NEW AIRCRAFT CARRIER

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 27

NEW AIRCRAFT CARRIER

entered the interstate trade; however, a fire gutted her accommodation, and she was laid up to reat. The vessel had good luck until 1886, when, on May 30, ■ she was lost with most of her passengers and crew. In hazy weather, the ship struck, the rocks off Green Cape, ,and broke in two. According to one . reliable authority, 15 of the passengers and crew were rescued off the forepart. When launched, the Ly-ee-moon was a sinister-looking three-masted paddlesteamer, with two thin funnels and a long, low hull. Her masts and fun-nels-were all raked sharply. In the American .Civil./ War, she was used as a. blockade runner. Afterwards, purchased by Alfred Dent, she sailed out to Hong Kong, and was employed in picking up'important mails froni the mail boat and running back at full speed to Hong Kong and the northern treaty ports. . Just after the, telegraph had superseded this fast steamer ser-

One of the most remarkable vessels provided for under the Navy Estimates for 1934 was a new aircraft carrier to be named the Ark Royal, .says "The Shipping World." The order for her has now been placed with Messrs. Cammell Laird and Co., Ltd., of Birkenhead. No details of the ship are as yet available, but she is expected to cost approximately £2,500,000. In the 1935 Navy Estimates, the sum of I £493,498 is allocated for expenditure on her during the financial year ending March 31, 1936. There are at present six aircraft carriers on the Navy List: the Argus; previously the Italian liner Conte Rosso, .completed by Messrs, Beardmore in September, 1918. the Eagle/previously the Chilean battleship Almirante Cochrane, completed by Messrs.. - Whitworth in 1926;. , the Furious. and : Courageous, originally designed as battle.' cruisers, and built by Messrs Armstrong Whitworth; the Glorious', also.originally de-

signeda* a battle cruiser, and built by Messrs? Harland and Wolff; and the Hermes, the, first vessel designed by the Admiralty as an aircraft carrier, which was built at Elswick and completed at Devonport Dockyard. The Hermes was completed in 1923, is 598 ft in length overall, is of 10,850 tons displacement and has a designed speed of 25 knots. She cost, with her armament, £2,030,000. The Ark Royal, it is understood, will be one of the largest ships ever built on the Mersey (her overall length may be as much as 750 ft), and her speed will be greater than that of the existing aircraft carriers Bince, as the First Lord explained in the House of Commons some time ago, these have not the speed considered necessary for this type of ship nor can they carry what is considered the requisite number of aircraft. In every way, the Ark Royal is certain to be an interesting ship from the standpoint, of naval architecture. ; .