REMARKABLE SHIR

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 51, 23 November 1928, Page 13

REMARKABLE SHIR

LATEST MOTOR TANKER HILDA KNUDSEN AT WELLINGTON A very • remarkable ship is the Norwegian motor tanker Hilda Knudsen, which arrived at Wellington on Wednesday night from San Pedro, via Auckland, and berthed at Thorndon breastwork to pump about 500,000 gallons of motor spirit into the AtlanticUnion Oil Company’s tanks at Kalwarra. The ship will sail this morning for Melbourne and Sydney to complete discharging. The Hilda Knudsen is the largest tanker that has visited the Dominion, and although she was carrying the largest cargo of motor spirit that had ever entered a New Zealand port, she was by no means fully laden. The Hilda Knudsen is owned by the same firm (Knut Knutsen and Co., of Haugesund, Norway) as the O. A. Knudsen, which has been bringing oil fuel cargoes to Wellington from San Pedro for nearly two years, but she is a larger ship, being practically the same length and depth but two feet wider. The principal dimensions of the Hilda Knudsen are: Length, 470 ft; beam, 64.2 ft.; depth, 35.3 ft.; gross register, 9178 tons; net register, 5472 tons. Her dead-weight carrying capacity is 13,200 tons, but when she arrived at Auckland last Saturday she was carrying 9700 tons of motor spirit, approximately 4,000,000 gallons. The Hilda Knudsen was built in Denmark and completed only a. few months ago. Her propelling machinery comprises two sets of six-cylinder, four-stroke cycle, single-acting Diesel engines, built by Messrs. Burmeister and Wain, of Copenhagen. They have cylinders approximately 25 inches in diameter with a piston stroke of about 43J inches. At 125 revolutions per minute the engines develop 3800 horsepower. When fully loaded to a draught of 27 feet the Hilda Knudsen has a sea-going speed of 11 to Hi knots and her fuel consumption for all purposes is only lli tons per day. The ship’s engine-room auxiliaries and her windlass are electrically driven, but steam raised in oil-fired donkey-boilers is used to drive her cargo pumps, which can discharge 700 tons per hour. The ship is built on the Sherwood longitudinal frame system and her cargo is carried in 20 main tanks and 10 “summer” tanks. There are crossbunker tanks which can carry sufficient Diesel oil to last the ship 100 days There is also a hold for the carriage of “dry” cargo such as caseOi Captaln O. Kolsto is in command of the Hilda Knudsen, which carries a crew of 38 all told, and all are Norwegians with the exception of a Danish guarantee engineer representing the builders of her engines. A remarkable feature of the ship is the splendid accommodation for the officers, seamen and oilers. The master has more and better fitted and furnished quarters than are ordinarily provided in the average “modern bungalow.” The officers and engineers are splendidly housed as are also the deck and engine-room hands. The quarters are large, airy and comfortably furnished. The Hilda Knudsen started her seagoing career on July 17, when she left Denmark for Novorossisk and Batoum in the Black Sea, where she loaded 12,000 tons of gasoline and kerosene for Vladivostok, Siberia. The passage of 10,000 miles was made via the Dardanelles and the Suez Canal, and the ship afterwards crossed the Pacific to San Pedro, where she loaded her present cargo. The Hilda Knudsen has already travelled some 27,000 miles at an average speed of over 11 knots without the slightest hitch to her propelling machinery.