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3 * : ¥ : OTT 1 called Sap suieceisenuscnesisaven & BOISE # ener a8 ae ILE DE FRANCE, LATEST FRENCH LINER, ARRIVED IN NEW YORK JUNE 28 ON HER MAIDEN VOYAGE Duplicate of S. S. California Ordered NNOUNCEMENT was made on A July 5 by the International ™~ Mercantile Marine, that it has placed’ an order with the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. for a second ship for its Panama Pacific line intercoastal. service. The new vessel will be identical with the CALIFORNIA, now under con- struction at Newport News for this service, and will have the same type of propulsion, turbo-electric drive. ‘All her auxiliaries, as in the CALIFORNIA, will be electric. The turbo-electric drive was devel- oped by*the United States navy, and is employed in several. of its largest battleships, but hitherto has not been installed in a large commercial ves- sel. Absence of noise, flexibility of control and economy of operation are claimed for it. It is expected that the new ship will be ready for delivery in the spring of 1929. The CALIFoRNIA will be launched about Oct. 1, and will take her place in the New York-San Francisco service in January next, with the MoNGoLIA and MANCHURIA. With its new tonnage, the Panama Pacific. line will have the two largest ships built: under the American flag. Each will register about 22,000 tons gross, and will exceed 30,000 tons displacement. Their contract speed is to be 18 knots, and they will cut two days from the present length of the voyage between New York and Cali- fornia ports. Each will have a capac- ity for 800 passengers and 8000 tons of freight. Special attention is given in their design to refrigerated car- go, and each will have 100,000 cubic feet of space suitable for the ship- ment of fruits and other perishable commodities. Care will be taken to emphasize American craftsmanship in the fit- tings and decoration of both vessels. Their interior decorations will be adaptations of the Colonial style, as seen in old mansions in the Eastern | states, and in specimens of rooms and furniture preserved in the American wing of the Metropolitan museum of art at New York. Suggestions of Western development and the adventures of earlier days in the Caribbean sea, at the Isthmus and in California, will be conveyed by means of mural decorations of an historical character, showing the course of the Spanish discoverers, the buccaneers, the early English ex- plorers of the Pacific, and the pio- neers of early western days, with their ox teams and covered wagons. S. S. California Progress Installation of joiner work on the CALIFORNIA, under construction at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. has now begun, marking a definite advance in the progress of work on the hull. Woodwork in the refrigerators was the -first to be in- stalled, consisting of heavy insulated walls of spruce, with gratings of ash. All the parts had previously been gotten out in the joiner shops. MARINE REVIEW—August, 1927 No other American built ship has such large refrigerator space as the CALIFORNIA, in’ which’ no less. than 100,000 cubic feet will be devoted to refrigerator cargo. Of this, 60,000 cubic. feet will be cool air space, for the preservation of fresh fruits, and 40,000 feet will be devoted to frozen cargo. Temperature for the cool air space will be regulated by means of first passing air through a chamber containing brine coils, and then circu- lating it around the cargo by means of fans and vents. Work on other woodwork, on the lower decks of the hull, will be car- ried on steadily until the ship is completed. Framework of the upper decks is now being finished and the plating of the lower decks is com- pleted, except for riveting in certain parts. The ship’s electric-drive machinery, auxiliaries and boilers are all in place, and her rudder, which with its stock weighs 45 tons, is now in _ place. The rudder is of the balanced type, similar to that on the MAJESTIC, and is unusually large, to allow a margin of safety for steering at low speed in the Panama canal. Inspection of the hull of the CALIFORNIA recently by officials of the International Mercantile Marine Co., for which the vessel is being built, resulted in expressions of satisfaction as to the progress and quality of the work on the ship. It is expected that rapid progress will now be made to completion. 15