NON-MAGNETIC VESSEL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23505, 20 May 1938, Page 12

NON-MAGNETIC VESSEL

£IOO,OOO SAILING SHIP CREW FORBIDDEN PEN-KNIVES (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON. Apl. 30. In a quiet reach of the River Dart, Devon, a £IOO,OOO sailing ship is being built, which will set out next year as a floating research station. The Royal Research ship Research, which is being constructed for the Admiralty by Philip and Son, a Devon firm which has made ships and yachts through three generations, is to conduct surveys in magnetic variation, and will in consequence be constructed almost entirely of nonmagnetic material. The hull will be made of teak, and the framework, girders, and fittings, which on an ordinary ship would be of steel or iron, will be of bronze or other non-magnetic alloys. The anchor, cables, and all the bolts will be of bronze, and even the cooking equipment must have no steel or iron in its composition. Nor must any member of the crew carry a steel penknife. • The Research will be brigantine rigged, and will cruise mostly under sail, but she will be fitted with an auxiliary heavy oil motor. Her displacement will be 650 tons, and she will carry enough fuel to give her a cruising radius of 2000 miles at a speed of six knots. Her complement will be 31. including officers and scientific staff. The frame of the ship is expected to be complete early in May. and the launching is planned for the spring of next year. The Research will carry on the work of the Carnegie, a vessel of somewhat similar type, which was destroyed by an explosion off Samoa in 1929 after 25 years’ magnetic survey work, the results of which were placed at the disposal of all governments. The Carnegie ■ Institution of Washington, which controlled the Carnegie, lent the services of her former commander. Mr W. J, Peters, to the Admiralty, where he has advised on the design and equipment of the Research. The programme of work for the new vessel includes research on the earth’s magnetism at sea, investigation of atmospheric electricity, meteorological observations, including upper-air observations by means of pilot balloons, deep-sea soundings, and possibly marine biology. The ship will be equipped with instruments which are the latest product of scientific research and of great precision. They include a marine collimating compass for determining compass variation at sea, a sea-defiector for determining magnetic intensity, and a marine earth-inductor. The data which the Research will assemble will be recorded on Admiralty charts, which will be available to all countries, so that safety and accuracy of navigation may be increased for all ships at sea. It is expected that the first cruise of the Research will be to the Indian Ocean.