14,000-TON LINER

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 81, 29 December 1934, Page 12

14,000-TON LINER

For Trans-Tasman Service UNION COMPANY ORDER The Union Company has placed an order with Vickers, Armstrong, Ltd., Barrow-in-Furrers, for its new passenger liner for the trans-Tasman service. The new vessel will have a gross tonnage of about 14,000, a displacement tonnage of 15,000, and will be 500 feet in length. Delivery is to be made in 1936. The new liner will have a service speed of 23 knots, and is to make the Tasman crossing from Sydney to Wellington or Auckland in 60 hours. She will be propelled by geared turbines, driving quadruple screws. Her furnaces will bo oil-fired, and the boilers of the watertube type.

The latest improvements will be embodied in her construction, with special attention to the convenience and comforts of passengers, two classes only being carried. It is understood that she has been planned with the majority of the cabins of the single or double bedstead type, the rooms being fitted with personal telephone service and hot and cold water. Her public rooms will compare more than favourably with any vessels at present in the trans;Tasman service, and are to include a ballroom and palm court. Another feature is to be the provision of special club accommodation for men passengers.

Vickers, Armstrong, Ltd., were the builders of the Union Company’s turbo-electric-express service steamer Rangatira, which was completed in 1931.