ATLANTIC CHALLENGER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 659, 10 May 1929, Page 9

ATLANTIC CHALLENGER

LINER EUROPA BEING REPAIRED MAY SAIL IN THE SPRING V (United Service) Reed. 9.5 a.m. BERLIN, Thursday. A statement, is made by the North German Lloyd, that the great liner Europa, which suffered a disastrous fire in March, is shown by thorough examination to be undamaged below the water-line. It is now hoped that she will enter the Atlantic service in the spring. The Europa, of 46,000 tons, was launched at Hamburg on August 16, 1928. She was the largest German vessel built since 1914. Her sister ship the Bremen was also launched on the same day. Fire broke out on the Europa on the morning of March 26. The completion of the mammoth liner was being carried out secretly at Hamburg. The ship was designed with a view to capturing the Atlantic blue riband from the Mauretania. The work of repairing the damage has been great, for bubbling and boiling like a half-submerged volcano the vessel with the fire still raging seemed certain to become a total loss. Dense yellow smoke ascended from the redhot steel walls and tongues of flame shot out of the portholes. The promenade decks collapsed like cardboard, metal beams and girders twisted up and melted. After the flames had been got under control engineers reported that the stern, the lower deck, and the engineroom were not seriously damaged and could he saved. The Europa was insured for £3,000,000.