The Liverpool Journal of Commerce publishes the following interesting account of the dry docking of the P. and O. steamer China at Belfast One of the most remarkable feats in the docking of large ships was performed last week at Belfast. The steamer China, which was successfully floated off the Azalea Rock, at the mouth of the Red Sea, after being stranded some months, was ordered. by her owners to Belfast for repairs. The task of putting the ship in thorough con-ion was naturally entrusted to her builders, Messrs. Harland and Wolff, from whose yard she was launched so recently as June, 1896. The condition of the ship's bottom was not actually known, as it had not been sighted, although the divers had been working under it for some time prior to the vessel's release from her critical position. It was therefore impossible to depend upon the ordinary method of dry docking a ship, as it was known that for a considerable portion of her Length the keel and bottom plates were in anything but their normal shape or condition, and could not be supported. The responsibility of the difficult task fell upon Mr. A. Carlisle, the able and courteous yard manager of the Queen's Island builders. Before the ship was docked this gentleman decided to carry the weight of the fore end of the ship on square timber logs of about 20 inches measurement, taken horizontally through the vessel from side to side. For this purpose holes suficiently large bad to be cut through the side plates. No fewer than 16 of these logs were "rove" through the China, and under the projecting ens upright timber supports 16 to 18 inches square were fitted. These latter were resting upon shoes on the bottom of the dock, to which they were secured by braces, while the heels of the logs were strapped round as a precaution against splitting. All these uprights had to be cut before the ship entered the dock, and the positions marked on the bottom of the dock for the shoes to sit upon. To work out these fine measurements so that each upright would carry its proper proportion of the strain falling upon it, and to fit the whole exactly so that the ship would rest entirely upon them without any underneath support, so that her whole length would assutine an absolutely normal position and strain, was naturally a task of some little anti When everything had been jot ready for docking as regards the graying dock blocks the vessel was floated i and as the water was leaving her, the rights, the heels of which had been placed in position and kept down by heavy pig iron loading, were carried into the sides of the ship and kept fair for taking the weight, as the vessel gradually settled with the regression of the water. As the weight of the forward two-fifths of the ship came to be felt by the timber supports the feelings of Me. Gnrlisle can better be imagined than described, for in addition to the weight of the vessel's structure, immense in itself, there was added a total of over 800 tons of concreted cement, besides other weights of timber, &e. But'in addition to the athwartship and upright logs already mentioned, a very large number of timber shores were so fitted as to assist them. A number of these were carried up from the Lottoin of the dock as uprights, and others on various altar-courses or step-sides of the dock, and so cut at the head as to take angle plate, which fitted close under the edges of the overlapping shell plates. These shores were angled out at the' heel, thereby increasing their effectiveness. Altogether there were three rows of these supports, consisting of square pitch pine logs of from 12 to 18 inches measurement. Before the ship was left entirely resting upon her keel aft and shored up from her sides forward, the question of whether the divers were to be allowed under the ship's fore end was considered, but dismissed by the worthy manager as of too dangerous a nature, for it might be reasonable to expect that Mr. Carlisle had in his mind the picture of the Fulda, which, collapsed in the Birkenhead Dock,' and on which case he bnd so recently been giving evidence. The final order to pump the dock dry was given, and the water gradually lowered until it exposed to view, first the top of the wonderful wooden box-like bottom that had been put on by the divers from a position under her forefoot for distance extending nearly 70 feet aft and from side to side, and then the strange box patches that had been pat along the bilges. Finally the whole of the bottom was exposed to view, and rarely has a more remarkable sight 'Leon witnessed. Fora distance of about 220 feet feom the stem' the bottom of the ship is driven out of shape. From the turn of the forefoot for nearly 200 feet the keel is arched, being set up 9 or 10 feet, and is best described as compared with the form assumed by " hanging chain—reversed of course. The bilges, however, remain fairly low on each side, so that the athwartship section also assumes the form of anarch. Phe plates are corrugated and dented out of all reasonable shape, yet, when the damage is closely inspected one came but be strack with the apparently.
monal strength of the structure of great ship, and the splendid quality of the material, "The workmanship is also well evidenced by the few rivet-lolos that have had to be plugyed—probably not 50. Phe keel, as for as can be seen, is not broken, and no doubt it is in som" mensure due to its excellency and strength, being of the slab type, 10 inches by 4 inches, that the fore-and-aft midship portion of the bottom comes out of the trouble remarkably well. The bridges have been holed, and the box-patches already mentioned extend about 80 feet abaft the after end of the main patch in false bottom before described. Along the entire length of the underneath forward portion of the ship—say for 220 feet—she was totally unsupported, and this made the work of docking responsible and dificult. The dam ge is not confined to the forward end of the China, there being a few indented and slightly fractured plates from 150 feet from the stern on the starboard side, It is this side, indeed, which has suffered most, if there is much to choose from. Right aft, the stern frame, propeller (bronze metal), and rudder are quite uninjured. A few words on the work of the divers. The patches ere put on, aa for strength, latenings, neatness, tightness, and general efficiency, in a way creditable in the extreme, and no novice in the science or art of marine, diving, having regard to the conditions obtaining when and where the work was done, but will admire its thoroughness. The great patch is, in addition to the thorough fastenings, bound or triced up to the ship's bottom by a number of 44-inch wire cables, about 43 feet apart. These are secured from slipping, fore-and-aft, by a number of iron staples, but to a seaman the bar-like tautness of these wires is remarkable, and the fastening of the ends by means of improvised clips most praiseworthy. Looking at this ship as she lies in the Alexandra Dock, Belfast, while regretting with feelings of pain the course of events that placed her there, one cannot but be struck with the wonderful display of whole-souled and deep-rooted respect for its name and character which ever signalises the greatest line in the world—the world-renowned P. and 0.; for the rescue of the China, at enormous cost, from an ignominious end, is surely a matter that the country may ever feel proud of, And she is, as [she
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.