GIANT OCEAN LINERS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11928, 23 October 1919, Page 6

GIANT OCEAN LINERS.

AMERICAN PROGRAMME. GARDENS AND PICTURE SHOWS. America is making a hold bid for supremacy in the merchant shipping world, and plans which are now to he put into effect include the building of two trans Atlantic liners, each 1000 ft in length—longer than any * ‘leviathan afloat,” 50ft longer than the Leviathan herself, which is at present the largest vessel in the seven seas. These new American vessels will be of 55,000 gross tonnage, speed 30 knots.

They are designed to reach Plymouth from America in four days’ sailing from Newport, Rhode Island. They are to be built at Fort Fond Bay, Montank Point, at the eastern extremity of Long Island. This sailing from eastward of Long Island will shorten the present route from New York by 118 miles. Two other liners of like dimensions are to follow' as soon as building facilities permit. All this fleet of super-leviathans will be constructed under the supervision of “the Navy Department, it being provided that they must be so equipped that in case of war they can be used as commerce destroyers. The vessels will be oil burners, and will be able to cross the Atlantic and back without replenishing fuel sup-olios. They will he of 110,000 horse power, and will be driven by quadruple screws. Other dimueslons and specifications are; 102t'fc wide; 74t't deep; ten decks, with winter gardens, ballrooms, Turkish baths, swimming pools, gymnasiums, and moving picture theatres; to accommodate 3000 passengers—3ooo saloon, 800 second; 1200 steerage. The cargo capacity, of course, will be enormous. A crew of 1000 officers and men will be required. Each ship will have inner and outer skins on the model of those of the White Star liner Olympic, and each will he divided and subdivided into compartments so numerous as to he—in view of Shipping Board officials —unsiukable. Mr Edward Hurley, president of the board, makes no secret of the fact that these huge craft will be made ready as quickly as possible, with la view to benefiting the largest tourist traffic in the history of the Atlantic.