The steamer _Hansa_ broke down in October 1908 in the South Pacific through the propeller jamming against the rudder stock. After a delay, the shaft broke when the steamer was 1281 miles out from Newcastle, New South Wales, for New Zealand. The shaft tank was flooded and the ship drifted in circles with sea anchors out, under such sail as the crew could set, while the engineers worked for almost twenty days--night and day--and sometimes more than waist-deep in water in the stern tube, till they managed to repair the shaft. Then the funnels of the steamer were used as masts and tarpaulins were rigged to them as sails. But such sails as they could set were insufficient and she drifted broadside on. The ship was picked up and finally brought into port, but by that time she was able to get her own engines to work and release the strain on the towing steamer. Repair work of a totally different kind is associated with steamers built to be severed and joined up again. The Canadian Pacific Railway steamer _Assiniboia_, for instance, was constructed by the Fairfield Company at Govan in 1907 for service on the Great Lakes and was so made that she could be cut in half in order to pass through the canals to reach her destination, after which the pieces were reunited. That a vessel should be built in order that she may be sunk and raised was the unique experience of the steamer _Transporter_, built by Messrs. Vickers, Sons and Maxim, Barrow-in-Furness, in 1908. Some time previously the Japanese Government placed with the firm an order for two submarine vessels, and a special steamer had to be constructed to carry them. This vessel is over 250 feet long, very broad and with large hatchways. When the submarines were ready for shipment the steamer was taken to Liverpool and sufficiently submerged in dock to allow of them being floated into the hold. She was then pumped dry, and after being overhauled she left for Japan.