Confield Voyage History

Steamship Confield.

LAUNCH AT WEST HARTLEPOOL

(Northern) Daily Mail, Sep 12/12

Yesterday, Messrs. William Gray and Co., Ltd.  launched the handsome steel screw steamer,  Confield which they have built for Messrs. E. J. Sutton and Co,. Newcastle.

She will take the highest class in Lloyd’s Register, and is of the following dimensions, viz.: Length over all, 325ft.6in.; breadth, 46ft.6in.; and depth, 25ft.5 ½ in., with long bridge, poop, and top-gallant forecastle.

The saloon, staterooms, captain’s, officers’, and engineers’ rooms, etc., will be fitted up in houses on the bridge deck, and the crew’s berths in the forecastle.

The hull is built with deep frames, cellular double bottom, and large after and fore peak ballast tanks, six steam winches, steam steering gear amidships, hand screw gear aft, patent direct steam windlass, large horizontal multitubular donkey boiler, stockless anchors, shifting boards throughout, telescopic masts, with fore and aft rig and all requirements for a first class cargo steamer.

Triple-expansion engines are being supplied by the Central Marine Engineering Works of the builders, having cylinders 23in., 36 ½ in., and 62in. diameter, with a piston stroke of 42in., and with two large steel boilers for a working pressure of 180lbs. per square inch.

The ship and machinery have been built under the superintendence of Messrs. Havelock and Chaston, of Newcastle, on behalf of the owners, and the ceremony of naming the steamer Confield was gracefully performed by Mrs. Sutton, Newcastle, wife of the owners.

TRIAL TRIP OF THE s.s. CONFIELD.
 
 (Northern) Daily Mail, Oct 17/12

Yesterday, the handsome steel screw steamer, Confield built by Messrs. Wm Gray and Co., Ltd., had her trial trip.

The vessel has been built to Lloyd’s highest class, and is of the following dimensions, viz.: Length over all, 325ft. 6in.; breadth, 46ft. 6in.; and depth, 25ft. 5 ½ in. All the requirements for a first class cargo steamer have been fitted.

Triple-expansion engines have been supplied from the Central Marine Engineering Works of the builders, having cylinders 23in., 36 ½ in., and 62in. diameter, with a piston stroke of 42in., and two large steel boilers adapted for a working pressure of 180lbs. per square inch.

The ship and machinery have been built under the superintendence of Messrs. Havelock and Chaston, of Newcastle, and on the trial the owners were represented by Messrs. Chaston and Playle, Captain Gair being in command. On the run round to the Tyne the vessel averaged a speed of 11.1 knots, the performance of ship and machinery being highly satisfactory to all concerned,

In the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Thursday, 29th January, 1914:
"A telegram from Dungeness dated last night states that the British steamer Confield passed west at 9.35 pm and signalled "Have been in collision off Dover with a cross-Channel steamer from Dover. Damage not serious. Ship making no water. Am proceeding to Bordeaux." The Confield left Hartlepool on Tuesday for Bordeaux."

In the same column was a further report:
"Lloyds' Ostend agent cables today that the Belgian Mail Steamer Ville de Liege reports having collided last night with the British steamer Cosfield [Confield], of Newcastle. The former vessel was badly damaged."

The steamship Confield.