LAUNCH AT WEST HARTLEPOOL
Daily Mail January /20/ 1909
Yesterday, Messrs. William Gray and Co., Limited launched the handsome steel screw steamer “Eretza Mendi”, which they have built for Messrs. Sota and Azner, of Bilbao.
She will take the highest class in Lloyd’s Register, and is of the following dimensions viz.: Length over all, 377ft.; breadth, 50ft 3in.; and dept, 37ft. 10in.; with bridge, poop and topgallant forecastle.
The hull is built with deep frames, cellular double bottom, and large aft peak ballast tank, six steam winches, steam steering gear amidships, hand screw gear aft, patent direct steam windlass, large horizontal multi-tubular donkey boiler, shifting boards through out, stockless anchors, telescopic masts 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 37in., 43in., and 72in. Diameter, with a piston stroke of 45in., and two large steel boilers for a working pressure of 180lbs. per square inch.
The vessel has been constructed under the superintendence of Mr. Goicochea and Mr. Undabarrena, on behalf of the owners, and the ceremony of naming the steamer Eretza Mendi was gracefully performed by Mrs. A.G. Rickinson, of West Hartlepool.