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ican Ship Building Co. was inspected on an earlier trip. Of all the ship yards on the Great Lakes the Amer- ican Ship Building Co. is, of course, much the largest in capacity and it has had the lion’s share of the large amount of new _ shipbuilding placed. The following 600-foot and over, Great Lakes bulk freighters under construction at the Lorain yard were delivered this spring: WILLIAM McLAUCHLAN and RoBERT Hogsson for the Interlake Steamship Co., Cleve- land; the GrorceE M. Humpurey for the Kinsman Transit Co., Cleveland; and the L. E. Buock for the Inland ‘Steamship Co., Chicago. The ma- chinery on all four vessels is of triple expansion reciprocating type and steam is furnished in the case of the first two by three water-tube boilers in each vessel and in the case of the last two by three scotch boilers in each vessel. The first three vessels are also fitted with condensers of the surface type. Each vessel is equipped with a complete line of auxiliaries such as windlass, winches, steering gear, pumps, refrigerating machin- ery and electric generators. There was launched at the Lorain yard on April 9, the longest vessel (688 feet overall) ever constructed on the Great Lakes, the Cart D. BRADLEY, a self-unloading boat, suit- able for the stone trade, built for the Bradley Transportation Co., Rogers City, Mich. This vessel owing to its peculiar service of unloading itself is fitted with a main turbo-electric unit of a maximum 4800-horsepower. Elec- tricity generated by the main turbine will be used in driving the propeller by means of a single motor and when unloading it will be used for driv- ing the electric motors for the elabor- ate conveying and unloading gear. It is expected that the CarL D. Brap- LEY will be completed early in July. She is an elaborate shipbuilding job and the cost involved is high. On April 30, the largest lake bulk freighter the Harry CouLsy building for the Interlake Steamship Co. Cleve- land was launched at the Lorain yard. This vessel has the distinction of being the largest ore and coal carrier ever constructed in an Amercian ship yard on the Great Lakes. It is pos- sible that the Canadian steamer LEMOYNE exceeds her slightly in ca- pacity. The Harry CouLBy is 630 feet 9 inches overall and _ 65-foot beam with a molded depth of 33 feet. The main engine is of the triple ex- pansion type and steam is furnished by three water-tube boilers to operate at 215 pounds pressure. The Standard Oil Co. of New York recently placed two non-self propelled oil barges with the American Ship Building Co. These barges it is under- stood will be of full barge canal size, and are now under construction. It is also reported on zood authority that an order has been given to the American Shipbuilding Co. for the building of an oil tanker for the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana. This tanker it is expected will be propelled by a reciprocating steam engine and will be similar to the tanker RENOWN which was also built by the same com- pany. She will be used tor the car- riage of lighter oils on the Great Lakes from the distributing point of the Standard Oil Co. at Whiting, Ind. She will be 390 feet in length, 52 feet wide and will be 25 feet deep. The capacity will be about 2,- 000,000 gallons. This tanker will be equipped with a complete line of pumps and auxiliaries. New Types of Propulsion The foregoing shows that there is much more activity in shipbuilding than a year ago. There are also indications that the constant drive toward greater economy in operation will make smaller ships, which. now constitute the great bulk of shipping Build Oul-Electric Tug Ss HE tugs CHAGRES and TRINIDAD [ shown in the accompanying illustration, under construction by the mechanical division of the Panama Canal on the top side of the dry dock at Balloa, C. Z., were to be “launched” during the latter half of May. Launching in this case means that each tug is bodily lifted off the side wall of the dry dock by the canal’s two 250-ton floating cranes AJAX and HERCULES. They are all-steel diesel electric towboats, 125 feet long, 28-foot beam, and approximately 141%4-foot deep and are each of 750 shaft horsepower. These tow-boats have been designed primarily as seagoing craft, although the major part of their duty will be, no doubt, in Canal Zone waters. Living accommodations are provided for 6 “gold” or American men and 24 “silver” or tropical employees. One tug, for the present, is being equipped with the latest radio equipment. Each boat is being equipped with very powerful electric towing machines, equivalent in capacity and size to that MARINE REVIEW—J une, 1927 on the Great Lakes, obsolete and it will be necessary to continue replace- ments with larger modern units. It is possible that in this drive toward efficiency a type of power more eco- nomical than that commonly used will come into its own. If this is tried out and proves successful the passing of the reciprocating steam engine with hand fired coal burning scotch boilers will be inevitable. The choice for new types of power might rea- sonably lie between the diesel engine and steam turbine reduction. gears with perfected pulverized coal firing and water tube boilers. Part of the blame for lack of progress in the adoption of new types of power on the Great Lakes might be laid to the lack of prepara- tion in the way of acquaintance with existing operating problems on the part of engineers of companies wishing to. replace with their equipment the old equipment. In asking, R. H. Reynolds, marine superintendent of the Ann Arbor and Wabash railroads, if he had considered a different type of power than that which is being in- stalled on their carferries he replied that he was entirely open and re- ceptive to a carefully worked out proposal but that so far no one competent to prepare such a _ pro- posal has taken sufficient interest to observe the severe kind of operating conditions under which these ferries serve. Consequently when the time came to order this equipment a new proposal tending to alter the usual type of machinery was considered too hastily gotten up and could not be taken seriously. Bids for steel has been asked for recently on three new lake steamers. Two of these are of the large 600- foot bulk freighter type for the Pitts- burgh Steamship Co. and the third is reputed to be a smaller ship for other interests. Several tentative proposals are also under consideration. at Panama of the largest steam tugs. Two definite steps in advance of towboat design have been included in these hulls. The first of these is the installation of bulkheads and double bottoms as necessary, in order to make the tug a one compartment ship; that is to say, it will be possible for the tug to remain afloat with one of her main compartments bilged. The sec- ond change in design is the cutting away of the deadwood aft and in- stalling a simple casting in its place. This is expected to greatly improve 29