GERMANY’S BID FOR ATLANTIC “RIBBON.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18091, 26 February 1927, Page 27

GERMANY’S BID FOR ATLANTIC “RIBBON.”

TWO LUXURY LINERS OF 46,000 TONS EACH. (Special to the "Star.”) LONDON, January 20. Germany is making a bold bid to recapture the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic by the building of two new liners for the Bremen-New York service. _ _ „ , Ordered by the North German Lloyd, which recently increased its capital by £2,500,000. they will be of 46,000 registered tonnage, and will attain a speed of twenty-six knots. Bach liner is to cost about £2,500,000. It is stated that the company founds its hopes of making the liners pay on fitting them luxuriously in order to capture the increasing passenger traffic of wealthy Americans, who also demand the speediest possible ocean crossing.

The liners, which will be called respectively Bremen and Europa, are expected to make the voyage from Bremen to New York in six days, and from the English Channel ports in five days. Change in Policy. This ambitious programme embodies a significant change in the policy of the North German Lloyd, as an earlier decision was against giant fast liners and in favour of medium-sized passenger vessels, and of considerably increasing the number of cargo steamers. The plan now abandoned in favour of the grandiose scheme was for one new liner of 35,000 tons and five cargo steamers. It is stated that the programme was changed at the last moment, and the company w'ill only build, in addition to the liners, t\\fo cargo steamers. The Atlantic speed record is still held by the Tyne-built Cunarder Mauretania, which, before the war, crossed from America in 4 days 10 hours 41 minutes, at an average speed of 26.06 knots. The Germans have built bigger liners than those now contemplated. The three giants given up after the war— Leviathan (ex-Vaterland), Majestic (exBismarck), and Berengaria (ex-Impera-tor)—are of 59,957, 56,551 and 62,226 tons respectively. The Mauretania displaces 30,696 tons.