Abstract
A. C. HARDY, in the Electrician of October 13, discusses the part that electrically propelled ships are likely to play in the present conflict, and whether this is likely to have a great effect on the future of electrically propelled and Diesel-electric ships. A number of coasters use Diesel generating power not only for propulsion but also largely for winches, windlass and other ancillary purposes. In Amsterdam, turbo-electric vessels are being built and they are now fitting out a pair of ‘units’ with a special method of propulsion. One of these two ships is the passenger and cargo turbo-electric vessel Josef Stalin, designed by the Netherlands Shipbuilding Co. for the Soviet Government, in accordance with the requirements of the U.S.S.R. Shipping Register. This vessel and her sister ship have accommodation for 48 first-class, 164 second, and 296 third-class passengers and also a crew of 102. They have a length of about 133 metres overall with a beam of 18·5 metres, a depth of 9·65 metres and a gross tonnage of about 7,500. It is stated that their turbo-generators deliver about 14,000 S.H.P., to the two shafts. In this respect, on two screws the new ship will develop within 1,000 h.p. of the maximum output of the big German liner Patria, the largest Diesel-electric ship afloat. The Josef Stalin and her sister ship are expected to have a speed of about 20 knots and they will be among the fastest electric ships in existence. Three large turbo-electric all-welded vessels which were launched recently in the United States have made a great step in advance by using very high pressure and very high temperature steam. If the future should show that there will be a demand for Diesel engines applied to ships having even higher powers than they have at present, it looks as if the struggle for supremacy would lie between Diesel-electric A.C. drive and Diesel-geared drive.
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Electric Propulsion at Sea. Nature 144, 780 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144780a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144780a0