Baltistan - Launch

LAUNCH AT WEST HARTLEPOOL

(Northern) Daily Mail March 5/10

To-day Messrs. William Gray and Co., Ltd., launched the large steel screw steamer Baltistan, which they have built to the order of Messrs. Frank C. Strick and Co., Ltd., of Swansea and London. Her principal dimensions are: Length over all, 362ft.; breadth, 46ft. 6in., and depth, 24ft. 9in.  She is a handsomely modelled vessel of the two deck type, with, poop, bridge and forecastle, and a sun deck over the bridge.

Very tasteful cabin accommodation is provided in houses on the bridge deck for passengers, captain and officers.  An electric lighting installation is being fitted, including a Suez Canal projector light. The vessel will take Lloyd’s highest class, and has a cellular double bottom and after peak tank for water ballast. The decks are of steel and teak. The steam windlass, steam steering gear, steam winches, large marine type donkey boiler, and the whole of the outfit are of the most approved description, including Porter’s patent derrick sockets for dealing with heavy lifts by combining the ships ordinary derricks.

The machinery is made by the Central Marine Engineering Works of the builders, being of the triple-expansion type with cylinders 25in., 40in., and 65in., and a 42in piston stroke. She is also fitted with Weir’s feed pump and heater, and two large steel multitubular boilers working by Howden’s system of 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 Baltistan was gracefully performed by Miss Edith Gray, second daughter of Mr. Wm. Creswell Gray, J.P., D.L., Tunstall Manor.

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