Nickel steel, as its name implies, is an alloy of steel with nickel. It possesses all the qualities of steel for shipbuilding purposes, but it has, in addition, a breaking strength of forty tons to the square inch, as against twenty-seven for ordinary steel. The twenty-rater Dragon III., built in 1893, had frames and beams of this metal, which I think is destined to be much used in the construction of racing yachts.
The composite system of construction, namely, steel or iron frames and wooden planking, is in my judgment open to objection. The frames of a racing yacht are of course as light as the naval architect dares to make them in his effort to reduce weight in every detail of hull, spars and rigging. When it comes to pass that the seams of a composite yacht require calking the strain of driving the oakum home produces such a pressure on the bolts that fasten the planks to the frames that they snap off.
The composite system was introduced in 1860 on the Clyde, many China clippers being built after that plan. Among the first composite yachts were Nyanza and Oimara, built by Robert Steele & Co., of Greenock, about 1867. All the large racing yachts of the present time that are not constructed of metal have steel frames, as a sufficiently light wooden frame could not sustain the immense strains of the large sail plan and the heavy weight of the outside lead.
