UNSINKABLE SHIP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1805, 23 March 1918, Page 4

UNSINKABLE SHIP.

A NEW ZEALANDER’S INVENTION. In the Evening Post of Monday last appeared an article descriptive of a torpedo-proof ship, details of which Hudson Maxim, the inventor, recently outlined to the United States Senate Ship Investigating Committee. Shortly after the publication. of that article, a Post reporter had an interesting conversation ■with a gentleman who has very decided ideas of his own on the same subject, and who has for some time past been engaged in bringing them under the notice of the British authorities. He is Mr G. W.-Thomas, a native of New Zealand, for several years past residing first in the United States, and for the past six years in Melbourne. Mr Thomas said he had spent over thirteen years studying the “unsinkable ship” problem, and, to begin with, he deprecated the idea that it is waste of time and money to endeavour to improve the old type of hull, known as the block hull. “Prom experience, I find,” he said, “that the more you try to reinforce a ship’s inside, the quicker you will cause the hull to sink. By putting tons and tons of extra cylinders and walls into the hull you are making the vessel heavier, and this means that the hull must displace more water. Then, when the outside shell is punctured, in comes the water, making more weight, without any extra' displacement. "When you get extra weight caused by water finding its way into the hull you must have (if you want I lit' ship to % float) extra displacement, but in a block hull this is impossible, and it is the weight of the waiter that causes the ship to sink. Once water enters, the lower part becomes too heavy for the upper part to carry, and the vessel is doomed. Again, putting extra walls and cylinders into a ship means loss of space, and it also means that the ship is more difficult to trim and load. Besides that, she needs extra power, and is more costly to build, and even then it is a question as to whether she is unsinkable. Subdividing a ship into from 2,000 to 10,000 divided rooms may make it a little safer, but we have depended too much on subdivisions and double bottoms, which are mostly below the water-line. Water wall always find its way to one level. If a ship with cylinders all round is torpedoed, in comes the water on one side, and you have to flood the opposite side in order to keep an even keel. Then the strain begins to tell right through the hull, and ~.the ship gets deeper in the water, which means loss of speed. If a second torpedo comes there is more flooding, more loss of speed. The vessel sinks deeper into the water, and perhaps goes down. “The problem of safety at sea cannot be solved by using the old type of hull. It is impossible to get increased floating power from the block hull when you get increased weight caused by water. Once the hull’s side is punctured it is impossible to get, the same displacement without extra strain being put on the ship.

“A subdivided hull is not an unsinkable ship. 1 ship to be unsinkable must gain a floating power from the surface of the water, and be ea .able of floating on au even ked when fully flooded below the Vviuiri n.ie; when the water has reached its level and the vessel has gained the necessary increased floating power, then you have the unsinkable ship. “After studying the problem for several years, I was compelled to give up the old type of hull. Then I set to work to invent an improved hull —one that would get the abovementioned .floating power from the surface of the water. I have invented a new type of ship, and have subjected an Bft. model to a very severe test to float on an even keel, also on a low increase draught, when fully flooded from end to end. The invention is now before the authorities.”