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Show There's Profit in It Shipless U. S. Shipper Conjures Vision of Great Super-Liner By Frederick C Othmaa WASHINGTON In a small office her I aa elderly eitixen with a salty tongue, nam of Paul Wadsworth Chapman, who la president of Liberty Lines, Inc. This is a shipping company without a ahtp. All th skipper has Is an Idea. Hs want to build th biggest ocean liner in th history of th world. Two of "em. In fact. Ordinarily, a reportsrlike m would kin off a politely a possible pos-sible such aa old gentleman and certainly not writ a piece for th paper about him. But this is no ordinary Mr. Chapman. He used to be president of th United State Line and aa such th proprietor of the Leviathan, the mightiest ocean greyhound ever built. She wa a good hlp, but only 950 feet long. A little too short to suit th skipper. Hi calculation Indicate that a ship has got to b 1250 feet In length, If she ia to ride amoothly through any kind of see. A boat any shorter in heavy weather ia likely to bounce, even aa th Levi used to. New Idea AU th Way So Chapman haa a design for the doggondest ship anybody ever say. H hss a model of her under glass. She's a full 1250 feet long, better than 400 feet wide, and so roomy that Chapman Chap-man calculates she'U have 5000 cabins, each with twin beds and private bath. (He' got model of these, too.) And here's where the statistics get a little dizzying- The Liberty Lines' commodore figures that ah could carry 10,000 paasengers to Europe at a crack, and at 350 a head they'd turn a handsome profit But, ay he, figure on 5000 passenger passen-ger at 1100 each. Make your eyes bulge. Her steam turbine, grinding out 368,000 horsepower, would end her across th North Atlantic At-lantic In four day at 34 knots per hour. She'd be too big to dock In New York, but Chapman says he ha her home port all Sicked out This, at th moment, i a secret Convert to Transport ' Com a war and Chapman's ship would turn instantly, or almost into a combination aircraft air-craft carrier and troop transport trans-port Her twin stacks (which are phonys he'd keep only because they make her look like a ship) would telescope below decks and automatically she'd be the biggest big-gest flattop In existence. Inside he figures she'd carry 30,000 troops, easily, but without private pri-vate bathe. He's got to build two ships, because one 1 no good for a hipping company that want to make money. That waa th big trouble with the Leviathan. There was only one and hence he couldn't maintain a weekly schedule 8hips like the 8. S. Sally, undsr plats glass In miniature, are costly aa sin, full sis. One of the liners would cost about $125,000,000 to build, but Chapman Chap-man estimates that the pair of them could be put in the water for 1200.000,000. Handy hi Case of War Sine they'd be exceedingly handy in ess of war. Chapman figures it's only fair that the government put up most of the money. So that's why he's in Washington, giving the statesmen states-men a took at his models. This I nothing new to him. He used to spend a good part of his life In the capital, worrying with th government worrying about th financing of th V. S. Lines. He's in no particular hurry about getting started, being by nature a patient man. But he would like to see the 8. S. Sally and th 8. S. Teddy, named after hi father and mother, plowing the Atlantic before he dies. What will happen to the skipper and th Liberty Line I hesitate hesi-tate to predict But I do hop that when I hit TO, I'll be as full of Idea and energy aa he. Copyright, 1949. United Feature Syndicate 1 |