M.V. PORT TOWNSVILLE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 185, 7 August 1935, Page 11

M.V. PORT TOWNSVILLE

LEAVES LONDON IN SEPTEMBER. PASSENGER AND CARGO CARRIER. The Port Townsville, a large motor vessel, built by Messrs. Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Wallsend-on-Tyne, for the Commonwealth and Dominion Line, Ltd., London, for their services between Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand will leave London on her maiden voyage on September 5. She goes to Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart, and is expected in New Zealand to load some time in October. In her dimensions and planning, she is practically a sister ship of the Port Wyndham, which was built alongside the Queen Mary in Messrs. John Brown's yard laet year.

There is this difference, however. The Port Townsville is being fitted with engines designed by Sulzer and constructed by the Wallsend Engineering Company, the Port Wyndham having Doxford engines, constructed by Messrs. John Brown and Company.

One of the moet important features of the Port Townsville is that she has been constructed with a special view to the carriage of chilled beef from the Antipodes to England. She is also designed to carry all other kinds of perishable produce, such ae butter, cheese, apples, oranges, eggs and frozen meat, each of which requires a different temperature, with circulating or still air. The Port Townsville is being provided with a Marconi wireless direction finder and a Hughes echometer, which send» a wireless wave down to the bed of the ocean 90 times a minute. This wave pulsates back to the instrument and records the exact depth of the water under the ship on a chart. Passenger and Crew Accommodation. Although the Port Townsville is primarily a cargo vessel, she will have comfortable accommodation for a dozen passengers, who will have the run of the | ship. The accommodation provided for the crew is of an extremely high standard. The principal dimensions of the Port Townsville are: Length, 8.P., 495 ft. overall, 51Cft 4in; breadth, 05ft; draught (loaded), 29ft 10in; depth moulded to upper deck, 43ft 10in; gross I tonnage. 8000 tons; deadweight tomnne.' 11.140 tons; total refrigerated space,' 440,000 cubic feet; general space, 210,0001 cubic feeW i