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

S. S. America Sails (Continued from Page 77) be had. Nothing has been left un- done, to insure the safety of passen- gers. The deck spaces of the AMERICA are truly magnificent. No traveler can help but be impressed with their spaciousness. Long sections of the promenade deck forward are glass enclosed. There is a large gymnasium completely fitted with modern equip- ment. No changes were made in the ma- chinery and the AMERICA remains a coal burner. Every part was care- fully overhauled and placed in good order. It can be said that the new AMERICA surpasses the beautiful world wide known old AMERICA but that the tra- ditions associated with this great ship both in peace and war remain unchanged. Yorktown Is Launched The new bay steamer, YORKTOWN building at Newport News Shipbuild- ing & Dry Dock Co. for the Chesa- peake Steamship Co.’s fleet was suc- cessfully launched Feb. 25. The sponsor was Miss Ruth Miller Green. A luncheon was held at the Tidewater club following the launching. A brief address was made by A. L. Stephens president of the Chesapeake line. The YORKTOWN now nearly com- pleted will replace the Ciry oF ANNA- POLIS in the service between Baltimore and West Point. In general charac- teristics she is similar to the CITY oF RICHMOND now operating on that run. Her length over all is 277 feet 3 inches; length between perpendiculars, 267 feet; beam, 46 feet at the water line and 53 feet over guards; depth, 18 feet to the main deck. The draft will be 13 feet. The Isherwood system of longitudinal construction has _ been used. The ship is classed under the American Bureau of Shipping. The engine is of triple expansion type with high and intermediate cyl- inder diameters 23 x 39 inches and two 47-inch diameter low pressure cylinders with a 40-inch stroke. Steam, at 190 pounds pressure per square inch, will be furnished by four, three furnace single ended, scotch boilers, 14 feet in diameter and 11 feet 4 inches long, using coal as fuel. Galley equipment will be complete and the dining room will be light and cheerful. The staterooms are well heated and lighted and will be fur- nished with the conveniences of a first-class hotel, many having attached bathrooms or showers and all supplied with hot and cold fresh water. 92 Proposed Big Dry Dock There has been considerable agita- tion recently, which culminated at a public hearing before the Port of New York authority, on the building of a big dry dock to serve the Port of New York. This dry dock, it is proposed, should be large enough to accommo- date any ship afloat and any ship which might be projected in the fu- ture. The project it is thought would cost about $5,000,000 and federal and . state aid is suggested. The necessity for such a dry dock for New York, if the port is to be entirely self-contained, seems clear but it was pointed out that only a few vessels were unable to obtain dry dock accommodation in private yards in New York now and of these vessels only three were under the American flag. There would be no chance, ac- cording to practical repair yard oper- ators, to get the work and dry docking on the large foreign ships except in cases of absolute emergency. The Commonwealth drydock, Boston, is capable of docking the largest ship afloat. Under present conditions and considering the comparatively slight call made on the Boston dock it does not at this time seem warranted to go in for this expenditure from a commercial point of view. If the federal and state governments co- operated in financing such a drydock it would undoubtedly be of consid- erable advantage to the port. Harbor Tanker Launched A tanker built for Riley and Ken- dall, the J. NORMAN RILEY fitted with twin screw diesel drive was launched Feb. 29 at the yard of Jakobson and Peterson Inc., Brooklyn. 'The tanker will be used for the harbor trans- portation of petroleum products. She is 128 feet long, 28 feet 6 inches in beam and has a cargo capacity of 100,000 gallons and a draft of 7 feet 6 inches. Her cargo can be dis- charged in 1 hour and 40 minutes by means of two 5-inch rotary pumps. In this way shallow waterways can be entered on the high tide and cargo discharged giving the vessel a chance to return on the same tide. An Interesting Venture The second vessel, the CITY OF RouBAIX, a 7100 gross tons turbine driven freighter, one of three in a most interesting experiment being car- ried out by the Ellerman line, re- cently passed her official trials off the Tyne. This company has out to build three similar vessels with different types of motive power, to MARINE REVIEW—April, 1928 set” determine in practical service which is the most efficient. The first vessel of the three, the CITY OF CANBERRA, has quadruple expansion reciprocating en- gines and the third, the CITY OF LILLE, is to be equipped with diesel engines. The CiTy oF ROUBAIX is fitted with scotch boilers, operating at 300 pounds pressure, and with pre- heated air, electric auxiliaries, and Parsons geared turbines. Importance of Speed It is quite possible that in the Swedish passenger and motorship, MIRRABOOKA, built by the Transatlan- tic Steamship Co. of Gothenburg, for the wool trade between Australia and Europe, we have an example of the ideal long distance cargo ship of the near future. Once the shipper gets used to express freight service the demand for it will continually in- crease. The new motorship referred to has a speed of 15 knots and has accommodations for 30 passengers. In the off season, under the management of the General Steamship Corp. as agents for the line, the MIRRABOOKA will be used in the direct California- Australia service. Equalize Port Rates Of utmost importance to New Eng- land manufacturers and to the port of Boston is the resolution recently adopted by the United States shipping board for equalization of through land and water rates from United States to Europe. This appears to be the most important step in the direction of placing competing eastern ports on an equal basis, that has been taken since the port of Boston filed its initial complaint in 1921. Before the war the ocean rates from Phila- delphia, Baltimore and Norfolk to European ports were enough higher than the rates from New York and Boston to make the through rates by rail and ocean from interior points exactly the same. This enabled a shipper in Chicago, for example, to route his freight through any of the North Atlantic ports on exactly the same basis of rates. As a result of -war conditions the ocean rates were equalized with resultant disad- vantage to Boston and New York. Today a shipper in Chicago must pay more to send his European bound goods through Boston or New York than through Baltimore. A contract for building three steel lightships for the government has been awarded to the Albina Marine Iron Works for about $500,000.