Electric Windjammer

Hokitika Guardian, 27 July 1921, Page 1

Electric Windjammer

THE SHIR OF THE FUTURE

FOR WOOL AND MEAT' TRADE

! -For th© future, it seems to me, we must rely on that gt eat, free, and practically unutilised source of power, tinI w ind for conveying our products to the American and European markets, said |>rof. R. J. Scott in his presidential address to tin* Canterbury College Engineering Society on Saturday night. Prof. Srt>tt brought forward transport cost figures to show that the condition of tilings has now returned when it was mire profitable to use sail-power than steam for the carriage to market ot sneli commodities as wool and meat. Prof. Scott did not mean, however, a return to the old-fashioned wind-jam-mer.” hut recourse to a new type <>l sailing shin altogether. Fie described the type in this way: A vessel of 4000 tons gross, 350 ft. long, 60ft. beam, drawing 25ft ; six masts, five fore-and-aft rigged and the sixth square-rigged: a soil area of 80,000 square feet. The vessel would have an oil-engine installation of 850 horse-power and electrically-operated winches for controlling capstans and sails. The rigging would be of flexible wire, halliards, braces, sheets and tacks being coiled on individual winches, each operated by its own motor, and all controlled from th© operating bridge. Current for the freezing machinery, for lighting, for the pumps and the steering gear, would also tic proeured P ,,f un tin* engines which, in calms or v. hen entering port, would lie capable of driving her at five or six knots. C nsteuction should he such that the vessel must be aide to make 10 knots when closehauled in a 25-knot breeze ami 16 km-ts with a strong beam or fair wind. Such a ship, Prof. Scott held would require a crew of only 25. would be able to earry a cargo of 60.000 ©arcuses of meat or 8,000 bales of wool and would be so economical to operate that it would earn a handsome profit, where to-day a steamship could lie operated only at a loss. A study of the wind charts had convinced him that no foodproducing country in the world was more favourably situated in regard to its oversea market« t-lian New 7 iland