A LEVIATHAN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10721, 19 June 1906, Page 4

A LEVIATHAN.

NEW STEAMER LUSITANIA. The new steamer Lusitania, referred to by Mr Frank Bullen m his lecture last night, which was launched at Clydebank last week, is now the largest ocean•going vessel afloat. The vessel is longer and broader and heavier and faster than any' other vessel yet built. Tlie Cunard Company, which is building her, has been subsidised by .Government to the extent of £150,000 a year, and has been allowed to borrow £2,600,000 from Government to cover expenses of construction. This, says an exchange, is . the first systematic effort made by England to enter into competition with the heav-ily-subsidised German and American trans-Atlantic lines; and quite apart from the extraordinary magnitude of the new Cunard liners, the commercial success of these new departures will be watched with keen and widespread curiosity throughout the Empire. The Lusitania and the Mauritania, the two sister Cttnarders now completing, were originally intended to be 30,000-ton boats, running up to 25 knots. But it was found advisable to increase their size till the Lusifciana has now attained the enormous bulk represented by 43,000 tons displacement. The new steamer is 800 feet long— 6s feet longer than the Baltic, 108 feet longer than the Great Eastern; she is 58 feet broad, while the Great Eastern had 83 feet beam, and the Baltic only 75 feet. As to engines, the new turbines with which the vessel is being equipped, will develop the .gigantic force of 80,000 horse-power, while the Kaiser Wilhelm 11. and the Deuts.hland, which now hold the Atlantic record, are run. by engines developing _0,000 and -37,500 horse-power respectively. It is true that the two great German steamers are classed at only 30,000 and 23,000 tons displacement, and the new Cunarders will therefore be nearly half as heavy again as the Kaiser Wilhelm 11. Even the immense increase m horse-power will thus give the new leviathan an advantage of only about 1_ knots per hour over liei German rivals. The structure of the Lusitania is full of novel and interesting features. There is a double bottom to ensure the greater safety of the vessel. There aire eight decks or stories, one above the other, and the boat deck is 90 _set- above the keel— about the height of an ordinary eight-storied house. All the decks cah be reached easily and quickly by electric lifts. Magnificent 6tate rooms and palatial accommodation for the wealthy, and every variety of -comfort and convenience for the more modestly equipped traveller mark the interior arrangements. Tlie ship, when full, will carry 500 first class, 500 second class, and 1200 third class passengers; while a crew of 800 will bring up the muster roll to 3000 souls. The fact that the rudder weighs 70 tons, and that the stern frame is the largest ever cast, may not prove entertaining to any one but a marine engineer. But the question of speed is always a matter of interest to the general public, and here the new Cunarders stand alone. The turbines are so arranged that each of the four propellers will be driven separately, and if one set of engines fail the rest could still maintain a speed of 22 knots per hour. But the guaranteed speed required by the Admiralty is 25 knots per hour; and when it is remembered that the Deutschland and the Kaiser Wilhelm 11. have attained only 23£ knots, and that the Lucania, the fastestof British liners, can run only 22 knots, it is evident that the Lusitania. must be a veritable triumph of the shipbuilder's art.