NO MORE FUNNELS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20221, 3 February 1934, Page 27 (Supplement)

NO MORE FUNNELS.

Result of Elimination of Smoke. The announcement that the new Orient liner is to be built with only one funnel recalls the days when many prospective travellers would inquire about the number of funnels a particular ship possessed before booking a passage. In modern ship design the trend is toward the abolition of funnels, although many ships are running with funnels that are only dummies, put in to give the vessel conventional lines. Recently Melbourne saw the freighter. Tongking, a motor-ship of early design, on which are no funnels. The exhaust gases go up a pipe fixed to the after mast, and to all appearance the vessel looks like a strangely-rigged sailing ship. For many years the Orient Line has adhered to the two tall buff funnels as a kind of trade mark, in the same manner as Alfred Holt inscribed his name in annals of the sea with his tall blue funnels. Even in the new motor-ships, Memnon and Deucalion, of the Blue Funnel Line, the tall funnels are adhered to. Square Funnels. The strangest funnels going to Australia are the square type in the French liner Eridan. They are squat with a rolled top, in keeping with the futuristic design carried out even to the ventilator tops. In many motor-ships the funnels are little larger than stove pipes, and rise only a few feet from the boat deck. The Yngaren and her sister ship, Tisnaren, are examples of this. Motor-ships of the Italian line coming to Australia have 'funnels of a small style that appears out of all proportion to the general build of the ships. In the latest ships of the P. and O. fleet, the Corfu and Carthage, there are two funnels but the after one is a dummy that is used as the carpenter’s shop and as a store, for which windows are provided. One of the three funnels in the Strathaird, as also in the Strathnaver, is merely a storeroom. In one of the latest trans-Atlantic ships a funnel is set aside as an engineer’s smoking rcoua. as there is no other use for it. Since the passing of the sailing ships, when a vessel was known mostly by its rig, or if it were close enough, by the colour of its hull, ships have relied mainly on the colourings of their funnels for recognition at a distance. The black and white of the Howard Smith ships, the red and black of MTlwraith’s ships, and the. chqquered band on the black funnel of the Burns Philp ships are well known around the Australian coastal ports. With the general use of wireless there is little need for recognition of ships by such markings when they are far apart, and so the usefulness of funnels has passed. Even in steamships the necessity for a funnel is passing. The utilisation of all waste gases in steamers has so reduced the smoke that recent designs for a steamer showed no funnel, but merely a pipe along the hull. was an outcry when funnels were first introduced, and there will be another one when they are abolished. The men of the sea are a very conservative type, and abhor changes of any kind.