SPEED AT SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1936, Page 24

SPEED AT SEA

PROBLEMS FOR THE FUTURE

After holding the record until she "came of age," the Mauretania was at last outrivalled in speed by the Bremen and Europa, the Rex and Conte di Savoia, the Normandie and the Queen Mary, said Mr. Ernest H. Rigg, addressing an international meeting of naval architects and marine engineers at New York recently. The service speed established by the Mauretania was in the 25 to 26 knot average. The present day range was 4 to 5 knots faster, that is, 29 to 31 knots, and perchance a little better. Not so very long ago all Atlantic liners were intermediate passenger and cargo steamers. The express liner, as it was now known, began to be noticeable towards the turn of the century.

As long as coal was the universal fuel, the quick turn-around now practicable with oil was not possible and the time formerly necessary for bunkering and cleaning up afterwards could also be used for cargo handling. It ■would appear that from the Campania

onwards, general cargo began to fade out on express steamers of all competing nations, and that from the Mauretania onwards it has ceased to exist, except in a strictly limited sense.

As oil fuel entered the picture about the time of the World War, the speed and cleanliness with which it can be handled really solved the problem of the quick turn-around, together with measures taken to keep the steward's department in step. Powers in the 100,000 horse power region were formerly unheard of. With the Campania and the fast German liners, such powers as 30,000 were about the highest, some few ships going up to 40,000. The Mauretania and Lusitania doubled this and represented the highest attained under coal.

The advent of the Bremen and Europa, and of the Rex and Conte di Savoia definitely disposed of any doubts as to the practicability of passing from the 25 knot range upwards to the 30 knot range. Possibly these ships were not four days and no hours schedule, so far, but they did establish definitely the next step to the Mauretania, held back and discouraged as it had been by the war and the later world depression. They and the later Normandie and Queen Mary all demonstrated the feasibility of the four-day

liner. The road from five to * four days involved an average of 6.3 knots in speed. That from four to three days would involve a 10.5 knot average increase, and that would makp them think a little.