. History of New York ship yards. UILDING. the vessel was traveling at a high velocity when shestruck the pier that saved her from being badly crushed,for it must be remembered she was not a heavy-builtvessel, nor was she a shell. She was undoubtedly movingat the time of the impact at not less than 12 miles anhour. She had been racing all night from Albany withan opposition boat, and the time made from Albany tothe pier when struck showed an average of 18 miles anhour. This was no accident. This ramming incident was variously commented onat the time by those in the more progressive marinecircl
. History of New York ship yards. UILDING. the vessel was traveling at a high velocity when shestruck the pier that saved her from being badly crushed,for it must be remembered she was not a heavy-builtvessel, nor was she a shell. She was undoubtedly movingat the time of the impact at not less than 12 miles anhour. She had been racing all night from Albany withan opposition boat, and the time made from Albany tothe pier when struck showed an average of 18 miles anhour. This was no accident. This ramming incident was variously commented onat the time by those in the more progressive marinecircles, and it caused much speculation and thought onthe subject of steam vessels being brought into forciblecontact at a high speed. It was a subject of much localcomment for some time how the vessel escaped destruc-tion. There was one other incident of the same nature thatoccurred some years later, and these complete the list ofwooden-hull river steamboats running into stone cribpiers with slight injury to the vessel, in the United. States. The Thomas Powell was running betweenNew York and Catskill on the Hudson river as a nightboat, and on July 23, 1868, when about four miles fromher berth at the former city, ran into a dock at the foot of59th street, North River, and met with comparativelyslight damage when considering the age of the vessel. Itseems that the vessel ran into a thick fog during thenight on her trip down the river. The pilot on watch inthe early morning had but a limited experience on steam-boats, though he had seen several years service on the NEW ERA IN SHIPBUILDING. 101 river. He was feeling his way down the river in the fog,and. up to four oclock, when the vessel ran into the dock,had been making a speed of about 12 miles an hour. Thevessel struck the string piece of the dock with a fearfulcrash, and this was the first warning they had of theimpending danger. Some idea of the velocity of thevessel when striking the dock may be formed, when stat-ing that she to
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