LAUNCH AT WEST HARTLEPOOL
(Northern) Daily Mail May/ 24/11
To-day, Messrs. William Gray and Company, Limited, launched the large steel screw steamer Gorjistan, which they have built for Messrs. Frank C. Strick and Company, Limited, of Swansea and London. The vessel will take the highest class in Lloyd’s Register, and is of the following dimensions viz.: Length over all, 384ft. 6in., breadth, 50ft., and depth, 30ft.
She is a handsomely modelled vessel of the double deck type, with poop, long bridge and topgallant forecastle, having very tasteful cabin accommodation in houses on the bridge deck for passengers, captain and officers, and is fitted throughout with electric lighting.
The vessel has a cellular double bottom and after peak tank for water ballast, and in addition there is a deep tank or hold compartment fitted for water ballast abaft the engine room, giving a total capacity for water ballast of about 2,000 tons. The whole of the outfit, including steam windlass, steam steering gear, ten steam winches, with return exhaust to winch condenser of the contraflo type, are of the most approved description.
The machinery is made by the Central Marine Engineering Works of the builders, being of the triple-expansion type with cylinders 28in., 46in., and 77in., with a piston stroke of 48in. She is fitted with a contraflo main condenser, Weir’s feed pump and heater and large steel multitubular boilers, working by Howden’s forced draught, at a pressure of 180lbs. per square inch.
The vessel and machinery have been constructed under the superintendence of Mr. Archibald Walker, on behalf of the owners, and the ceremony of naming the steamer Gorjistan was gracefully performed by Mrs. Thos Graham Smith, Wilton Avenue, West Hartlepool.