Note 4 — Chapter III · SAFETY AND COMFORT OF MODERN STEAMSHIPS.

For full and excellent treatment of this subject, see the paper on “Causes of Unseaworthiness in Merchant Steamers,” by Mr Benjamin Martell, Chief Surveyor to Lloyd’s Register, with the ensuing discussion: Trans. Inst., N.A., vol. xxi., 1880.

Several of the causes above named it is doubtless the province of the scientific shipbuilder, and the duty of the shipowner, to obviate by furnishing the captain and officers—especially in the case of entirely new vessels—with particulars and data of the vessel’s technical character, such as are now left to be found out by slow and sometimes bitter experience. Of these it may be sufficient to instance:—Stability, steadiness, trim, carrying capability, and steaming powers. Mr William Denny, of Dumbarton, has recently publicly declared his firm’s intention of supplying such particulars to the vessels built by them. It is to be hoped this worthy example may be extensively followed.