Volume Three - The Pontoon Era - The new pontoon commissioning and its early use . . .

	The “Alster”, a steel-hulled, four masted, fully rigged sailing ship built at the Harland and Wolff yard in Belfast for the White Star Line during 1890. She had a length of 392 feet (119m) so she overhung the pontoon by 12 feet (3.6m).

On the 16th April 1910 the Cardiff Times [019] published a report “Penarth Dock – The New Pontoon – Inaugurated by the Earl of Plymouth - A material edition to the trading facilities of Penarth Dock was made on Thursday, when the working of the new ship-repairing pontoon was inaugurated by the Earl of Plymouth, who gave the signal for raising the S.S. “Westgate”. The pontoon is the property of the Penarth Slipway and Ship-repairing Company, whose business equipment it immensely increases; and the Taff Vale Railway Company, recognizing the great advantage which a pontoon confers upon their property, have helped to provide the requisite capital by taking up £50,000 in Debentures.

Amongst those present were the Countess of Plymouth, Lord Windsor, the Hon. Archer Windsor-Clive, Mr. R. G. Vassall (chairman of the Taff Vale Company), Mr. A. Beasley (general manager Taff Vale Company), Mr. T. R. Thompson, Alderman Lewis Morgan, Mr. S. Thomas (Penarth), Mr. J. Andrews, Councilor E. Nicholl, Mr. T. Hurry Riches (Taff Vale Railway) , Mr. G. Sibberling Jones, Mr. E. Edwards (Taff Vale Railway), Mr. E. Hancock, and a number of other prominent docksmen.

The new pontoon, which is inside the Penarth Dock, has been specially designed to take the maximum size vessel entering that dock. It will accommodate vessels upto 420 ft. Long, 58 ft. Beam, and of about 9,000 tons carrying capacity. The pontoon contains 26 watertight compartments, and in order that the lifting may take place in the shortest possible time the pumping arrangement has been made sufficiently large to ensure the rasing of an average sized vessel completely out of the water in about half an hour, and a maximum sized vessel in a little over an hour. There are four pumps, which are designed to pump out a ton of water per second. The present slipway, which is outside Penarth Dock, will accommodate vessels up to 300 feet long, and at the time of its building was larger than any vessel owned in Cardiff.”