THE TURBINE STEAMER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13449, 24 November 1905, Page 6

THE TURBINE STEAMER.

It is a pleasure, indeed, to be able to congratulate the Union Steam Ship Company on the arrival in the colony of its new turbine steamer Maheno. The construction of this magnificent vessel and her swift running sister ship, the Loongana, marks an epoch in-the history of the Company which ha? grown in 30 years from a small coastal trade concern to a powerful shipping company owning a splendid fleet of 54 vessels, with a total gross tonnage of 107,000 tons. The Union Company was one of the first to realise the possibilities of the turbine-driven ship, and with the same enterprise that led it to experiment with the Botomahana in 1879, it brought, put the passenger express Loongana for the ferry service between Launceston and Melbourne. Other companies preferred to hold aloof and to let their rivals demonstrate the practicability of the innovation, and so it was left to the Union Company to introduce the turbine steamer to Australasian waters. The advent of the Maheno is a notable event not only as a testimony to the foresight and enterprise of her owners, but because the vessel represents the most modern type of marine architecture. The steam turbine was invented half a century ago, but it was not till the Hon. j C. A. Parsons took the invention up and perfected it that it was adopted for the propulsion of steamers, and it is] less than four years'ago that the first j turbine steamer, the King R.lward, was! built on the Clyde. It was not lohgi after this that the invention compelled! general recognition, and the Allan Steam Ship Line, the Union Steam Ship Company, and one of the English Channel ferry steamer companies were among the first to take advantage of Mr Parsons's patent. The Allan liner Victorian, recently wrecked on the coast of Canada, was the first turbine steamer to cross the Atlantic, but before that date the Loongana liatl steamed halfway round the world and had begun to trade regularly ill and out of Melbourne. The British Admiralty was also quick to realise the potentialities of the turbine steamer, and it has set the seal of its approval on the invention by ordering a set of turbines for a battleship of the largest and latest type. Professor Beles, of Glasgow University, in a lecture before the Engineering section of the British Association in August last, said that "enough is now known completely to justify the adoption of the turbine in ocean liners, and Mr Parsons's annexation of the whole field of high-speed marine propulsion from the smallest typo of torpedo-boat to the Atlantic greyhound is absolute." -The reference to the Atlantic greyhound was prompted by the launching on behalf of the Cunard Company of a. turbine liner which is designed to recover for the British mercantile marine the. honour of possessing the speediest vessel in the Atlantic passenger trade, the North German liner Kaiser Wilhelm JT at present holding the record, for the fastest passage between England and America. It is greatly to the credit of the Union Steam Ship Company, which had already provided passengers between Australia and New Zealand with travelling facilities unexcelled in the Southern Hemisphere, that it should have been amongst the first to utilise the steam turbine. At the luncheon given on board the Maheno at Wellington on Wednesday appropriate reference was made to Mr James Jlills's connection with the Company, and the applause with Which the suggestion— not then made for the first .time-that he deserved titular distinction was received gave an indication of how acceptable to the public anything of the kind would be. There are few men in the shipping world who enjoy the distinguished position of head of over 100,000 tons of shipping, and if honours of the nature referred to are ever to be bestowed on anyone outside the political arena the claims of Mr Mikis are indisputable.