OCR Text |
Show 11 NONSINKABLE SHIP IN ' ! WAR ZONE, '.i Sometime this week, tho Lucia, said to be a nonsinkablo ship, will leave t Now York with a cargo for Europe. It will bo America's defl to the U-boats. ! The ship, it is stated, will go without ' convoy and invite the submarines to . explode their torpedoes against the sides of tho vessel. Press dispatches tell us the Lucia ' formerly belonged to Austria, is of 1 9000 tons, and has been transformed in the past four months by having 32,- 000 water-tight cells placed in the body , of tho vessel, while 35 to 20 per cent of tho cargo is to bo made up of theso buoyant boxes. It Is claimed that though a torpedo did blow a hole 40 Xoct long in the side of the Lucia, tho r, ship would not go down. Unless shattered, shat-tered, the Lucia could proceed to port, howover slowly. In any event neither lives nor cargo would be likely to be lost, for succoring vessels either could tow her to port or salvage at tho spot the undamaged part of the cargo. Tho invoutor, who is W. F. Donnel-;' Donnel-;' I ' ly, marine engineer of New York, has the confidence of the shipping board, j the members of which have sanctioned the sending of tho Lucia to sea without 1 J convoy. This will bo a supremo test ' and. if tho cargo carrier is torpedood I, , and then makes port, tho performance ' will point tho way for the solving of the submarine problem. Transports i -will bo made nonsinkablo and the p ' dread of the U-boat will cease to exist, |