From W. G. BURNS
I was delighted to read Mick Hamer’s piece (Technology, 24 April) describing
a proposed new oil tanker design with a twin diesel-electric propulsion
system which might have avoided the recent Shetland (Braer) oil disaster,
when water pollution stalled the ship’s single engine.
I have been actively criticising the technical design of oil tankers and
particularly liquid natural gas carriers since 1973, when I first saw a
design model of a large single-engine, single-rudder carrier intended to
carry bulk liquid natural gas from Sarawak to Japan. Since then I have
actively pressed in newspapers and journals for professional designs
incorporating twin engines, twin propellers, twin rudders, twin steering
engines plus fore and aft thrusters.
I note that even this new breakthrough oil tanker design has only a single
propeller with coupled engines, which means the crew could not steer it by
engines alone. This was a factor in the Amoco Cadiz, which fouled the coast
of northern France when its single-steering engine failed.
Why spoil this new, highly innovative design by not having full twin
redundancy, with twin propellers, twin rudders and twin steering engines?
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W. G. Burns
Canberra, Australia.
