ATLANTIC BLUE RIBAND

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 80, 28 December 1937, Page 7

ATLANTIC BLUE RIBAND

Our Own Correspondent.)

German Bid Suggested NEW EQUIPMENT FOR BREMEN

(From

LONDON, Dec. 1. Naval architects and marino engineering interests in Germany are suggesting that the North German Lloyd liner Bremen should be given new machinery to wrest the Blue Eiband of the Atlantic from the French liner Normandie. The Bremen, and her slightly slower sister the> Europa, were built in 1929 in the hope that they would repeat the experienee of the North German Lloyd with the Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse in 1897. She was the first German ship to attempt to break the record, and she did it so dramatically that in the following year her owners , carried ,no less than 25 per cent. of the whole American passenger trade, the slower ships being favoured nearly as much as the fast. The Bremen followed the suecess of the old Kaiser Wilhelm. She won the Blue Eiband with an average of 27.83 knots westward and 27.91 knots eastward. State aid was given to the Italia Line to build the Eex and Oonte Di 'Savoia, the former logging a new record Avith an average of 28.92 knots. From her the Blue Eiband passed to the Normandie, then to the Queen Mary and then to the Normandie again. Since then immense strides have been made in m'arine engineering, and both boilers and engines are now very much lighter and more compact. The idea suggested to the owner of the Bremen is that they should take advantage of this to increase her horse-power from 120,000 to 180,000, compared with about 160,000 of the Normandie. With her smaller size, 51,731 tons gross, against 83,423, it is suggested that this is sufficient to give her the Blue Eiband back again. The question is whether this extra weight of oil would not handicap the ship as regards speed in spite of the added power. Naturally her owners want to be sure of this before they are hurried into any action.