FASTEST LINER.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13892, 1 May 1909, Page 3

FASTEST LINER.

REMARKABLE l-'EATS. Some wonderful steaming performances arc being accoinplisned L>y uiu Huge Uunarder, iYlauret-ania, unchallenguably me lastest liner 111 the world. Since the thorough overhauling she uuderwent and tlie fitting ot an extra. Olacle to Jiur propeller sue lias improved amazingly in speed, and it is liiutcd tliat she lias not even yet exhausted Uer possibilities. No content witli breaking the record to New York recently, she on March 2nd., established sun. another record for the voyage home. 'ilie liner arrived from iNcw \orit.off-iJaunt s Rwck liyhtslnp, Queenstowii, at 9.47 a.m. tnus ae.icomplishiug the passage in -4 days 201 i. 2min., .«'itli an average ot 25.28 knots per hour after covering 2,933 miles. This performance is the more striking* when it is considered that throughout the voyage the ship experienced continuous gales and high seas. The Mauretania now holds the record for eastward and westward passages, for highest daily runs, lastest passage and liigest speed. Her best day's run from New York was 607 knots, whilst her biggest day's run from Queenstown to New York stands at 6/1 knots. (It- should be remembered in noting these figures, that the liner in travelling west runs about twenty-five hours to the day by ship's time.) The Maretania's time for the voyage to New York was i days 12h. 6nnn.— and this despite a gale she encountered on the voyage. One of the passengers on the Maure-

taoia was Mr Albert Uallin, the m ellicFfown director-general of the Ham-burg-America Line, who said many admiring things about the Cunard mammoth.

In these days of 32,000 ton "greyhounds " and almost weekly diminution of the distance between England and America, it is interesting to note some of the stages in the startling progress that has been made. Here tlioj* arc Fiß.j steamer to . cross the Atlantic, the Royal WiiLaai, wont from Pictou, N'.S., to Gravesend, 111 1833, in 22 days. Great Western, built specially for the service, went from Bristol to New York in 1838 in 14£- days. First Cunarder, the Britannia, ran from Liverpool to New York in 1840. Passage reduced to nine days in 1862 by the Scotia. New York to Queenstown in 0 days 22 hours by the Alaska in 1882. Lucania 5 .days 8 hours in 1894. The Cunarders, indeed, have now far outstripped all rivals in the land-to-land passage. But the German boats that use Cherbourg and Plymouth claim a superiority in the overland journey from the port of arrival to London 1