END OF A PIONEER

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22515, 24 September 1938, Page 23

END OF A PIONEER

WARD’S shipbreaking yard at Grays, on the Essex shore of the Thames Estuary, has been the graveyard of many famous ships, but few have had more claim to fame than one which arrived there recently from Norway and is now being scrapped, states a London exchange. This is the motor-ship Dan, formerly the Danish East Asiatic Company’s liner Jutlandia, built on the Clyde in 1912 and sold to Norwegians last year. Twenty-six years ago she and her two sister ships—Selandia and Fionia—heralded the dawn of a new era in marine propulsion. They were the first sea-going motor-ships in the world, and the Jutlandia was the first ever built in Great Britain. The Selandia and Fionia were built at Copenhagen. \ Not only did they cyeat

First Motor-Ship Being Broken Up

technical interest, but the general public was also intrigued, because they had no funnels. They were graceful “three-island” ships, with three masts, and the engine exhaust puffed its way out of the mizzen. Curiously enough, although the internal combustion engine, as perfected by Rudolf Diesel and adapted for marine purposes by Ivar Knudsen, proved a success from the start, the elimination of funnels did not catch on. Very few other shipping companies followed the fashion set by the Danes, although the East Asiatic Company' has remained loyal to the idea. The Jutlandia, built and engined under licence by Barclay, Curie and Company, plied between Denmark and Siam for 25 years without a break. She was then sold to way and is now ending her days on the Essex shore. The Selandia—the first of the three—created a sensation \vhen she called in the Thames on her maiden voyage. She - was yigited by

Winston- Churchill (then First Lord of the Admiralty), Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman (First Sea Lord), Prince Louis of Battenberg (Second. Sea Lord), and many prominent shipowners and shipbuilders. She* too, was sold to a Norwegian firm about 18 months ago, and is still afloat under that flag as the Norseman. The Fionia —second of the Copen-hagen-built ships—was sent by the East Asiatic Company on a trial cruise to Kiel in July, 1912. There she was inspected by Herr Albert Ballin (late chairman of the Ham-burg-American Line), Kaiser Wilhelm 11, Prince Eitel Friedrich, and Admiral von Tirpitz. So impressed were the Germans that there and then, in the smokingroom of the ship anchored off Kiel, the Fionia was sold by Mr N. H. Anderson (chairman of the East Asiatic Company) to Herr Ballin, with the Kaiser witnessing the signing of the contract. The ship was renamed Christian X, as- a compliment to the King of Denmark, and was lost during, thauwar. .•