HUGE MOSQUITO FLEET.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 May 1917, Page 8

HUGE MOSQUITO FLEET.

TO COUNTER. SUBMARINE MENACE, A plan whereby cargo tonnage can be created in the United States "faster than Germany can sink it" has been devised by P. Huntington Clark, an American engineer, according to an announcement in New York before a joint session of the Automobile Club of America, the Aero Club of America, and the Motor Boat Club of America. The new type of vessel, it was said, could ba ttHlt' in great numbers quickly,"at email cost, and by men of little skill, Each vessel would be mastless, smokeless, and of diminutive size, and would have such low risibility as compared with the great steel ships now afloat that it could be seen by a submarine at barely more than a third of the distance at which the 10,000-ton steamships now are detected. It was estimated that 1,000,000 tons, or a thousand vessels of 1000 tons each, " with a 6peed of nine knots, could ba built at a cost of 160,000,000 dollars in a year. These boats would be 185 ft over all, with 36ft beam. The same amount of tonnage, with » speed of 14 knots, is was said, could be built for 150,000,000 dollars. Clark's plan is to utilise all of the coastal wooden ship* 11 yards.