FITTING THE QUEEN MARY

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 23 April 1935, Page 6

FITTING THE QUEEN MARY

Britain Takes Pride in Largest Liner Afloat DAY AND NIGHT SHIFTS LAVISH APPOINTMENTS

Wliat is going on inside the CunardWhitc 'Star Queen Mary, largest liner in the world? 1 She lies in her fittingout basin at Clydebank. What kind of scene is there behind the grey wall of her massive hulk? (writes a spondent in the “Daily Telegraph”). The ship was launched last September. Ever since then an army of men, varying between 1000 and 3000, according to changing requirements, has laboured sometimes in night shifts as well as day, to prepare the Queen Mary for her maiden voyage next year. What progress has been made? All the 27 enormous boilers are in position. As they tower among the steel ladders of their boiler-rooms they appear as some gigantic phantasy. In comparison, the men working about them resemble trivial insects. The boilers are still red-leaded outside. Their interiors are, being blackleaded. Fire bricks are being placed beneath, under the eyes of inspectors. Beneath each, boiler a charcoal fire burns. These fires will be kept continuously alight until the time comes for the boilers to bo used. There is a light overhead Tailway running round the side of the engineroom to aid the adjustment of machinery. A good deal of the lighter portions of machinery affixed to the sides of the engine-room—‘hanging stuff’ as •'it is called —has been put into position already. FOOD OF THE GODS.

Another prominent feature of the en-gine-room is the propeller gears surrounded by casings. The propeller shafts appear like the barrel of some Big Bertha gun of the future. They, too, seem to have eateu of the food of the gods. The electric steering gear as completely installed. The various portions of plant and gear stand waiting, like squat serachlighfs in appearance, until the day when they will guide the great ship on her course. The electrical apparatus for pulling up the anchors is also installed.

Throughout the ship there are ap- j parently limitless vistas of corridor, | lit bv the glimmer of temporaryHamps. i Along some of the corridors are walls of plywood, and doors to cabins are making their appearance. . .Scores of workmen are busy painting great piles of planking with a fireresisting preparation. Everywhere, too, is to be seen a new type of auto-matically-working steel door which completely isolates any portion of the ship against a threat of either fire or sea. Just a slight push and the door, working, on elaborate ball-bearings, swings to. A row of hooks snaps home and a steel bar falls into place. All the floors throughout the ship are of a new patent cement-like material which will be covered with mbber tiles. Unlike wood floors, which deteriorate sooner or later, the. cementlike base is virtually everlasting. Repeatedly among the naked redpainted steel plating there appear neatly stencilled directions, such as “Tourist Quarters F. Deck,” “Crew’s Quarters,” “Petty Officers Here,” and “Stores” and the like. Amid the present rough surroundings these notices have rathgr the effect of the “Piccadilly Circus” or “Leicester Square” which the Tommy stuck up in the trenches during the war.

TWO SWIMMING POOLS. Stacks of piping stand in corners and are being fitted by an army of plumbers. Every pipe in this vast ship is of copper. There is not a single piece of lead pipe. Lift, shafts gapingly await their lifts. 1

There are two swimming pools. Both are well advanced. The first-class pool is contained on one of the highest rooms known either ashore or afloat. There are two galleries, one above the othet, and a great staircase with two side staircases leading down to the diving board. Already workmen are putting in the tiling in the pool itself, and the familiar marks of the depth—3ft '6in, 4ft, etc.—appear amid the rough concrete of the bath’s surroundings.

The Tourist Class pool, though not so lofty in its surroundings as the other, is still markedly sumptuous. The decoration promises well. Bright blue pillars edged with polished steel sur? round the bath, and the walls are of an attractive grey stone flecked with mother-of-pearl.

A reminder of the vast number of appetites Chat the Queen Mary will eater for is afforded by the extent of the space set aside for cold storage rooms. In room after room men are busy packing a kind of cork composition into the thick walls that will house the refrigerators. There is. a. whole string of laconic indications stencilled along the storage room. “Ripening Fruit,’’ “Green Vegetables,’’ “Kosher Meat,’’ and so on. In the crew’s quarters neat rows of wooden lockers are in place, while in the store rooms are sheet-metal boards and drawers. The dining-room soars loftily. No fitting of any kind lias yet appeared in it. Piles of planks which are being treated with fire-re-sisting paint are piled on its floor. Near by the “writing-room’’ remains a name only. “Hospital,” too, exists only in outline and in title. Down in the bowels of the ship a deep tank where the water ballast will be stored has been exhaustively tested for weeks on end. The main promenade deck, wide ahd

stately as a miniature Champs Elysees, is taking -shape. The sun windows are in and the crew are laying the planking. On the quay near the ship lie her two masts. When it is said that a riyetter can sit almost bolt uprighF at his work inside the mainmast it gives an idea of its -size. They are vast cylinders of steel tapering gracefully. When they are installed, the liner will have to be taken into, the river. It is likely that all Clyde traffic will be held up for half a day or so while this is done.

The scene from the towering bridge: Glasgow and the countryside fall away remotely, like London seen from the Mounment; great warehouses and ships nearby are -dwarfed as if they were viewed from a cliff top.

On the upper decks lie great ,circu* lar fans. They are intended for the boiler rooms, and will be installed in the next few days.

The cylinder through which the am ehor chains run gapes in the deck like a shell hole. "The largest ever,” it is several feet in diameter. Near by are the -capstans, on the same heroic scale as all else. A minor exterior alteration has been decided upon. The lettering of the name Queen Mary which was first placed on the vessel’s bows l , was too large. The letters have 'been removed and smaller ones are now being substituted.

Day and night a man is stationed in the stern of the ship where she juts out into the Clyde. He rings a warning bell on -the approach of any ship as a sign for it to reduce speed. When the moon is overhead, the Queen Mary, which weighs 73,000 tons, will be 20*lb lighter than when the moon is on the horizon. This statement was made by Dr. A. O. Dnnkine, Professor of Phj’flica in the Imperial College of Science and; Technology, lecturing on gravitation! at the Koval Institution. Ho explained that there is a variation of weight with tides, although wc ourselves could not feel any change. Lord Essendon, speaking at the dinner of the Institution of Marine Engineers in London, said that the Queen Mary’s tonnage exceded the total of the Spanish Armada by 15,000 tons. He said that the French liner Normandie would cost £9,000,000, about double the cost of the Queen Mary.