Kentish Gazette - Tuesday 15 May 1860
CHATHAM.
CHATHAM AND THE MEDWAY.—When Mr. Chisholm Gooden, a few years since, drew the attention of the Government to the desperate prospects of Chatham Dockyard, on which such enormous sums had been expended, tbe only reply vouchsafed was, a notice of the recent improvements as to the extension of the slipways, together with the promise of a letter of thanks from the Lords Commissioners and their then hydrographer but, after the lapse of half a dozen years, even this poor acknowledgment has as yet been actually withheld Mr. Gooden's predictions are being rapidly verified. Owing to the shameful neglect of the embankments, he foretold, eight years ago, that it would soon be impossible to take up a line-of-battle ship to Chatham. On the 9th of last November it was accordingly found impossible for the Cressy (80) to proceed thither, and on more than one other occasion vessels of even lighter draught have been compelled to discharge their guns and heavy stores at Sheerness to enable them to proceed up the Medway.— Hans Busk's Navies of the World.
The survey of two more of the contract mortar vessels, numbered 31 and 48, built for the Admiralty towards the close of the Russian war, has just been completed at Chatham Dockyard, the vessels having been hauled up out of the river on the slip, in order to facilitate the survey. The result of the inspection has shown that both the vessels are as rotten as those first inspected, and utterly unfit for further service; indeed, so rotten were they found to be, that after a portion of the planking had been removed enough was exhibited to satisfy the officers appointed to inspect them that it was unnecessary to extend the survey, and they were accordingly closed up and sent afloat to await an Admiralty order for them to be broken up. It is not yet known whether the Admiralty will have the whole of the gun and mortar vessels lying in Chatham harbour hauled up at the dockyard and inspected, with the view of ascertaining their condition but, as they were all built by contract, there would seem to be no doubt, from those already surveyed, the majority, if not nearly the whole, will be found so rotten as to render them unfit for further service. The two mortar vessels numbered 30 and 32 are being taken to pieces by a numerous body of shipwrights, and the planking having been removed and the timbers laid bare, their fearfully rotten state is at once apparent. Scarcely timber can be discovered which does not contain a liberal quantity "sap." Indeed, portions of the timbers may be picked to pieces with the finger, showing the disgracefully faulty timber which, there can be no doubt, was purposely used in their construction. The workmanship is likewise of a very inferior character, and contrasts strongly with that exhibited in the vessels of war under construction on the adjoining slips, the hired shipwrights who are employed breaking them frequently remarking that the timbers of the vessels seem to have been "thrown" together.
