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Don, with regard to the hull shape, the Neth. Steamship Cy (SMN) wanted a three week service one way (AMS-Batavia is around 15 000 km) which translates in a minimum speed of around 16 kts average. With a (future) running mate from the Rotterdam Lloyd ( the later Willem Ruys), this would lead to a 1 1/2 week service to the East Indies. So to build a motorship capable of that average speed, they needed a maximum speed of around 25 or 26 kts. The only way to achieve that for a 20 000 tonner was to install 3 huge Sulzer diesel engines with 12 500 hp. Including the auxilliary diesels, total installed power was 46 500 hp. See pic 1, notice the worker standing to the left side of the one of the auxilliary engines, on the left to get a feeling for the size of these engines.
This meant the hull would be very wide, which is good for stability. However, the fees for the Suez canal were calculated on the basis of the width of the main deck, and this factor together with a wish to avoid inner cabins for this tropical liner, the designers therefore opted to narrow the main deck as much as feasible. This lead to this special inward curving hull.
The max speed of the Oranje proved to be 26,5 kts (49 km/hr!) on test runs, making it the fastest motorship in the world at the time.
So far for the technical backgrounds for today, for the boring work on planking the decks goes on and on, see pic 2. When that is done, I'll be back with more progress.
Where possible, I'll also include some more technical information on this ship, if you forum members are interested in such tid-bits.
Greetings.
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