WORLD’S SUPER-LINER

Evening Star, Issue 21836, 27 September 1934, Page 6

WORLD’S SUPER-LINER

ENGLAND’S MARITIME PRIDE BID FOR ATLANTIC SUPREMACY “ NO. 334 ” LAUNCHED AT CLYDESIDE BFILT AT COST OF £6,000,000. If a twentieth century Hercules lifted the giant Cunarder, which was launched on the Clyde yesterday, and deposited the great ship in Lower High street, the liner’s bow would be in the Stock Exchange and the stern would overhang the traffic dome at the Cumberland street intersection. But the buildings in High street would have to be pushed back 15ft to allow the cradling of the Cunarder. And if No. 534 were balanced on Bell Hill, her masthead would tower 50ft above the spire of First Church! This mammoth ship is Britain’s tremendous gesture of maritime supremacy. German greyhounds, Europa and Bremen, have wrested the Atlantic speed record from Britain, and with the Cunarder England will set a main for size ana speed of ships that, it is hoped, no other nation will be able to eclipse. It is true that there is a sharp diversion of opinion over live policy of building giant ships. Many hold that the future of the Atlantic and ,other passenger trade lies with the moderate sized, less ostentatious vessels; that the competition in size, m speed, and in luxury has been earned to unprofitable lengths; and that it is impossible, under any conditions which can be foreseen, to expect a return on the huge sums which the Cunarder cost in' construction. By most people, however, the feeling was that tlm prestige of British shipping demanded the reconquest of the Blue Riband of the Atlantic. . , ~ The building of a ship teat would outclass any other vessel afloat was decided upon by ' the Cunard Company

near four years ago,' and the' Government of the day so far approved this decision as to take over a largo proportion of the insurance risk. When financial difficulties forced the company to suspend the work of construction in 1931 there was an immediate popular demand that the Government should go to its assistance—both for the sake of the great number of men on the Clyde who directly and indirectly were thrown out of employment and because it was felt that the national prestige would suffer if live foreign shipowners were allowed to outbuild the British. But the great difficulty in the way was the competition between the British companies, the Cunard and the White Star. About £1,750,000 was already spent when work was stopped. But in December last, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made the announcement that the difficult and complicated negotiations for a merger of the shipping interests were nearing duality and the Government fell justified in presenting proposals for furnishing the necessary financial facilities for the completion of the Cunarder.

The news was hailed with jubilation on the Clyde. The Government’s financial assistance enabled the work of building to be resinned. A separate operating enterprise of the passenger vessels employed by the __ Cunard and White Star Lines in the North Atlantic was formed, the two parent companies each preserving their separate identities and financial structures, the main purpose being to avoid any unnecessary competition between two main British passenger lines. To the new company some fifteen ships of the Cunard Line and ten White Star liners were transferred. The Cunard vessels included the three up to now employed in the express service between Southampton, Cherbourg, and New York—the Aquitania, Berengaria, and Mauretania—and the White Star’s vessels included the Majestic (up till now the largest ship afloat), Olympic, and Homeric. Both the parent companies have interests in other routes, and notably in the Australian and New Zealand trade, which are unaffected by the new arrangement. No. 531, which will he given her name of Queen Mary at the launching, will set out to regain for Britain the supreme stakes in the Europe-New York service for so many years held by the Mauretania, which cost £1,400,000 in 1907. Germany then held the honour with her Kaiser Wilhelm de Grosse, but on November 16, 1907, the Mauretania, whipped by her huge turbines, throbbed her 30,704 tons across the Atlantic on a five-day schedule. For twenty-two years the Mauretania heat back every thrust at her supremacy. When the Bremen broke her record the Maure-

tania, twenty-two years old, lowered-it again by five hours, taking 4d 22hr 44inin for the Cherbourg-New York crossing. But only last year the dow-ager-qnecn of the Atlantic set a world’s record dash for passenger liners by steaming thirty-seven miles, or thirtytwo knots in one Hour in the Caribbean Sea. The Mauretania ran like a clock, and the habitues of the New York waterfront still tell the time by her. When log and rain early in 1933 delayed the Bremen, the Leviathan, and the Rex, the newest ocean speeder, the Mauretania arrived four minues before schedule. And it is traditional that the house flag of the famous firm which owned the Mauretania should now fly at the masthead of the vessel with which England is confident that the supremacy of speed in the North Atlantic will be regained, and with it the cream of the traffic. The new Cunarder is expected to cross the Atlantic in four days! Here are the details of this monster of the ocean :—-

