ENGINES FOR FRUIT SHIPS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1935, Page 26

ENGINES FOR FRUIT SHIPS

Of specialised ship types few during the last few years have attracted more attention than fruit-carriers, and tlie announcement that the vessel which Messrs. R. and W. Hawthorn, Leslie, and Co., Ltd., Hebburn, are to build for the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand will have extensive refrigerating plant for the carriage of tropical fruit from the South Seas is of interest, comments the "Syren and Shipping." Bananas will undoubtedly form a great proportion of her cargo. It is only within recent years -that the citrus fruit carrier has become an important entity on world trade routes, and electricity has played an important part in helping this development. In spite of Mr. A. R. T. Woods's preference, expressed before the Institution of Naval Architects, for direct Diesel drive of refrigeration compressors, it appears likely to become increasingly important in refrigeration, particularly in the smaller ships. Electricity can be generated very cheaply on shipboard. The motor required for modern refrigerating machinery, especially the high-speed vertical. .-tvnp.. is..

simple and it is easily possible with modern Diesel engine design so to proportion the number and size of generators that the space they occupy in the engine-room is not large. Usually speaking, there is more room to spare in a meat-carrier than in a specialised fruit-carrier, and it is on these latter that the designers have been concentrating very much in the last year or so, with the result that a capacity of about 180,000 cubic feet can now be accommodated in very moderate-sized hulls. . .. .........