FIRST ELECTRICALLY PROPELLED SHIP

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 452, 13 January 1914, Page 7

FIRST ELECTRICALLY PROPELLED SHIP

The completion of the Tynemount by Messrs Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson. Limited, of Walkend-on-Tyne, marks the dawn of a new era m marine propulsion. The Tynemount is the first electrically-propelled vessel ever built. .It is 250 ft long, oy 42ft 6in beam, 19ft deep, and carries 2.400 tons of cargo. Built for the Marine Electric Propulsion Company, Limited, of Montreal, for service on the American great lakes, she has propelling machinery consisting of two six-cylinder Diesel engines, each developing 300 h.p., running at 400 revolutions per minute, and to each is direct coupled a three-phase alternator. The power of both these generating sets is led into a three-phase squirrel-cage motor of special construction, which is directly coupled to the propeller. The iengta taken up by the propelling ar>d auxiliary machinery of the Tynemount is only 36ft. as against about 46ft m a vessrl of similar type and style fitted with ordinary boilers and steam engines.