THE CABLE SHIP ON REPAIRS. 345 



Full information relating to the ships and gear employed in 

 the early history of cable laying will be found in Mr. Charles 

 Bright's comprehensive work, " Submarine Telegraphs." 



The "Patrol." — This repairing vessel, illustrated in Fig. 200, 

 was built for the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company by 

 Messrs. Wigham, Richardson & Co., Ltd., Walker-on-Tyne, in 

 1903. She is an example of the largest type of vessel employed 

 in repairing work, her dimensions being 377f fc. over all, 44ft. 

 beam, and 30ft. Sin. deep moulded. She has twin screws, and 

 triple-expansion main engines with four boilers working at 1801b. 

 pressure. There are four cable tanks respectively of 23ft. 6in. 

 by 17ft. 6in., 32ft. 6in. by 16ft. 6in., 30ft. Gin. by 10ft. 6in., 

 and 21ft. by lift., of a total capacity of 1,800 tons of cable of 

 the usual types. 



The electric lighting is supplied from two steam generating 

 sets, consisting of Clarke-Chapman vertical compound double- 

 acting engines of 30 B.H.P. and Holmes compound dynamos. 

 These were put in and the whole of the wiring for 420 lights, 

 main switchboard, &c., carried out by Messrs. J. H. Holmes 

 and Co., to the author's plans and specification, on this and 

 the sister ship "Restorer " at the same time. 



The main switchboard is in three sections, the centre panel 

 containing the main switches, instruments, projector switch 

 and fuses, battery regulating switch, &c., and the side panels 

 containing the port and starboard circuit switches and fuses. 

 The battery is a set of six 60 ampere-hour cells for lighting 

 the small lamps for galvanometer scales. The dynamos are 

 not arranged to run in parallel, the circuit switches being 

 change-over, so that any circuit can be switched on to either 

 dynamo. 



The whole of the wiring is carried out on the double wire 

 distribution system, without joints. The cables are of the 

 2,500 megohms insulation resistance class. All the heavier 

 cables are protected by extra-thick lead covering and taped 

 over all. These are run in heavy teak casings, the cables 

 being secured in position in the casings by clips before the 

 capping is screwed on. The smaller branch wires in the 

 cabins, &c., are not lead-covered, but are run in casing on the 

 same lines as the heavier cables. Cables in the engine room, 



