HAD THREE BOWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 10

HAD THREE BOWS.

LINER NAPIER STAR.

MAIERFORM CONSTRUCTION.

OWE OF FIRST FIVE IN WORLD. Applied to yacht design for years, the principle of Maierform bow construction is of comparatively recent introduction to merchant shipping. The Blue Star Line's Napier Star, which arrived in Auckland this morning after a fairweather passage from Liverpool, via Curacao and the Panama Canal, was one of the first five vessels in the world to be so fitted.

The Napier Star, however, is an old patient of the ship surgeons. Launched in 1027, from the Port Glasgow yards of Lithgows, Ltd., she was given an ordinary "up and down" stem of the standard type, but later, as an experiment, she was fitted with a streamlined Maierform bow, which is calculated to pive a better speed on a more economical fuel consumption. The raking, razorback appearance gives the impression of speed and power.

In order that the alteration might be effected, it wns necessary to take off the major portion of the original fo'c'slehead and weld on a new one. This was done with complete success, but on August 18. 1935, when in a fog, the Napier Star, 50 miles from Liverpool outward bound for Glasgow, met in a bow to bow collision with the Cunard-White Star liner Laurentic, which, with 620 passengers, was making a cruise of northern capitals.

Six of the Laurentic's crew were killed and five injured. The Napier Star's bows were smashed in for 20ft and her fo'c'sle house was demolished. None of her crew was hurt, as all were accommodated aft. The ship, however, was badly battered, and she had to return to port for a new—her third—bow to be fitted. The appearance of the ship now is a fine example of the ship surgeon's best handiwork.