AMERICAN RECORD

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 15 November 1927, Page 7

AMERICAN RECORD

22,000-TON STEAMER, ELECTRICALLY DRIVEN. A new era for the American Merchant Marine was ushered in at Newport News with the launching of the steamship California, the largest commercial vessel ever built in the United States and the largest elec-trically-driven ship in commercial service in the world. When completed, in January, the California will be placed in the Panama Pacific Line by the International Mercantile Marine Company, for which the vessel was built by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company.

First of a projected fleet of three sister ships, the second of which has been ordered, the California marks anew the concentration of the I.M.M. Company upon Americau-flag operation and its effort to develop the United States intercoastal trade Which are regarded by shipping men as significant, especially in view of the recent sale of the White Star, an important part of the company’s for-eign-flag fleet. Equipped with 100,000 cubic feet of space for handling perishable cargoes, the ship can carry almost the equivalent of a trainload of fruits from southern California to New York.

The California was built, it is understood, with the aid of a loan from the United States Shipping Board and a hint that further aid would be welcomed was seen in the remarks of P. A. S. Franklin, president of the I.M.M. Company, speaking at a luncheon after the ship had been successfully launched.

The California is a ship of 22,000 tons gross, 601 feet in length. 80 feet beam and has eight decks. She was designed by Ernest H, Riggs. The power is derived from high speed turbo-generators which transmit their electric energy by cables to two giant motors attached directly to shafts wdiich drive the vessel's twin propellers.

Absence of vibration and flexibility of control are features of the ship, which, with a speed of 18 knots, will make the run between New York and Los Angeles in 14 . days. The development of an intercoastal passenger business with such ships is a factor in the plans for the future of the Panama Pacific Line. The ship cost a little under one and a quarter millions sterling. The California’s equipment includes a garage in which automobiles will be carried as baggage of passengers, while improvements in the division between first, class and “tourist” cabins (as second class is to be termed) have made the facilities for the latter more nearly equal in size and appointments to the first class. The California's first voyage will he made on January 28 from New York