NEW-TYPE OF TWIN-HULL MULTI-PURPOSE SHIP FROM THE BRAKE SHIPYARD

A brief description is given of a project, developed by the C. Luhring shipyard at Brake (on the lower Weser), for a ship which, while designed for collecting oil spillage from the sea, when not so employed could serve as a coastal tanker. The hull is constructed in two halves, locked together along the vertical longitudinal plane to form a more or less conventional twin-screw broadbeam ship. The two halves are hinged together at the stern so that, after being unlocked, they can be opened out (to about 65 deg. in the model tested) and locked to form an "open" triangle with an entrance about 80 m wide. Each half-hull has a rudder-propeller at the stern, and also has a retractable rudder-propeller at the bow which provides the thrust for opening-out to form the triangle and for positioning the ship in the polluted area. The first tests have been carried out, with satisfactory results, on a 1:16 model at the Hamburg tank with the co-operation of Germanischer Lloyd and the Schiffcobureau; the article includes a brief account of these tests, in which the effectiveness of the triangular space in collecting material on the water surface was demonstrated and the forces in the stern-hinge were measured in a seaway. Order from BSRA as No. 49,896.