GIANT CUNARD LINERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20668, 13 September 1930, Page 11

GIANT CUNARD LINERS.

COST OF £6,000,000 EACH

PROBLEM OF INSURANCE,

GOVERNMENT'S UNDERTAKING

Tlio news that, the Cunard Steamship Company was about, to construct two giant liners, one immediately at a cost stated tentatively as £6,000,000, at once aroused curiosity as to tho ways and means by which the insurance was to be effected. Doubts have been set at rest by the announcement that the Board of Trade, with the approval of the Treasury, has agreed to undertake at " reasonable rates," (he portion of the insurance of the express liner which is to be built on the Clyde and also of a second large vessel which is likely to be built by the Cunnrd Company, probably on tho Tyne, " which cannot be accommodated by the market in the ordinary manner." Hitherto it had been supposed that the maximum risk in respect of any one vessel that the market was able to carry was about £2,500,000, says tho Economist. It is now understood that in respect of the first of the new Cunarders the market will take £3,000,000, leaving an equal amount to be carried by the Government. The immensity of the figure of £6,000,000 for a single vessel will be better appreciated when it is recalled that tho Maurefania's insurance amounts to £1,500,000 or only one-quarter of that of the projected new ship.

Tlio Observer stated that the new liner will be the largest and fastest in the world. It will be of 70,000 tons register, have a speed of 30 knots, and a length of over 1000 ft. At present the largest ship in the world is the White Star liner Majestic, of 56,000 tons. She is the ex-German liner Bismarck, taken over by Britain after the war. Big ships take a long time to build, and it will be at least three and a-half years before the blue ribbon of the Atlantic for speed is regained from the North German Lloyd liners, Bremen and Europa, each of 46,000 tons, which recently made 28 knots from Europe to New York, and are to-day the finest ships on the ocean.

The new Cunarder will not be a motorship. For her speed of 30 knots, only equalled at present by destroyers in the navy, she will require high-pressure steam boilers, with oil fuel. The building of the new ships will provide employment for several years for at least 10,000 people. The work on a modern liner is not confined to the shipyard. The fact that she is a floating city, with all the amenities of a city, from cafes and gardens and theatres and tennis courts, to beauty parlours, shops, and daily newspapers, will stimulate employment of skilled workers in all sorts of trades.

The Cunard Co.'s statement refers to the question of drv-dock accommodation at Southampton, which, it says, " is at present under consideration by the South ern Railway." Although Southampton has the largest dry dock in the world the arrival of a ship over 1000 ft. long would perplex the authorities, as it would also those at New York. Great stimulus, to trade will follow from the necessary extension of dry docks, larger docks and quays, and, in several cases, new dock equipment in the form of cranes, gangways and passenger accommodation. A formal agreement concerning the insurance of the new liners is in process of being drafted and will be attached to a bill to be submitted to Parliament during next, session. Then the shipyards will get busy.