QUEEN MARY LINER

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 December 1934, Page 12

QUEEN MARY LINER

FAST VOYAGES Lunch in Cherbourg on Saturday; tea in New York on Wednesday afternoon—2.loo miles in 96 hours. Tha is the schedule which the Whit» Star Line are working out io the new liner Queen Mary seventeen months in advance of her maia ® voyage. This is several hours faster than that of any ” fl °Q„ e en maintain this time-table, the Queen Mary will steam at an averagei m knots—four miles an houi . the average for the fastest AtL crossing ever made. The record for the Atlantic crossing, is held by the Italian liner In August, 1933, it covered the’ e,lbi miles from Gibraltar to New York in 4 davs 13 hours, an average ot - knots. Last week the North German Lloyd liner Bremen did the voyage from Cherbourg to New York in 1 days 15 hours. To make up for delay due to log or bad weather the Queen Mary will sometimes have to travel at a c on siderablv higher speed than ° _ knots. 'Actually the reserve of power in the propelling machinery is great enough to drive the ship at »>4 to knots. Thanks to her enormous size and the peculiar lines of her hull she should be able to carry on at very great speed in weather that would slow down a. smaller and loss powerful ship.

SAFETY’ IN COLLISIONS. Further details of the unique arrangements for the safety of the ship can now be given. The risk of fatal damage from collision with either surface or submerged article has been practically eliminated by the “double shell” system of construction. Whole sections of the outer hull could be lorn away without a drop of water penetrating to the inner compartments of the ship. The most complete and uP"t°" ( late system of fire detection and alarm yet evolved is being installed. A marked rise in temperature in any portion of the ship will be instantly recorded by several instruments on the bridge. So thorough is this system, it is stated, that any signs of incipient Are, no matter in what part of the vessel, can be dealt with in a matter of seconds.

A whole fle<*, of powerful motor lifeboats are carried in gravity davits which enable each boat to be launched by one man. Enough lifebuoys for all on board will be carried. Most of them will be fitted with an automatic apparatus that projects them into the sea at the touch of a lever.

An elaborate timetable of the ship’s movements is already being worked out. It is based on a “turn-round” of only twelve hours —that is to say. she will arrive in port, disembark • passegers, re-store, re-fuel, embark passengers, and sail again, all within twelve hours.

.Her fuel-oil equipment is su.ch that the multiple tanks, containing in all 6,300 tons, can be refilled in eight hours.

Arrival and departure at Southampton, Cherbourg, and New York will be so arranged as to leave only a margin of minutes for unforeseen delay. For the first time in the history of North Atlantic traffic the exact hour of the vessel’s arrival will be announced at New York before she has left Cherbourg. Nothing short of prolonged fog or mountainous seas will be allowed to interfere with the schedule. Special shore staffs at each of the ports concerned Will undergo a course of trainnig to qualify them for the faultless staff work and co-ordina-tion which alone will make this programme feasible. The public rooms in the ship are being decorated under the supervision of eminent British and American architects. Tlje aim is to incorporate the best features of modern decorative art in each country. Ornate furnishings will ho absent, the keynote of the whole scheme being quiet dignity. Work on the ship itself is proceeding steadily in the fitting-out basin at Clydebank. For the moment it is practically confined to installing the machinery, which will take several months.

So ponderous are the various elements that they have to be hoisted into the ship in sections and reassembled in the engine and boilerrooms. These vast spaces, in which hundreds of men are working, are brilliantly flood-lit, for the fitting of this enormous power plant has lo be done with all the precision of watchmaking . —London "Daily Te 1 egraph.’’