USE OF LIBERTY SHIPS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27112, 7 August 1953, Page 12

USE OF LIBERTY SHIPS

NUMBERS NOW DECLINING

VALUABLE WAR-TIME FREIGHTERS

The number of Liberty-class ships which are now visiting New Zealand is rapidly declining. In British fleets particularly, they are fast disappearing because they cannot compete economically with the faster and more modern cargo tramp steamers. The Titanbank, which left Lyttelton yesterday, is one of 12 Liberty ships which the Bank line placed in its fleet after the war.

The Liberty ship was a modification of a tramp steamer designed by Britain and built in American yards before the United States entered the war. Sixty ships were built to the original - design. They were easy to build, powered by a simple reciprocating engine connected directly to a single screw, and proved ideal for mass production. The first Liberty ship, the Patrick Henry, took 243 days to build and was delivered three weeks before the Pearl Harbour raid. Six months later the average time for construction was 122 days. One recordbreaker, the Robert E. Peary, was delivered in seven days. There were four classes of the Liberty type, a general cargo vessel with machinery aft, a boxed aeroplane transport, a 65,000 barrel tanker, and a bulk cargo vessel with machinery aft. 2714 Ships Built

There were 2714 Liberty ships built to the order of the United States Maritime Commission between 1941 and 1945. ships formed the backbone of the allied convoys during the war. In the 1943 convoys there were usually four Liberty-type ships to every five other vessels. After the war many ship owners who had suffered severe losses bought Liberty ships from the United States as replacements until they were in a position to take delivery of new ships. The purchase price after the war was about £120,000 compared with the originalcost of £400,000. However, they could not be considered as permanent replacements, for their high fuel consumption, slow speed and lack of refrigerated cargo space, coupled with the fact that their welded structures did not, in some cases, stand up to heavy seas as they should have done, did not bring the ships up to a satisr factory standard. Many had to be structually strengthened. Since the beginning of 1952 more than 400 Liberty ships have been withdrawn from service and now there are more than 1500 laid up in reserve fleets in the United States. Formerly the Samnegros (the name was changed in 1947) the Titanbank was built by the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard at Baltimore, U.S.A., in 1944. She is 424 feet long, 57 feet in beam, and has a gross tonnage of 7247 tons. Registered at Glasgow, the Titanbank is classed Al at Lloyds. With a part-electrically-welded hull she is equipped with a wireless direction finder, echo sounding device and radar. She has two decks, three masts and a cruiser stern. After calling at Dunedin she will go to Nauru Island to for New Zealand. Captain A. Whiston is her master.