THE ATLANTIC STEAMBOAT RACE.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 11, Issue 825, 16 November 1888, Page 2

THE ATLANTIC STEAMBOAT RACE.

NEW WHITE STAB LINEES. Messrs Harland & Wolff, shipbuilders, Belfast, are at present building two vessels which are the largest in the world, excepting, of course, the Great Eastern. Their length over all will be nearly 570 feet, breadth between 52 and 53 feet. The City of New York — the new Inman Liner— is 560 feet, but her beam is very much greater, and the tonnage of the Whue Star Liners is not therefore nearly so great as the - Inman Liner. There are several novel points ia the construction, which can be seen from ft

careful observation of the hull. Both vessels have small bar k°ela, about four inches deep and about 18 inches across. The frames amidships instead of being of ordinary angle iron, are. of channel iron. The plating, too, is not of the usual type. The plates are thinned out at the ends for overlapping. They are, besides, of uu usual length. The vessels £are extensively subdivided dy transverse bulkheads, and there is a middle line fore and affc bulkhead, extending the greater part of the length of the vessel amidshipp. The vessels have a turtle-back deck forward and aft, the latter being about 90 feet long. The machinery will be of the triple-expansion type driving twin screws, but the powar expected has not been made known. The arrangement of the screws is probably the distinctive feature of the ship?. At the stern there is an aperture resembling that in which the single screw works in ordinary steamers, but unusual so far as the twin screw is concerned. This aperture is evidently made to allow the screws to overlap. The shaft tube of the starboard propeller is carried further aft than that of the port propeller, so that the former will work outside of the latter. The screws being so close together in the athwartship direction allows for a very short length of stern tube, and there are no stern tube brackets as in ordiuary twinpropellers fn fact the tubes are attached to the dead-weight at the extreme afterparf, there being a thin web of plating. The stern frames are of novel construction, and are apparently composed of large casting?, no doubt of steel. This arrangement will admit of a longer throw, and yet overcome the likelihood of the propeller blades comiDg in contact with a quay wall.