IMMENSE LINER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 2, 2 December 1931, Page 2

IMMENSE LINER.

CONSTRUCTION ON THE CLYDE

The 73,000 ton liner which is being built for the Cunard company on the Clyde at a cost of £4,500,000 is to be launched in February. This is nearly six months earlier than the Cunard experts had expected to have the 1000 ft long hull ready for the water. Behind this speeding-up is the story of one of the greatest achievements of British shipbuilders, of a tremendous struggle to keep Britain in the forefront of shipping nations, and of how years of patient experimenting have enabled the Cunard company to strike another telling blow for our maritime supremacy. When the Cunard Line announced tha’t they were to build the largest, fastest, and most luxurious liner in the world they planned to launch it by June, 1932, and to have it in commission a year or so later.

FOREIGN RIVALS. No sooner did this become • known than the company’s rivals- abroad began to build liners also. They could not, it is true, build a liner so large and so fast, but they planned to run the Cunard giant as close as they could. Italy laid the keels of two 45-000-ton vessels, France one of 60,000, and Germany and the United States those of rather smaller ships. All were designed for higher speeds than the world has ever seen. Then a few months ago the Cunard companv decided to speed up work on their liner so that she would be the first of the new giants to go into service on the North Atlantic.

Hundreds of workmen were added to the thousands already labouring on Clydeside. Appeals were made to the men for the last ounce, and some of the factories and foundries all over the country which are furnishing material for the ship were put on a 24-hours-a-dav schedule. LARGEST RUDDER. This intense speeding-up could only he done because the designers of the ship had been working since before the Avar on their plans, and following years of calculations and experiment they knew to the smallest screw how the ship was to l>e built. After seven months they had made up six months on their scheduled time. The giant stern frame which will support the largest rudder which has ever steered a ship is almost ready at Darlington, and will soon be sent to the Clyde by sea. The four propellers, also the largest ever made, are being constructed at Millwall.