When in commission, the Resistance had a mean draught of 26 feet 10 inches.  The present series of experiments was of even greater importance than the first series.  The attack was gradually developed by means of fixed and outrigger charges of increasing power, and the coup de grace was not given by means of a service Whitehead in actual contact until various lessons had been derived.

The opening experiment on June 9 consisted of an attack directed against a new system of torpedo defenses which are to be carried by ships in action, or when in expectation of an attack, rather than an assault upon the ship herself.  The previous experiments had clearly demonstrated that a Whitehead, when projected against a vessel at close range, and consequently with a maximum of motive force, could not get through the ordinary wire netting before expending its explosive energy in the air, and that the spars by which the nets are boomed out from the ship’s side could be reduced to 25 ft. in length without danger to the hull.  The ordinary wooden booms employed on board ship, however, are heavy and unwieldy, weighing, as they do, more than half a ton each.  In ordinary circumstances, the spars cannot be lowered into place and the nets made taut in less than a couple of hours, and the work of stowing them is equally slow and laborious.

Mr. Bullivant, who manufactures the torpedo netting and hawsers for the navy, has devised a method of getting rid of the difficulties complained of by substituting steel booms for the wooden booms and an arrangement of pulleys and runners, whereby the protection can be run out and in, topped and brailed up out of the way, with great facility.  The system was tried at Portsmouth last year with considerable success upon the Dido, but as it was thought that some of the fittings were somewhat frail and might collapse beneath the shock of a live torpedo, it was resolved to submit them to a practical test under service conditions upon the Resistance.  The ship was consequently fitted with three of the steel booms on the port side.  They were 32 ft. long and spaced 45 ft. apart, and connected by a jackstay to which the nets were attached.  Each steel boom weighed 5 cwt., or less than half the weight of the ordinary boom, and whereas the latter is fixed to the ship’s side by a hook which is liable to be disconnected or broken by the jerk of an exploding torpedo, Mr. Bullivant’s boom works in a universal or socket joint, which cannot get out of gear except by fracture, and which permits the boom to be moved in any direction, whether vertically or fore and aft, close in against the sides.  Below each boom is a flange, which serves as a line along which a traveler moves, the latter being actuated by means of a topping line running over a pulley at the head and another near the heel.

Upon the booms being topped to a perpendicular position, the nets are attached to the runners at the bottom of the booms close inboard (instead of, under the existing system, to the tops of the booms from boats alongside or otherwise), and when this is done, the mere depression of the booms into position will cause the nets to run out of their own accord.  In like manner, when the occasion for their use has passed, the raising of the boom will cause the nets to come alongside, when they can either be brailed up through the grummets or disconnected for future use.