AGAIN THE "LARGEST STEAMER."

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11612, 20 April 1912, Page 3 (Supplement)

AGAIN THE "LARGEST STEAMER."

Records for size in the ocean-steam-ship world are not held long nowadays. We find in Ueber Land und Meer (Berlin) a patriotic glorification of a new "Goliath of the Ocean" of German construction which the writer is so eager to boast of that he ignores entirely several British liners of the same or nearly equal size. The new ship how building for the Hamburg-American Line, is to be called the Imperator-, and will be launched on the Elbe, Mr Kerns tells us, in a few months; —"such a vessel," he says, "as hitherto man's eye has not, beheld." The Imperator will have a gross tonnage of 50,000, outdoiiig the Olympic and Titanic (45,324 and 45,000),' and equalling the Aquitania (50,000), now building. The length of the Imperator over ail will be about 900 feet. Says Mr Kerns, in part: — . r "It would be an impossibility for a man at the liqw of the Imperator to recognise with the naked eye another standing in the stern. If we think of the Imperator set upon end beside the cathedral of Cologne, the heaven-reach-ing tower . . . would come only to the second funnel of the steamship. To get a still better idea of the size of the vessel, it may be compared with one of the largest warehouses in the world—the new store of Tietz on the Alexan-. derplatz in Berlin, which, although forty houses were demolished to make room for it, could be placed entirely the' Imperator. The steamship, when complete and fully ■'. laden, will displace 50,000 tons. The following figures show how muchJarger she is than the vessels which once held the world's record for size. The Deutschland, once the largest ship of the Hamburg-American line, which at the time she was built, •and for ten years; after, was one. of the wonders of the -world; displayed 16,500 tons; the Kaiserin Augusute Victoria, of the same line, 24,600 tons, and the giant gf English ocean-liners, the Mau•retania, 32,000. Each of the funnels of the Imperator will be so large that a steamer like those which ply on the river Spree could sail through it lengthwise. The .term ' floating hotel,' often applied to such, ships when it is desired to emphasise their bulk, would convey, in the case of the Imperator, an impression far short of the truth. For where in all the world is there a hotel that can hold 5000_ persons at, once ? None exists of anything near such capacity. It is the population of a small city; One of the features of the Imperator is entirely new and unprecedented. The first-class rjassengers on this ship will have the use of a roomy swimming-pool in a beautiful Pompeian hall. Near by is a suite of rooms forgymnastics.". The new giant will have a promenadedeck nearly a quarter of a mile long, a great entertainment hall two stories high, holding 700 guests, a conversatonroom,'"a smoking-room, a ladies' hall, a winter-garden, and a Ritz-Carlton restaurant, serving a la carte. It goes almost without saying that the Imperator will be driven by turbines. What will be the next step "on the part of the designers of:steamship leviathans? Will the 2 English outbid their German cousins once more; and if this keeps on, how sooii/shall be reach the sea-monster of one hundred thousand tons?