FAST LINERS

Evening Star, Issue 20048, 13 December 1928, Page 18

FAST LINERS

GERMANY'S CHALLENGE FOUR NATIONS SEEK GREATER SPEED An application by tho North German Lloyd Company to tho North Atlantic Conference for passenger rates reveals that tho company’s two 46,000-ton liners Europa and Bremen, now under construction, will ho tho fastest liners in tho world (states tho Now York correspondent of tho ‘Daily Chronicle’). Their average speed will bo 26J knots, with a maximum of 28. Their scheduled time for the New York-Cherbourg-Southamptou run is five days, and for New York to Bremen six days. Germany is thus making a determined effort to win back the blue riband of Atlantic speed supremacy. This she lost twenty-one years ago, when tho Mauretania snatched tho honour from the Deutschland, and began that amazing career of recordbreaking which has been unapproachcd by any other siiip. If the now German liners attain their estimated .speeds they cannot fail to beat the Cunardcr's 'figures, but when tho Mauretania lowered her own record for tho west-hound run recently Cunard officials stated that tho liner was capable of still greater things. Meantime programmes of liner construction in various countries leave little doubt that wo shall soon >sco a revival of tho old international struggle for tho speed championship of tho Atlantic. What steps the great British lines are taking to meet this challenge are veiled in the deepest secrecy. Tho Whit Star Line has laid down a big liner at Belfast, but officials refuse to disclose any detail concerning her size, speed, or typo of engine. Tho only information vouchsafed is that she will take two or three years to build. It has already been stated unofficially that she will bo tho biggest vessel in the world (60,000 tons), costing £6,000,000, and will bo driven by internal combustion engines. Cunard officials are equally reticent concerning the I,oooft long, twenty-eight-knot liner which that company is said to bo contemplating building either on the Clyde or the Tyne. Lit the struggle for tho Atlantic speed riband Franco and the United States have also to bo reckoned with. In America there is a scheme for the establishment of tho “ Blue Ribbon Lino ” to link New York and Plymouth with a regular four-day service with liners of the unprecedented speed of thirty-three knobs. Tho French Compagnio Generals Trausatlantique, which possesses in tho Franco the third fastest liner in tho world, also proposes to take a hand in tho speed struggle by building a still faster ocean greyhound. At the present time the fastest liners in existence are:— Nominal speed in kts. Mauretania (Cunard) ... 25J Majestic (White Star)... 25 Franco (French) 24 Leviathan (U.S.) 24 Aquitania (Cunard) ... 23) Berengaria (Cunard) ... 23) Olympic (White Star) ... 22) By far the most wonderful ship of all from tho speed point of view is tho Mauretania, which has been breaking records for tho last twenty years. Despite her age—she was built in 1907 sho succeeded last month in beating her own records both ways across tho Atlantic. Her best times—all of them records—are: — New York to Fddyslone, 4d 23h 10m in. New York to Plymouth, 5d Oil Cmin. Cherbourg to New York, stl 2h Slinin. Round trip, Southampton-New YorkPlyinouth. 12d 15h. Her best day’s nm is 663 miles at an average of 27) knots, and ber best average 25.3 knots, from New York to Southampton. With the exception of the ten years between 1897 and 1907 Britain lias held tho Atlantic speed record since the ’sixties, and during most of tho time it has been in Cunard keeping. in 3897 carno the successful German .challenge - from the Kaiser Wilhelm dot Crosse, which sailed from Southampton to New York in less than six days; and six years later Germany produced another wonder in tiie Deutschland, which did the crossing in just under five and a-half days. Then in 1907 the Mauretania appeared on tho scene, mopped up every Atlantic record, and has never lost one of them to any other j ship.