The DNC objected to the loss of the mainmast as he believed that it was needed to support a boat-handling derrick, but was overruled by the Admiralty, which preferred to position the tripod foremast behind the forward funnel with the tripod legs facing forward to allow the vertical leg to be used to support the derrick. This all but guaranteed that the hot funnel gases could render the spotting top uninhabitable. The short height of the funnel also bedevilled the bridge with smoke until it was raised in 1912, although this exacerbated the problem for the spotting top. The decision to space the wing turrets more closely together also made the smoke problem worse; because it reduced the space available to the aft boiler room which meant that the forward funnel had to accommodate the exhausts of a dozen boilers compared to the aft funnel's six, further increasing the smoke from the forward funnel.