ATLANTIC SPEEDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 May 1937, Page 11

ATLANTIC SPEEDS

PEAK ALMOST REACHED

By exactly one-third of a knot, the French liner Normandie wrested the Blue Riband of the North Atlantic from the Queen Mary, and it will not be long before the Cunard White Star liner makes an endeavour to win it back, says a writer in the London “Observer.”

She will in all probability do so, for, as Mr. S. J. Pigott (director of John Brown and Co., her builders) revealed to the Institution of Naval Architects recently, the experience of 1936 showed how the machinery could be improved in several small ways. Those improvements have all been effected, and she should be able to make the crossing at a fraction of a knot faster than the Normandie’s 30.99 knots. From now on —unless some hitherto undreamed of inventions in regard to methods of propulsion and forms of hull are brought' to light—the story of the Atlantic speed record will be one of fractional advance, first at short intervals, and then at much longer ones. The Queen Mary and the Normandie will, without much doubt, exchange the Blue Riband more than once before their respective sister ships in a few years' time take up the running and repeat the process al a. very slightly increased level of speed.

It. is extremely unlikely that any of these four ships (two existing and two to come) will do much more than top the 32-knot mark, if that. The effort required to reach 31 knots can be taken as indicating, for the Lime being, tlio peak of this century-old struggle for maritime supremacy. In ninety-seven years the advance has been steady, from the 8.19 knots of tho old Brittania to the 30.99 knots of tho Normandie, and the crossing has been reduced from 111days to four. Anyone who wants to travel to or from America more quickly, and do the trip in two or even three days, must look, to the air, and not to the sea.

Tho limit is set by several considerations. The. qost of speed at sea after about 20 knots rises in almost geometrical progression, and the saving of lime on the voyage must be rci kimed al h asi in half-days to be ol anything mote than publicity value. Even to-day's craze for speed at all costs does not quite counterbalance the average passenger s annoyance it he is landed as hit' destination in the cold, small hours of the morning, instead of comfortably at breakfast time.

An increase ul speed ot several knots would be needed to make any faster crossing worth while, and that at. present is impossible. No passengers want to suffer the discomforts of an Atlantic, passage in a 111-knot super destroyer-like vessel—all engines and no lounges—and a ship with both tho accommodation up to modern 1 tandurds and the required speed v. ould bo far too big and costly to be cither economic or manageable.