SMOOTH PASSAGE

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 63, 7 March 1933, Page 8

SMOOTH PASSAGE

IN A HOUGH SEA THE GYROSCOPIC STABILISER Another new Italian liner is making its maiden voyage, sailing from Genoa to America. The Conte di Savoia, as the vessel is called, is the last word in luxury liners, having saloons which are copies of famous rooms in historic Italian palaces, and suites that will bear comparison with those in the world’s best hotels. But the chief interest in the ship is the provision made for the comfort of passengers apart from actual accommodation. For the Conte di Savoia is equipped with a gigantic stabiliser that will keep the ship steady in the roughest weather. It is a wonderful adaptation of the gyroscopic top idea. Built at Barrow The stabiliser, which was built at Barrow-in-Furness, consists of three great gyroscopes, each having a flywheel 13 feet in diameter and weighing 175 tons. Each of these wheels makes 910 revolutions a minute, and in a moderate sea one gyroscope is sufficient to prevent the ship from rolling. In rough weather, however, all three will be used. The complete stabiliser equipment, •which weighs 750 tons and is worked by engines developing about 2000 horsepower, is said to have cost £500,000 at gold rates. There is accommodation for two thousand passengers on . the ship, which has a tonnage ,of 48,500 gross and is 816 feet long. Throughout this floating town there are about 18,000 electric lights, and.in fact its generating plant could supply light

sufficient for a town of 185.000 inhabitants. The ship is a naphtha burner and her engines drive four sets of highpressure turbines, each set of turbines working a separate screw.