WORLD’S LARGEST SHIPS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1078, 16 September 1930, Page 14

WORLD’S LARGEST SHIPS

GIGANTIC CUNARDERS PLANNED BRITAIN’S SEA PRESTIGE The depression that followed the latest world shipbuilding figures from “Lloyd’s Register,’' showing how was being out-distanced by foreign countries with larger and faster ships, was dispelled when it was announced that the British Government would back the ambitious scheme of the Cunard Line to build the largest and fastest liner in the world by covering such portion of the insurance of the vessel as cannot be dealt with by Lloyd’s and the general insurance market. Thus British prestige on the sea, which has recently been threatened by competing maritime countries, notably Germany, France, Italy, and the U.S.A., is to be maintained. Apart from this great fact, the significance of the news of the building of the new Cunarder is associated specially with the insurance problem of big ships, and the relief the work will bring to unemployment. The nefv liner will be of 70,000 tons register, have a speed of 30 knots, and a length of over 1,000 feet. At present the largest; ship in the world is the White Star liner Majestic, of 56,000 tons. She is the ex-German liner Bismarck, taken over by Britain after the war. Big ships take a long time to build, and it will be at least three and a-lialf years before the blue riband of the Atlantic for speed is regained from the North German Lloyd liners Bremen and Europa, each of 46,000 tons, which recently made 2S knots from Europe to New York, and ore today the finest ships on the ocean. Southampton’s Problem The Cunard Company’s statement refers to the question of dry-dock accommodation at • Southampton, which, |it says, “is at present under consid- , eration by the Southern Railway. ! Although Southampton has the largest dry-dock in the world the arrival of a ship over a thousand feet long would perplex the authorities, as it also would at New York. Great stimulus to trade would follow from the necessary extension of dry docks, larger docks and quays, and in several cases cranes, gangways, and passenger accommodation. The plan to put down two of the largest ships in the world dispels the depression following the figures of “Lloyd’s Register” for the quarter ending June last. Ships building abroad then were 1,665,672* tons, or 14,736 tons more than at the end of March. But in British yards there was a decrease on the quarter of 222,930 tons. The present British total —1,392,063 tons —is 61,843 tons less than at the end of June of last year. It only needs an order for one ship, like the new Cunarder, of 70,000 tons, to wipe out this decrease at one stroke. The order for the second one. shortly to be placed on the Tyne, will put British shipbuilding figures once more on a healthy footing. £6,000,000 Each Each of the two new Cunarders will cost £6,000,000, and this sum for a single ship presents difficulties that cannot be met on the open market of insurance. The insurance market was the final hurdle to be jumped by the Cunard Line. It. proved a very difficult one: but now that the Government has shown the way, the work of building the new ship will start immediately. Plans are ready and the workmen are ready.

The new Cunarder will not be a motor-ship. With her speed of 30 knots, only equalled at present by destroyers in the Navy, she will have high-pressure steam boilers, with oil fuel. These will be a vast improvement on the Mauretania, which until so recently held the blue riband of the Atlantic, and which in August, 1921), despite adverse weather conditions and her old age of 23 years, made a new Atlantic record by doing over 28 knots—at present an impossible speed for a motor-ship.

The building of the new ships will find employment for several years for at least 10,000 people. The work on a modern liner is not confined to the shipyard. The fact that she is a floating city, with all the amenities of a city, from cafes and gardens and theatres and tennis courts, beauty parlours, shops, and daily newspapers, will stimulate employment for skilled workers in all sorts of trades.

British shipping has hitherto been built up on individual enterprise. Both shipowner and shipbuilder disliked the idea of a Government subsidy, anTT the Trade Facilities Act has done more to enhance British shipping depression than almost any other factor. Government help in the case of the Cunard Line is, of course, a direct subsidy, and it opens up a new phase in British shipping industry. It is perhaps an inevitable phase in view of the unfair competition now to be faced with other heavily subsidised merchant fleets, such as those of the U.S.A., Italy, France, Germany and Japan. At present Germany has the fastest ships on the Atlantic. Italy has the largest motor-liner, France and the U.S.A. have plans under way for building vessels considerably larger than our Majestic—obviously a drastic step had to be taken if Britannia was to continue to rule the waves.

A formal agreement concerning the insurance of the new liners is in process of being drafted, and will be at tached to a Bill to be submitted to the British Parliament during next session. Then the shipyards will get busy.