AN INTERESTING VESSEL.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 October 1922, Page 4

AN INTERESTING VESSEL.

DUTCH MOTOR-SHIP HERMES. TO VISIT NEW PLYMOUTH. An interesting visitor to the port of New Plymouth next week will be the Dutch oil tank motor,-ship Hermes (3768 tons), claimed to bo the first mo-tor-ship to enter New Zealand waters, and certainly the first -vessel of this class to call at New Plymouth. The vessel has 100,000 cases of Sumatra benzine, shipped at Singapore, to unload at New Zealand ports, but the Now Plymouth agents have not yet received advice as to the quantity to be landed at this port. Built in Glasgow in 1914, the two motor engines of the Hermes give a total of 224 h.p., enabling the vessel to attain a speed of 10$ knots per hour in favorable weather. These two engines burn only seven tons of oil daily, and it is estimated that their care and attention is so minimised that a saving i.s effected of 16 men’s work as compared with a steamer of x similar size. The vessel, it is claimed, can start her engines and get under way at a minute’s notice. There is no such process as “getting up steam.” The engines arc* smarted by air compression, produced by a small motor-pump. Steam is not completely excluded from the engine room, however. A boiler of very smal! dimensions is employed to generate st.unt - o operate the stearing gear and winches, and to supply a heating system throughout the vessel.

The interior capacity of the vessel is taken u$ with 24 oil tanks, whose hatches jot the upper decking nf the ship. Valves at the lower ends of the tanks connect with a pipe lino running round the lower part of the ship’s hub. In the operation of loading the Vos-el the oil is pumped, by means of the ships, pumping engines, into thia pipe beneath the water line, and the liquid can be admitted into any number of the tanks at will by regulating the valves. In this way it is possible to fill the ship nt the rate of 500 tons of oil per hour. The tanks are of steel and 14 of them are constructed to hold 300 tons in water and the remaining 14 hold 100 tons in water. The ship’s total capacity is 500 tons of liquid cargo.

Owing to the fact that New Zealand ports are not equipped with suitable oil tanks in which to discharge a liquid cargo, the Hermes carries her present shipment in case form. The cases are' stacked into the 28 oil tanks in much the same way as they would be dealt with in a steamer’s hold. The vessel has one funnel, by which the spent oil fumes from the engines are emitted, but when the engines are running, smoothly the ship travels practically, smokeless.