ROTOR SHIP WAS CAUGHT IN GALE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17832, 28 April 1926, Page 3

ROTOR SHIP WAS CAUGHT IN GALE.

BADEN BADEN STANDS TEST: 44 RIDING LIKE A SEAGULL.” LONDON. April 13. A message from Las Palmas states that the German rotor ship Baden Baden, formerly called the Buckau, which is attempting to cross the Atlantic, sent a wireless message when within 200 miles of the Canary Islands, where she will refuel and attempt to improve her wireless plant. The partial failure of the latter is the reason for the vessel’s silence since leaving England. Although equipped with a transmitter of average power, the vessel’s-ro-tors absorb most of the electrical emissions. The rotors are now entering on their third day of continuous opera tions, the longest period thus far, en abling her, with her Diesel engines, to maintain a speed of 200 miles daily, compared with 192 miles a day with the Diesels only.

The Baden Baden experienced a violent gale last Friday. The velocity of the wind reached fifty miles an hour with tremendous seas, thus affording a most valuable opportunity to test the critics’ assertion that the rotors would make the ship top-heavy and liable to capsize.

The rotors, ninety revolutions a minute, proved their ability to keep the ship on her course, and it is stated that she rode the waves like a seagull, not shipping a single sea.