Her length is 1,029 ft, just under onefifth of a mile. The longest vessel to come inside Otago Heads was H.M.A.S. Australia, 630 ft. Her breadth is Jluft, nearly twice the width of Princes street.

Her tonnage is 73.000. That of R.M.S. Akaroa is 14,947. The height from keel to the masthead is 240 ft. The top of the flagpole on the Town Hall is 172 ft above the street level.

The height from the waterline to the boat deck is 70ft. No. 534 has eleven decks.

She will carry 4,000 passengers and a crow of 1,500. Each of her three funnels are 40ft in diameter, and three tracks for Dunedin trams could be run through them. Twenty-nine huge boilers drive the twelve quadruple-screw geared turbines, giving a speed of between thjrty-two and thirty-three knots. The combined length of the four sets of engines is over 200 ft.

Tlio turbines develop 200,000 horsepower. They drive four manganese bronze propellers, each weighing thirtyfive tons and costing £7.000. Her cost has been C 6.000,000, £SOO,(XX) being spent on decorations. Fitted out for Captain Cook’s cruise round the world, in which he discovered New Zealand, the Endeavour cost only £5,094. The Endeavour could be placed on the boat deck between the first and second funnels of the Cunarder and still have 7ft 6in to spare at bow and stern. She will be the safest vessel afloat. There is a double bottom along her whole length and a double skin along 60 per cent, of her sides, elaborate

watertight subdivisions, with a foolproof system of automatically dosing bulkhead doors, automatic fire detectors and extinguishers, and the latest type of motor lifeboats and lowering davits. . There arc 30,000 tons of steel in her make-up. Her power station will produce enough electric current to provide light for a city of 100,000 people. On each side of her upper deck, there is a row of fourteen motor lifeboats The stern frame and outer shaft brackets, the largest steel castings ever, made, weigh 500 tons. The rudder weighs 500 tons. Two steel doors are fitted into the rudder with a vertical steel ladder in the interior which gives ample room for several men to walk about. The anchor cables, wire hawsers, and mooring ropes are over five miles in length. Two sixteen-ton anchors, each with 105 fathoms of speciallytested chain cable, are carried. There are seven turbo-generators developing 9,100 k.w., and 300 electric motois. There are 10,000 electric fit'"Ae catering department will boast 200,000 pieces of crockery and 100,000 pieces of cutlery. The 4,000 passengers will be earned in four classes—first, second, tourist third, and emigrants. The dining saloon will be large enough to seat all first-class passengers at one sitting. The lounge extends through two decks, with a gallery running round it, and the smoking room is the largest ever built in a ship. The ballroom has a stage as big as that in any theatre and is wired for “ talkies.” . The covered swimming pool, with novel under-water lighting, is the largest afloat. Every first-class stateroom has its own private bathroom, with hot and cold fresh and sen water and the latest shower devices.

Ten miles of carpets were used in covering the floors. One of the decks is 750 feet long, almost the length of the Mauretania from stem to stern. A double railway line could easily be laid in its width. This super liner moved down the ways from the yards of John Brown Co.* Ltd., Clydebank, Scotland (where the Lusitania, Aquitania, Empress_ of Britain, Rangitiki and her sister ships, H.M.S. Hood and H.M.S. Repulse were built), into the Clyde, which had been especially widened to provide adequate space for her handling and movement to the dock where she will be fitted out for the Atlantic service.