OIL DRIVEN

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 283, 24 August 1920, Page 4

OIL DRIVEN

NEW SHIPS IN BRITAIN. The development of oil engines for cargo steamers is proceeding in Great Britain. The British shipbuilders were slow to move in this work, partly because their country had plenty of coal and no local supplies of oil, and partly because the internal-combustion engine had not reached tho 6ame degree of freedom from constructional faults as had steam engines. But ono Sunderland firm has now forty-five standard vessels built or building for British ana overseas owners,' each ship fitted with oilengines ortOOO horse-power. A ship of this typo uses nine tons of crude oil daily, as against thirty-six tons of coal or twenty-two tons of oil fuel used by a steamship of the same tonnage and speed. The engine-room staff is halved in strength, and with oil fuel capacity for 180 days' voyage there is a net saving of space for additional cargo of 45,000 cubie feet.

British firms are using the Cammel-laird-Fullager and the Doxford systems in tho construction of internal-combus-tion marine engines. In each system the engine has two pistons in each cylinder, which alternately approach and recede. The opposed pistons make possible a slower piston speed, and so overCome many structural difficulties, which in the past have militated against the success of oil engines for marine work. One of the oil-engincd vessels recently launched represents l a new departure in ship construction, electric welding having replaced rivets. ■ The hull of the vessel Is practically one piece of steel, all the joints having been welded. The standard oil-driven steamer, as ,now being built in British yards, can carry enough fuel for a voyage from Britain to New Zealand and back again, and at tho 6ame time has a greatly increased cargo capacity in proportion to tonnoge. Shipping men in 'the United Kingdom believe that vessels of this class are going to play a very important, part in overseas trado in tho near future.