UNION STEAM SHIP COMPANY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3017, 10 January 1912, Page 4

UNION STEAM SHIP COMPANY.

A PROGRESSIVE PROGRAMME. (From Odh Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 24. A new 13,500-ton steamer for the Union Steam Ship Company of Now Zealand is now under construction in Messrs John Brown and Company’s yard on the Clyde. Sir James Mills says the vessel will be the largest and most luxuriously fitted British passenger steamer running south of the lino or in tho Pacific. Her dimensions will bo 522 ft 6in in length between perpendiculars, and 66ft in breadth. She will bo a triple-screw, driven i.y combination engines of high power, and she will bo the first British mail steamer to be equipped for tho burning of liquid fuel. Tho bunkers will bo constructed to carry Between 4000 and 5000 tons of oil. This quantity will bo taken at Vancouver, and will bo sufficient for the jcund voyage. The vessel is expected to consume between 80 and 100 tons of oil fuel or day. A shipping correspondent comments as follows: —“Sir James has made a careful study, on tho spot, of the actual working results of American and Japanese steamers running on the Pacific, and using liquid fuel. Tho bold load taken by this Now Zealand company speaks volumes for the enterprise and foresight- of its directors in this important matter of steam-raising as applied to a fast British passenger ship.” Another now vessel for this company is the Maunganui, now completing at Fairfield. Both of those ships are for tho All Red Route. Messrs Denny, of Dumbarton, who have constructed a largo number of_ the Union Company’s steamers, are building a highspeed passenger steamer for the ferry service of this company between Wellington and Lyttelton. This vessel will bo 374 ft in length by 52ft in beam. She will be a triple-screw, driven by Parsons turbines. The high-prossuro turbine will bo fitted with an “impulse wheel,” tho latest method in turbine driving. Tho idea is to give equally economical results at a speed of 17 and 20 knots. The vessel will have Biibeock and Wilcox boilers. This steamer will bo tho fourth turbine vessel constructed by Messrs Denny for the Union Steam Ship Company. The first one tho Loongana, built in H3C4, was also the’ fir“t turbine steamer to go to tho Antipodes. Tho fact that the Loongana steamed freon this country to Australia without a hitch went to prove tho reliability of tho Parsons turbine for tho propulsion of ocean steamers. There is also building at Messrs Ramagc ard Ferguson’s Leith 1400-ton coastal passenger ship, while’ Messrs Osborne and Graham, of Sutherland, have a 3500-ton cargo steamer under construction to a first-class specification.