NEW LUXURY LINER

Hokitika Guardian, 17 December 1929, Page 8

NEW LUXURY LINER

ROUNDED PLATE STERN. Not long ago the now Orient liner Orontes made a cruise in the English Channel with a large number of guests. Leaving the docks one evening she reached Mo unit’s Bay next morning, and after anchoring for tin night at Plymouth returned to Southampton the next afternoon. The Orontes is the " rn ' 20,000-tpi; vessel which th# managers of the Orient. Line, confident in the future of the Commonwealth and with the object of promoting travel and intercourse between the, two countries, have provided within the last five years for • the mail service between the United Kingdom and Australia. Like her four predecessors, except the Oronsay, which was constructed at Clydebank, she was built at the Bar-row-in-Furness yards of Messrs Vic-kers-Armstrongs, and, with an overall length of. 664 feet and a beam of 75 feet, is generally similar to them, though she embodies various improvements in detail, : which experience has shown to bo desirable. The number of bathroom cabins.

for example, has been increased, and in addition to a special suite with j sitting room she has on D deck 13 cabins, each with its own bathroom, , and six others on C and E decks. In the third class—no second class passengers are carried—a new development is the provision of a, number of outside cabins designed and furnished to meet the needs of tourists. Naturally their fittings are simpler than those of the superior class, but they lack none of the essentials of comfort, including ventilation on the punkah-louvre system, which, together with powerful exhaust fans, is relied'on throughout the ship. Externally a novel feature is of the rounded plate type, and instead of being perpendicular slopes backwards to the water line. Ample deck space is at the disposal of both classes of passengers. Those in the first class have the use not only of two long covered promenade decks, hut also of the boat deck, which, with its area of 16,500 square feet, offers a huge open expanse for games and sports, kept as free as possible from ventilation cowls and other obstructions. The imposing series of public rooms on B deck begins forward with the lounge, which has a beamed plaster coiling carried on fluted columns of dark mahogany. The dining saloon, which extends across the whole width of the ship on deck F. is finished in soft tones of ivory relieved by a restrained centre part, or “well,” has modelled and perforated bronze panels of figure subjects representing the world’s famous navigators. It is entered through a foyer, decorated similarly, off which opens a reading and writing room on one side, with a small dining room for private parties on the other. Elsewhere there is a special dining saloon for children. The third class dining room is separated from the first class bv the galley, w'itli its oil-fired cooking ranges, and the third class accommodation further includes a smoking room with lounge and library. The number of first class passengers that can ho carried is 500, and of third class 1100. The propelling machinery consists of two sets of Parsons turbines, each driving a propellor shaft through single reduction gearing which is arranged to turn the screws at 96 revolutions a minute when the turbines are making 1388 revolutions. At that speed tin* total shaft horse-power developed is about 20,000. Steam is supplied at a pressure o-f 2151 b per square inch by cylindrical boilers fired , with oil. Electricity for lighting, j for lieating thoradiators in the cabins and for working the deck and other machinery and the engine room auxiliaries, is generated by three dynamos each of 400 kw, 220 volts, driven by : ] steam turbines. i