NEW EPOCH IN SHIPPING.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 80, 3 April 1912, Page 2

NEW EPOCH IN SHIPPING.

THE MOTOR-SHIP SELANDIA. IMPORTANT DANISH ENTER- »'' 'PRISE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 23rd February. St. Valentine's Day, 1912, will go down in history as. the opening of the epoch of motor-ahips, for on that day the oil-engined ship Selandia, 'of 10,000 tons and 3000 horse-power, ran her official trials in Copenhagen Sound with complete success. The Selandia is 370 ft in length, 53ft iv cxlTpme breadth, and 30ft in depth, moulded to the upper deck. The gross tonnage is 4900 and the net register 3200 tons, and the ship will have a deadweight capacity of 7400 tons and a displacement of 9800 tons. Loaded with 900 tons of oil fuel in the double bottom, in addition to about 30 tons of fresh water and the same amount of galley fuel, she made 13.35 knots over the measured mile with a displacement of about 4000 tons. With a full cargo, her speed' at sea ougiht to be about 11 knots. % The credit for this new -development in the shipbuilding - world belongs to Denmark. The Selandia is one of three sister ships ordered by the East Asiatic Company, of Copenhagen, a progressive firm whose vessels trade to the Straits, East India, and China, and she is the first large ocean-going motorship to be completed. Hey two sisterp, the Fionia and the Jutlundia, are expected to pass their trials in April. Nor does the enterprise end here, for the East Asiatic Company is to place orders for two more 10,000 ton ships and six of §000 tons, all to be propelled ,by, oil-engines, while the sequence logically decided.u pon, is the sale of the steamships owhfcd by the company. While the Selandia *s - engines may be reckoned to have cost £10,000 more than the machinery of a steamer of the same displacement, yet the company estimate that she will save £5000 per annum on the fuel bill and will gain £3000 on her freight receipts. The gross eai lings of the ■ Selandia will thus be £8000 more annually than that of a similar boat wifch steam engines. In the first year she will pay off' four-fifths of her extra cost. In her second year she will show a gross profit of £6000 excess, and .in following, years a gross profit of £8000 excess. Upon those figures the East Asiatic Company has bought the ships, and is ordering others. British shipowners, according to their outlook, may accept or reject those figures. The company have provided exceptionally fine accommodation for the round dozen of passengers who can be carried. A large dining saloon and drawing-room, furnished in elegant style, occupy the centre space, with a fine staircase. They are flanked ' by corridors, off which the cabins open. Insuranges on the three vessels — Selandia, Jutlandia, and Fionia — have been accepted by London underwriters on precisely the same terms as 'the numerous j steamships of the company's fleet. The motor-ships, of course, require no funnels, and thus present a strange appearance.