The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

and several years ago sold the ves- sel. Early this year being in need of additional passenger ship tonnage for its West Indies services, the At- lantic Gulf and West Indies Steam- ship lines bought the HAVANA as she was laid up in San Francisco harbor with the intention of again using her in the Ward line service and possibly in the Mallory line route to ‘Texas and to Porto Rico on the Porto Rico line, all of which are subsidiaries of the Atlantic, Gulf and West Indies. In Dilapidated Condition — The HAVANA being in a dilapidated condition her new owner decided to recondition and rebuild the vessel throughout her passenger quarters and to overhaul the propelling ma- chinery. Accordingly a contract was placed with the Todd Dry Docks, Inc., Seattle, Wash., amounting to over $800,000. And in July she was towed to Seattle. It is expected the work will be completed in December of this year. Theodore E. Ferris, New York naval architect and marine engineer, was called in to design a new layout of passenger quarters and to super- -vise the reconstruction work. The HAvANA and her sister ship SARATOGA are 429 feet 10 inches long overall, 50 feet in beam, 24 feet de-- signed load draft and have a dead- weight carrying capacity of 5092 tons. They make a sea speed of 17 knots and the propelling machinery develops 10,000 indicated horsepower. A total of 200 first class passengers will be carried in regular and special suite rooms and in ordinary state- rooms, and about 75 second class passengers in regular inside and out- side staterooms. A crew of 135 will be needed. New Public Rooms and Quarters The ship is of the four deck hurri- cane deck type, with partial doublé bottom, orlop, lower and main com- plete steel decks, and hurricane deck of partial steel construction. There are eight transverse watertight bulk- heads forming holds, ’tween deck com- partments and peak tanks, the bulk- heads extending to main deck. ‘The two ships were originally built to American Bureau of Shipping class and the HAVANA will be rebuilt to meet the requirements of the Ameri- can Bureau. . The work of ripping out the con- struction on the various decks has al- ready been completed at the Todd yard and the new work is going in. In the way of public spaces there will be provided a new dining saloon seating about 122 persons at a time. 18 It will be finished in mahogany panel work and some paint. There will be a new lounge and music room located forward on the promenade deck fin- ished in white mahogany and having a large light and air well fitted over the center; also there-will be a writ- ing room and a library, and a smok- ing room located aft on promenade deck finished in white oak panels. Aft of the smoking room will be an attractively finished deck veranda and tea room painted in bright colors. For the second class quarters there will be provided a social hall, smoking room and dining room. At the forward end on each side of the promenade deck and across the forward end will be fitted an en- closed promenade guarded with heavy plate glass windows of the Kearfott frameless type. Partition bulkheads for passageways, public spaces and staterooms, and also for ceilings, will be formed with Vehisote boarding fitted on tongue and groove backing. Fire Protection System Completed For fire protection the present smothering pipes and water sprinkling system will be rearranged and re- newed in part for the cargo holds, and other spaces. A Rich smoke de- tecting system will also be fitted for the holds. For the passenger quar- ters the Cory supervised automatic fire detecting system will be provided throughout staterooms, public spaces and crew rooms. The present fire main water pipes will be overhauled and renewed in part. The Foamite- ‘Childs fire extinguishing system. will be installed for fire room and engine room protection. United States HE United States lines showed | a direct profit from operations of $635,842.97 during the fiscal year ended June 30, according to a statement submitted to the Merchant Fleet Corp. on July 21. After de- ducting the proportion of Fleet cor- poration overhead expenses assigned to the lines, the net profit was $371,- 085. This is compared with a net loss of $645,000 during the preceding fiscal year, or a net gain of $1,016,085 in the operating results. During the fiscal year, 61 voyages were terminated, 83,756 passengers were carried, and 274,894 tons of cargo transported. The ships which were operated on the United States lines during the year were the LEVIATHAN, GEORGE WASHINGTON, REPUBLIC, PRESI- DENT HARDING and PRESIDENT ROOSE- VELT. During the preceding fiscal year the S. S. AMERICA was in opera- MARINE REVIEW—September, 1927 be New electric generating sets of Westinghouse make are being fitted. Electrically driven winches of Lidger-— wood make with Westinghouse motors are being provided for the ’tween decks and steam winches for the weather deck hatches. A new wire- less transmitting and receiving set of 2 kilowatts capacity made by the Independent Wireless Telegraph Co. will be used. An entirely new re- frigerating system for cargo and stewards cold storage is being in- stalled as made by the Brunswick- Kroeschell Co. A mechanical ventila- tion system is being installed for the first and second class passenger rooms and certain of the public spaces, and crew quarters. The vessel has twin screws and there are two vertical inverted direct acting three cylinder triple expansion engines developing about 10,000 indi- cated horsepower. New liners will fitted in the high pressure, the intermediate pressure and low pres- sure cylinders. The new liners are bored for a smaller diameter in the case of the high pressure and inter- mediate pressure cylinders, as the boiler working pressure is to be in- creased from the original 180 pounds to 205 pounds with the new water- tube boilers replacing the _ scotch boilers. These eight new watertube boilers will burn oil as fuel under forced draft and will be arranged in two fire rooms. Each boiler contains 2642 square feet of heating surface, giving a total heating surface for the eight boilers of 21,136 square feet. Each boiler will be fitted with Dia- mond soot blowers. Lines Profit tion and proved a big revenue pro- ducer. It is expected that this ship will be in commission again in the spring of 1928. The financial statement for the fis- cal year just closed is as follows: Terminated VOyages .....ccccccccesssssesees 61 PaSSenGers CATTICM siccccccccccseocseseccnes 83,756 Cargo tonnage: lifted: .c...,....cccccccse000 274,894 * VOYALES LEVENUEC .....ccccecesscssereereeesseense, $16,675,390.81 VOVARe OXPeENses ill vicistsccecsiccscccene $14,157,350.71 AGHIStMOeNG sous cise boo nee 57.642.68 AMIS UPS CO secs csc secaxssccscthcvaeccbal esucseasccseis 401,795.68 Maintenance and betterment re- i Ov Wg BSP ROE AM Sap cEE SRE RPA ttn uC caer 1,097.291.06 AA VONEIBINEE 4 ok calecsca0isesctckatand ves skeetansselos 825,467.71 Total direct operating expenses $16,039,547.84 Direct operating profit—excluding Fleet corporation administra- TIVE EXDENSE ies. ccc akanglahonecs 635,842.97 Fleet corporation administrative expense chargeable to United Slales i MES se scsticiecadevsssconcneneanaceavare 264,757.33 INGE ADF ONG acivcvecctaste seeks antec ets $ 871,085.64 The profit indicated above has been deter- mined after includ’ng. in the total shown for repairs. charges for betterments amounting to $207,415.12.