LINERS THAT NEED NO GOAL

Hokitika Guardian, 27 November 1920, Page 4

LINERS THAT NEED NO GOAL

Speeding across the Atlantic from the shores of the United States to Europe are two great liners, the Aquitania and the Olympic. Neither carries an ounce of coal for propulsive purposes. They are using oil and that is the one vital element about this trip. These leviathans are no longer dependent upon coal from the mines. Coal strikes need not delay them. “How do you like it?” ask an oil attendant, an ex-fireman, say in (lie Aquitania. “No more coal shovelling for me,” he will say. And the reason is that one man with oil fuel, by simply watching, can do the work of three men, stripped to tho waist, sweating and working like black Trojans with dirty coal. Most people know that, like coal, oil fuel is obtained from the bowels of the earth. What gushes out of the oil well is known as crude petroleum. This liquid possesses constituents whose presence is undesirable in a fuel | for ships’ use. These are removed by a process of distillation, petrol, benzine, and other light spirits being obtained for industrial and pleasure purposes and what is left is marketed as oil

fuel. When eold it is a thick, dark-colour-ed liquid, possessing exceptional heating properties when burned under suitable conditions. This is the stuff which to-day is fashionable among the better class of passenger and cargo ships, existing and building, the many advantages its use has over coal neutralising its greater cost. The Cunard liner Aquitania and the White Star liner Olympic were equipped only recently for oil fuel burning, but they still retain their original steam propelling machinery, the oil fuel only taking the place of coal fuel. In the Aquitania the oil is actually carried in

the space previously occupied by the coal. The coal bunkers extending on each side of the ship for the full length of the boiler rooms, and across the ship between the boiler rooms, have been converted into huge oil-tight tanks. Now let us follow the oil to the boiler furnace. The fireman is not supplied with buckets full of oil and a syringe to squirt it into the furnace. He need never see the oil. His work is to see that pumps do the firing. ! Before the pumps can draw the oil j from the storage tanks it is often necessary, especially in cold weather, to heat it to make it flow easily through the pipes. This is done by means of steam-heating coils fitted inside the tanks. From the storage tanks the oil is pumped into smaller tanks, called settling tanks, in which water, which j will not bum and is frequently present in the oil,, is separated by the liquid being again heated.

j After settling for about twelve hours another pump takes the oil from these tanks arid delivers it at a pressure of about 1001 b per sq. in. through an oil heater, hi which its temperature is raised to about 200 deg. F., to a specially constructed oil burner fixed in the furnace front cover plate. This burner cjelivers the oil in the form of a fine spray, which when mixed with a suitable quantity of air bursts into flame, and the oil supply being continuous j from the pump so is the flame. There are different oil-j'uej-jnirning ' systems in use, but the above briefly 1 describes the most common practice.