RMS Empress of Australia
RMS Empress of Australia, originally named Tirpitz, was an ocean liner built in 1913-1919 by Vulcan AG shipyard in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland) for the Hamburg Amerika Line, for its South American service.
Completed only in 1921, she formed part of the British Reparation tonnage, and was purchased from the British Government by Canadian Pacific Steamships, and renamed Empress of Australia. After the ship was taken over, the boilers, of a modified Yarrow type, were fitted for oil-burning and some other alterations made. In June, 1922, the Empress of Australia completed steam trials, and thereafter was employed on the Pacific service, a notable incident in her career there being the part played in the rescue of the sufferers from the Japanese earthquake of September, 1923.
1922 "This ship, which recently left the Clyde for Vancouver and passed through the Panama Canal early in July, is a vessel the performance of which will be watched with great interest, since she is the first large ocean-going liner to be fitted with Fottinger transformers. The Fottinger transfonner came into prominence at a time when the steam turbine had just achieved its first marine success, and shortly before the war it was looked upon as one of the most important developments in transmission and reduction machinery.
During the war considerable progress was made by the Vulcan Works at Stettin and Hamburg, which not only equipped three torpedo destroyers with two-shaft propelling machinery of 12,500 horse-power per shaft and a small cruiser with similar machinery of 20,000 horse-power per shaft, but also had under construction 10,000 horse-power Fottinger transformer sets for battleships. The machinery of the ex-Tirpitz - now the Empress of Australia - remains at present the only large installation in commercial service, but the results obtained from the transformers already constructed would seem to indicate that in spite of the lower efficiency as compared with toothed gearing, there are compensating advantages, particularly for large outputs, on account of the small size of the transformer, its small weight and its comparatively large astern power. " From The Engineer 1922/07/07
1927 Major modification was undertaken - largely due to the failure of the original machinery to fulfil performance expectations - resulting in a considerable reduction in fuel consumption, together with an increase of speed, under service conditions, of 3 knots. The hull, in general, remained as originally constructed. The disaster of the Titanic was fresh in the designers’ minds when the ship was built, and with a cellular double bottom extending for almost the full length and a very complete system of water-tight sub-division. The ship was 615 ft. overall, by 75 ft. broad, with a depth, to the upper deck, of 46 ft. 3 in., and a gross tonnage of 21,850. The new propulsion machinery comprised six double-ended boilers and one single-ended one with a working pressure of 220 psi, and two sets of triple-expansion Parsons-type turbines made by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Co of Govan, one set on each shaft, driving the propellers through single-reduction gearing. The total shaft horse-power, with propeller revolutions of 125 per minute, was 20,000, but an overload of 21,000 shaft horse-power could be obtained. The astern turbines were compound, and could develop 14,000 shaft horse-power.[2] [3]
See Also
- Read more on the ships' construction in Foettinger Transformers on a Liner (pp 4-5)