NEW P. & O. SHIPS

Hokitika Guardian, 29 August 1931, Page 6

NEW P. & O. SHIPS

ELECTRIC PROPULSION. TRADING TO AUSTRALIA. ■LONDON, July 21. If a ship, like a motor-car, is to bo judged by its “works,” then the chairman and directors of the P. and O. Company are certainly giving us won-der-ships in the Strathnaver and Strathaird, which are now nearing completing for the company’s Australian . trade at the Yickers-Armstrongs yard at Barrow-in-Furness. The great white hulls, with their three huge but shapely buff funnels, speak of energy, speed and beauty never before attempted in ships trading to Australia. In place of previous types of machinery, with their multitude of steampipe connections and telegraph casings on deck and below, a new but wellproved sy.stein of power—dynamically balanced motors, big and little—will propel the latest P. and 0. ships, the most powerful of their kind in the .world, .with the sweetness of operation which is essential in any engine devised for the pleasure of modern mankind, so that whether manoeuvring in narrow waters or speeding over the open sea, the whole process will be done in uncanny silence with never a tremor in the ship’s immense fabric. ECONOMY OF FUEL. Six mighty water-tube boilers supply the main. turbines with steam at a working pressure of- 4001 b. to the square inch and at a temperature of 725 degrees Fahrenheit; the steam, after completing its work, is condensed and silently returned to the boilers by high-speed rotary pumps at a temperature of 350 degrees. Such steam pressures, and temperatures make it practicable, to run these ships with the economy of fuel needed to render their operation commercially possible. That a single boiler is capable of supplying power sufficient to drive the ships at fifteen miles an hour says much for the efficiency of the machinery.

.On trial over th e measured miles the Strathnaver and Strathaird, with twin screws exerting 28,0C0 horsepower, will develop a speed of twenty-six miles an hour. Should a . propellor from any cause be lost th e remaining screw can exert sufficient thrust to carry the ship onwards at a speed of nineteen miles. Moreover, with the ship running at the full-power trial speed of twenty-six miles an hour, her turboelectric machinery can, if necessary, be reversed in thirty seconds. MANOEUVRING POWERS. The latest type of electric steering gear, with balanced rudder, will give the new ships unique manoeuvring qualities. Of the Viceroy of India, in which is installed machinery and steering apparatus of the type used in the '“Straths,” her commander (Captain Ohlson) writes:—“l consider the Vice.

roy of India to he the best steering

ship I have ever sailed, in. I notice that the quarter-masters use very little l)$J% possible at any tiijjft, to look oyer the stern and see a dead straight wake behind her. In the Suez Canal she steered just as well and there was no need to use engines rounding any of the bends. As regards manoeuvring she was as quick and 1 easy to linndlejas a naval steam pinnace. Way can be taken off her almost instantaneously by reversing the engines, so great is tlie astern power."

I in the Strathnaver and Strathaird the steam silently turns the turbines in one direction, the turbines drive the electric alterations, the alternators ' drive the reversible motors and the motors drive the propellors. Everything in the engine room goes round and round instead of up and down. The propelling motors running free of the turbines, give the ships great flexibility, and that complete absence of vibration which will make them slip through the seas, still and silent as a vessel under sail. THE ELECTRICAL SERVICES. On a. spacious platform, level with the propeller manoeuvring cubicle, .is the great domestic power-plant of 3550 horse power an d the manifol d switch - board from which are controlled all the ' minor operations, of the ship’s' economy, j Here are governed the electrical power j for steering, for working navigating in. • struments such as the sounding | machine, the direction finder and submarine signalling; the supply of heat for cooking and baking; the actuation of galley appliances of the latest type; the cooling of wines and table delicacies ; the refrigeration of the delicate stores and fruit cargoes; the illumination of the. 15,000 eandle-ppwer search-light (which throws a "beam 3600 feet ahead of the ship); the general ( heating, lighting and ventilation; the 1 luminous and silent cabin-hell system ; ; the movie-tone apparatus; the ship’s telephone system, which enables the bridge to speak to any part of the ship and all parts to speak to one another; the ship’s floodlights for use j on festive occasions. By the same agent the swimming baths receive water fresh from the sea and there is I kept on tap,, night and day, hot,and cold water, fresh and salt; and twin streams of hot and cold air which in public rooms and passengers’ cabins can be mixed at will, by the touching of a button, to any desired temperature. 1 .Undoubtedly the Strathnaver and Strathaird are wonder-ships which should greatly interest and please the most critical traveller.