They were 172 feet 9 inches between perpendiculars, 43 feet 8 inches extreme breadth, with 14 feet 7 inches depth of hold, and 7 feet 9 inches draught, and they were of 1,469 tons. The two decks were of oak 9 inches thick, resting on beams 10½ inches square, which were placed 21 inches apart from centre to centre, the beams being supported amidships by stanchions hinged so that they could be hung up out of the way in action. The frames, iron plates, and planking were altogether 2 feet thick on the sides. The engines were of 150 h.p., of the non-condensing type, and with four tubular, cylindrical, flat-ended boilers with two furnaces each, the pressure being 60 lb. to the inch above that of the atmosphere. Owing to their slow speed, for they could only make three knots, it was decided to give them two additional or wing screws. These batteries, according to those who had to handle them, would “neither sail, steam, stay, nor steer,” and might be depended upon to affect the men’s health injuriously. Jury rudders had to be rigged up to get them along. All these floating batteries, whether French or English, were equally slow, and equally bad sea-boats. The gunboats of the _Trusty_ class were wooden-built and armoured; the _Erebus_ class, launched in 1854-56, were iron-built. The floating batteries were regarded with hope by those who were prepared to believe that the ironclad system would prove effective, and with undisguised contempt by the majority. What, it was asked, could these little unwieldy vessels do when the great line-of-battle ships were not equal to the task of reducing the fortifications? Still, as the Emperor had ordered them, it was but right that the experiment should be made. So when, in October, 1855, the great attack was begun, the three floating batteries which had arrived, steamed slowly into position, and came to anchor between 700 and 800 yards of the Kinburn forts. A correspondent who visited the _Dévastation_ after the bombardment, “left her with the conviction that, in the attack of maritime fortresses, a new era had commenced.... The bulwarks had been removed from the deck, to lessen the mark, and the funnels of the steam engine alone projected. The captain conned the ship standing on the companion, and giving directions to the helmsman below; and when the vessel came to an anchor he remained below. Twelve embrasures were opened, and the effect as witnessed from the village was terrific, whilst that of the enemy’s guns upon her was very slight indeed. She had three men killed and six or seven wounded through shots entering the portholes, one shell bursting inside. Not a shot from the enemy damaged the _Dévastation_ in the slightest degree. She was hulled sixty or seventy times, the balls each time bounding from her sides harmless into the water, leaving their marks, it is true, in the shape of dents, in some cases an inch and a half deep, but inflicting no real damage on plates of iron four inches in thickness.