LUXURY LINER

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 84, 9 April 1938, Page 9

LUXURY LINER

EMPRESS OF BRITAIN

A FLOATING TOWNSHIP

VESSEL DESCRIBED

The Empress of Britain, the giar Canadian Pacific cruise liner, is dv at Wellington tomorrow morning fror Milford Sound. She will berth at th Pipitea Wharf, and will sail at 1 p.m. for Auckland. The public wil be allowed on the wharf after 1 p.m but the ship will not be open for in spection. The liner is due to reach Aucklani at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, and will sail a 5 p.m. on Friday for Fiji, Hawaii, an( American ports. The Empress of Britain is easil* the biggest merchant vessel ever t< berth at Wellington. The Empress o: Britain is 42,348 tons, she can carr--1195 passengers, of which 465 are first class. She left the fitting-out basin o: her builders at the Clydebank ir April, 1931, and made her maiden voy age from Southampton to Quebec a the end of the following month. She took over two years to build and was insured for £2,250,000. At the time she was built, the linei was described by her owners as the largest, swiftest, and most luxurious vessel to ply between any two ports of the British Empire. She was designed to do 24 knots and to make the crossing from Southampton to Quebec in five days, and she constituted Britain's greatest shipbuilding effort since the war. Even now, with the building which has been carried on in recenl years in the effort to win the Atlantic Blue Riband, she is still among the first ten liners in the world. Hei overall length is 760 ft 6in and hei moulded breadth 97ft 6in. Hernel tonnage is 22,545. Her load draughl is 32ft. She was built to carry 119£ passengers (465 first, 260 tourist, and 470 third) with officers and crew ol 714, a total of 1909. Her shaft horsepower in service is 62,500 and she has been driven at 25.5 knots. BUILT BY JOHN BROWN AND CO This sea giant was "built by the famous firm of John Brown and Co., Clydebank, who created the Lusi*tania, the Aquitania, the Hood, and the Queen Mary. Her stem is straighl and she has a cruiser stern. There are ten decks, named the sun deck, sports or boat deck,' lounge or promenade deck, and A to G decks, respectively. The uppermost deck extending over the full length of the ship is A deck. Above this is the lounge or promenade deck, 648 ft in length, which forms the strength deck over the midship portion of the vessel. Above the lounge deck ,is the boat deck which, at the sides of the ship, has a length of 396 ft. At the centre, over the public rooms, which have a height between decks of 14ft, is the sports deck, 455 ft in' length. Above this is the sun deck, 192 ft long, on .' which are placed the funnel casing tops, the lounge dome, and sundry small houses. There are no extension joints in the superstructure of the vessel and to reduce weight Martinet high elastic-limit steel has been used for portions of the deck plating and for superstructure side plating. Hydraulic riveting has been used on her. There is a double bottom sft 3in deep, divided by watertight intersections into 44 main compartments which are used for the carriage of oil fuel,- fresh water, land water (ballast..',: The shell plating (of .9 inch' thickness) is doubled for a length of 150 ft from the stem as a protection against ice. The ship is subdivided into watertight compartments by 14 transverse watertight bulkheads, with additional subdivision by an inner skin on each side throughout the engine-rooms, and.by fuel tanks, throughout the boilerrooms, auxiliary engine-room, etc. There are 26 watertight doors through the bulkheads, 14 being power-operat-ed. The bulkheads and doors are of lire-resisting type, while the woodwork about them has been subjected to fire-proofing. . * PROPELLERS AND POWER. The great liner is propelled by four solid bronze screws, each driven by an independent set,of single-reduction geared turbines of the Parsons type, and to suit the conditions for which the ship was intended (Atlantic service in the summer and world cruises during the winter months) the engines driving the two inboard screws (measuring 19ft and weighing 25 tons) were designed to receive two-thirds of the total power. Under cruising conditions only the forward inboard engines are. employed and the vessel is then a twin-screw ship, dummy bosses being fitted in lieu of the outboard propellers. The normal horsepower of 62,500 may be increased to an overload power of 66,500 in favourable weather. The main turbine sets each comprise one high-pressure, one intermediate pressure, and one lowpressure turbine working in series. The machinery combines modern principles of marine high-pressure and high-temperature practice. For navigation, the vessel has ,a radio directionfinder, a gyro repeater, gyro compass, a navigational range-finder, an electrical depth-sounder, and submarinesignalling equipment. The living quarters of the ship provide the amenities of a small township on rather more than the standards of that town. The main electrical plant consists of four Diesel-driven generators of 450 k.w., and two turbogeneratdrs of 800 k.w. each. Throughout the ship there are over 400 electric motors, with electric cables totalling 320 miles, a dual telephone system with 80 lines for the ship's personnel and 100 lines for the passengers, 120 electric clocks controlled by a group of chronometers in the chart-room, and twelve lifts, five of them passenger lifts. THE PASSENGER QUARTERS. The decoration of the passenger quarters was, supervised by Mr. P. A. Staynes, R. 0.1., and Mr. A. H. Jones, F.R.1.8.A. The first-class diningsaloon, capable of accommodating 452 diners, was designed by Mr. Frank Brangwyn, and is 19ft high at the centre. Off this are two private diningsaloons, also decorated by Mr. Brangwyn. The Empress Ballroom, 70ft by 40ft, is, pillarless and has a cinema screen, a dome representing the night sky, great mirrors, and a floor of Austrian oak laid in panels 18in square. Here an eight-piece orchestra plays. There is a writing-room panelled in walnut, an American bar, decorated by Mr. Heath Robinson with "The Legend of the Cocktail," and a lounge decorated by Sir Charles Allom, with a gold-rayed sun and Zodiac signs on the roof. There is a card room, an Olympian pool—swimming bath (there is also art outside pool), Turkish bath, children's playroom, smoking room, gymnasium, squash-rackets court, tennis court, with galleries and cafe, and a great Mall, which is one of the largest public spaces on the vessel, with a vista of 165 ft and two separate stairways leading to it. In addition there is a printing shop, run by a chief printer and four assistants, a beauty salon, a chiropodist's room, a post office which handles some 60,000 articles in the course of a cruise, a pursers' department with! a staff of 15, a dental department, an operating theatre, with two doctors and a nursing staff, and a library. Many of these features are reproduced in the tourist class quarters. It is possible to obtain suites de luxe- consisting of

vestibule, , sitting-room, double bedroom, bathroom, toilet, box-room, and sun verandah. There are six suites de luxe and 14 special two-berth staterooms with private bath, and a large proportion of single-berth rooms. There is also a shop at which a wide variety of things may be purchased. The ship carries 150,000 dollars in American currency and about £20,000 sterling to meet passengers' money needs.