"A CITY SQUARE"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22428, 26 May 1936, Page 14

"A CITY SQUARE"

THE VESSEL'S FEATUBES

SIZE COMPARISONS DIMENSIONS OF THE NORMANDIE It is no flight of the imagination to say that into the Queen Mary has been built all the services of a city square. She contains several hotels of different grades, theatres and dancing halls; boulevards, gardens, playgrounds and public bathsj streets of shops and service agencies; post office, telephone exchange and the means of private radio communication to all the world; plant for lighting and heating and a water supply; a printing works and a news agency; fire brigade and police. Her 12 decks are 20 acres in extent. Play areas cover two acres, but there is no need to launch into an interminable series of statistics of this kind. Her size is not the outcome of the competitive spirit. It was decided by the requirements of a visible trade. Another vessel of similar speed and dimensions is in view to provide the service for which the Cunard White Star line caters. There has been much misunderstanding about the size of the Queen Mary. Originally it was proposed to make her 73,000 tons. Evidently when work was resumed after a long stoppage brought about by the financial crisis of 1931, plans wore reviewed and the new vessel is estimated at 80,773 gross tons. Comparisons with the Normandie, the new giant of the French mercantile marine, have been somewhat astray. The following statement, recently published in London, explains the position : "Some confusion may be caused in Britain bv the use of the term 'total gross tonnage' in the announcement of a remeasureinent of the liner Normandie by surveyors for the French Government. The term is not generally used in Britain (and probably it is not widely understood there), but it is employed in France for determining the shipping bounties and the shipbuilding subsidies for which liners rank. " Deductions in respect of certain spaces need to be made from this 'total gross tonnage' in order to arrive at the registered gross tonnage, as defined in Britain. Consequently it is not the total gross tonnage of 86,496 of the Normandie, but her new registered gross tonnage of 82,799, which may be compared with the 80,773 gross tons of the Quee'n Mary.' The fact that hitherto the official estimates of the registered gross tonnage of the Normandie have ranged beween 75,000 and 80,000 tons indicates that in the case of neither ship need the figures now quoted be regarded as unchangeable in future."