THE SHIP OF THE FUTURE

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2646, 27 October 1919, Page 7

THE SHIP OF THE FUTURE

\ND THE NEED FOR DEEP WATER HARBORS.

WHERE ENGLAND STANDS. The ship of the future is awaiting its harbor. There must be bigger terminal facilities if the big ship is to come. In England it is now proposed to provide harbors for liners that will be 1,00011 long, the plan being to build such liners in HuUnited States, and to dock them at Montaulk Point. New York. In .Britain tHo new shipbuilding programme has already taken definite shape, with a propo.vl to improve the port of Falmouth in or.lv.' to provide a safer and quicker route for ocean passenger and mail steamers to and trom Dublin and the Continent than is now available. Plymouth is to be made a ‘ port of Empire,” the scheme being regarded as one of Imperial importance. The ‘Scientific American’ has this to say regarding it: ‘‘The limit of size in steamships is not determined by any structural difficulties in the ship itself. Ships of from 600 to I.oooft in length would have made their appearance many years earlier than thev did if it had been a question of the ability of the groat shipbuilding firms to construct such ships. The limitations on size have been those imposed by Nature, such as the depth of the entrance channels to harbors or their width as affecting the safe flow of traffic. Also in such conditions as obtain in the Hudson River, New York, the length of the ships and piers at which they He is restricted bv the necessity for preserving a sufficiently wide channel between the pier-head lines on opposite side of the river. The Farrnouth plan is set forth in an earlier issue of the same paper, as follows, by Eric A. Dime, who says : “According to Sir A. Booth, of the Cunard Company, the purely cargosteamer in the North American trade is passing. He expressed his belief recently that tho Atlantic transport trade of tli? future lies with the 40.000 to 50.000-ton steamer carrying freight, passengers, and mail, and if he be right in his belief, the cargo business of the future will necessarily go to the ports where mammoth passenger and cargo-steamers can be pro-! perly accommodated. Under present conditions our largest steamships are unable to enter or leave Southampton, Liverpool, or London except when the tides are favorable on the bars and in the channels. They can onlv enter Liverpool during 32 hours out of the 24, and they can only go into dock there when their time in port more or less coincides with the period ol spring tides. There is no port in HuUnited Kingdom possessing suitable dock accommodation which large steamships like the following can enter or leave in all stales of tide and weather: Britannic, 50,000 tons, 900 ft; Aquitania. 50.000 tons, 885 ft; Olympic, 45.000 tons, 882 ft; .Mauretania. 52.000 tons, 79011. “The principal ports of England, the majority of which are approached by long and shallow channels, were more or less convenient for shipping in the past, but the heavy expenditure necessary to adapt theme to the requirements of modern shipping makes their continued use uneconomical. They retard the progress of shipbuilding. and would handicap British ship owners and merchants in c-impetition with their foreign rivals. ... •• Whipping authorities in England have agreed that Si. .Inst, in Falmouth Harbor, would make the most ideal deepwater port. It is situated on the eastern shore of the bwvh-or. which 'is the nearest deep-water harbor to the entrance of the English Channel from the Atlantic. St. dust is easily accessible and lano'oeked. and vet-so Is of any draft or size can safclv enter and leave it in any state of the tide. There is no bar. silting, or scouring, and little strength ol tide. Ihe harbor niters a direct and sale apnroach from the ocean and shelter. Owing to natural advantages, the accommodation required for the modern great vesselcould he constructed there at a comparatively small cost, while at the same time the advantages of tho site are equally favorable for the eonsti notion of the necessary adjuncts of a harbor ami docks of the first class. •••Docks erected at St. Je-t would he in the most favorable position for lie economical and expeditious distribution and collection of goods carried by the liners. These goods could he conveyed at cheap rales by an organised system of coasting steamers io and from St. •Just and London, Hull. Newcastle. Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester. Glasgow. Dublin. Belfast, and other places which, are near to great centres of consumption and production, and also to and Horn the Continental ports. This systematised co-op-eration on a large scale of the ocean and coasting trades would be merely a development of what is already being done from the ports now being us e! by the liners, but the principle has not been, and indeed cannot be. carried tar enonyn in consequence of the natural disadvantages of these ports and the groat increase of size of modern steamships.” A writer in • Lloyd's Summary’ asserts that the maintenance of British supremacy as the carrier of the world s commerce is li inked up with the construction ot Imperial harbors that will have water enough to receive the deepest draught ships that mav be built,' thus reducing the cost of transport to a minimum. He adds, in explanation of the Falmouth scheme :

The intention is to accommodate steamers drawing 44ft and upward, and that depth not being available continuously under all states of the tide at ain other port in Flight nd. it follows that Falmouth should have a monopoly of the trade carried by steamers of that draft whose owners are desirous of saving. the extra length of voyage and avoiding the delays, or risk of delays, in waiting for tides, etc. So long as these conditions continue Falmouth e.au hardly fail to become a distributing and collecting centre. The advantages to what may he called superli iters in lire quick turn-round arc manifest, ami are of no inconsidorablo importance owing to their great capital cost and their proportionately considerable aggregate cost of i’ll lining expenses. It is estimated approximate.lv that a saving of 24 hours inward and outward, due to the saving in mileage steamed .and the avoidance of delays entering and leaving port, would increase the annual earnings of a, vessel of the Lusitania class by an amount equal to from one to one and a-haif times the gross earnings a round trip, apart from the. saving due to economv in cost <>l freight.