Aries - Trial Trip

Northern Daily Mail, 25th September, 1895:
TRIAL TRIP OF THE ARIES. Our recent report of the trial trip of the s.s. Argo we mentioned that a sister vessel, the s.s. Aries, was then under the sheet-legs at the Central Marine Engine Works receiving her machinery. This vessel has now been completed, and yesterday went her trial trip off Hartlepool Bay. These vessels are of a special shallow draft type, the designs for which have received much attention at the shipbuilding department Messrs William Gray and Co., Limited, during the past year or two, with the result that there now a considerable demand for repetitions these vessels, and the enterprise and foresight of the well-known firm of Messrs Rickinson, Son, and Co. is exemplified in their having secured for their fleet two of these most modern steamers.

The engines are of the triple-expansion type, and were built at the Central Marine Engine Works William Gray and Co., Limited. Their cylinders are 24in., 38in., and 64in. in diameter, with a piston stroke of 42ins. The boiler pressure is 160lbs per square inch, and there are two exceptionally large boilers capable providing steam at the full boiler pressure under all probable conditions of working. The vessel made her trial trip in the light condition, having only her bunker coals and ballast water on board. The machinery ran entirely without hitch or trouble any kind, and without the implication water to any the bearings. The handiness of the machinery in its ready response to the orders of the engine-room telegraph from the bridge was particularly noticeable, and this a feature that cannot over-rated in large steamers which have to navigate narrow channels and rivers.

The vessel and her machinery have been constructed under the personal supervision of Mr Charles E. Smith, the superintendent for Messrs Rickinson, Sons, and Co., who was himself present at the trial trip, and expressed much satisfaction with the work. The enginebuilders were represented by Mr T. Mudd, and the vessel is under the command Captain Disney, who recently took away for the same owners the s.s. Arion when she was new. Immediately on the conclusion of the compass adjusting and other preliminary work the vessel proceeded to Blyth to take in her first cargo, making speed 11¼ knots along the coast on this her maiden trip.

Like the s.s. Argo, she is fitted with Mr. Kitching's patent lubricator, and Messrs Kitching and Smith's improved stern tube arrangement. There is also one of Mr. Mudd’s well-known feed water evaporators, and the engines are also fitted with the triple automatic telegraph, a comparatively new departure in engine room telegraphs that is now being regularly fitted to all the vessels engine at the Central Engine Works on account of the absolute security it offers against the possibility of an engineer driving his engines in the opposite way to that they are intended to go, and from which cause many serious accidents have from time to time occurred. Messrs Rickinson are be congratulated the possession of these two important steamers.

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