands to be lengthened 39 feet, as well as to have an iron deck added, both of which greatly improved her. We also lengthened the Messrs. Bibby's Calpe--also built by Messrs. Thomson while I was there--by no less than 93 feet. The advantage of lengthening ships, retaining the same beam and power, having become generally recognised, we were in trusted by the Cunard Company to lengthen the Hecla, Olympus, Atlas, and Marathon, each by 63 feet. The Royal Consort P.S., which had been lengthened first at Liverpool, was again lengthened by us at Belfast.
The success of all this heavy work, executed for successful owners, put a sort of backbone into the Belfast shipbuilding yard. While other concerns were slack, we were either lengthening or building steamers as well as sailing-ships for firms in Liverpool, London, and Belfast. Many acres of ground were added to the works. The Harbour Commissioners had now made a fine new graving-dock, and connected the Queen's Island with the mainland. The yard, thus improved and extended, was surveyed by the Admiralty, and placed on the first-class list. We afterwards built for the Government the gun vessels Lynx and Algerine, as well as the store and torpedo ship Hecla, of 3360 tons.