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‘Marine Review July 1951 ae New Dollar Liners President Coolidge and President Hoover at Yard of Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Va. “ EDIPORIAL | Future of the Diesel Engine In Propelling Ships HE recent performance of steam vessels has been much improved and the publicity has been widespread. The results accomplished, for instance, with the Duchess class, the EM- PRESS OF JAPAN and lately the even better per- formance of the EMPRESS OF BRITAIN, have re- ceived acknowledgement the world over and are known by shipowners, operators and engineers everywhere. Nothing comparable to this has been heard of from the diesel engine in recent years. Steam advocates are now in a compara- tively complacement mood as indicated by the statement in a recent article in one of our lead- ing British contemporaries to the effect that “erx tenths pound of oil per shaft horsepower per hour for all purposes is attainable and main- tained in present day steam engineering. AS this on cost is distinctly better than can be ob- tained for diesel propulsion, there is no imme- diate urge to improve upon it and the tendency is rather to gain experience with the already large number of existing installations before ad- MaRINE REview—July, 1931 vancing further.’’ What does the diesel engine advocate have to say in the face of such as- surance? The managing director, Dr. H. H. Blache, of Burmeister & Wain, whose success and exper- ience in the building of marine diesel engines cannot be questioned, in a recent paper before the Institution of Naval Architects in which ac- tual operating results are given, is of the opin- ion that at the present stage of the marine diesel engine, it is adaptable for all types of ships from a 35 horsepower engine in fishing craft to a 20,000 horsepower plant as installed in the mo- torship BRITANNIC. He believes that the diesel engine should be adopted when burning oil and the steam engine, when burning coal. All prog- ress in the higher economy of coal consumption and the easier handling of coal which add to the competitive power of coal fired steamers as against diesel engine ships, Dr. Blache believes should be viewed with the greatest interest in a coal producing country, but he cannot under- stand why the advocates of steam generated by oil seem to be equally favored. He goes on to point out the improvement: in the economy of oil fired steam plants to 0.65 pound per brake horsepower per hour for steam driven plants of fast running passenger liners and that lead- 13