The Rise of the Empire

Chapter 448: Shipping Tycoon II

This is also true. In history, the Americans and Japanese made great fortunes during the First World War. Naturally, this was also the case in shipping. There was even a Japanese crew member who bought a ship with a friend after resignation, and directly after the end of the war. The business of opening a shipping company, during this period of time, Japan's marine transportation profit margin was as high as 150%! Therefore, if we can continue to carry out maritime transportation in the name of a neutral country, we can naturally obtain great benefits. And in the transportation process, it can also provide some help for German submarines and raid ships outside, such as providing fuel, food, medicine, etc.

"Then are you going to do freight or passenger transport?" Princess Mary thought for a while and asked.

"Naturally, it is necessary to do freight, and the cost of passenger transportation is too high. Even if it is used for passenger transportation, it will definitely not be a fast cruise." Wang said. At one time, high-speed cruise ships and battleships were a symbol of national strength. Don’t you see it? In 1897, the Germans built the Kaiser Wilhelm cruise ship with a displacement of up to 14,000 tons and a speed of 22.5 knots. And set the record for the fastest ship to and from the Atlantic.

Behind the scenery of the cruise ship is huge expenditure. The speed of the ship is not directly proportional to the fuel consumption. Take the famous cruiser Emden in history as an example. This ship has a normal displacement of more than 3,600 tons and a full displacement of more than 4,000 tons. If a light cruiser sails at an economical speed of 12 knots, it consumes only 2 tons of coal per hour, and if it sails at a speed of 23 knots, it consumes 15.7 tons of coal per hour! Almost 8 times the economic speed!

If converted into the consumption of the same voyage, it is 4 times! Not to mention that the later blue ribbons could travel between the two sides of the Atlantic at a speed of 24 knots or even 26 knots. Not to mention construction costs and maintenance costs, the fuel consumption alone is very alarming.

Some people may say that it is possible to sail at a slow speed. Now the problem is again. Premium cruise ships are aimed at high-end customers. What people need is time. If you double the time you sail at sea, how do you calculate the price? In addition, fuel is saved, but the expenses for food, accommodation, and service personnel of thousands of people on the ship have increased, so getting high-speed cruises is a very risky thing. In history, those blue ribbons were also in trouble for economic reasons. Including the cruise ship Kaiser and the cruise ship Bismarck, which were compensated to the British after World War I.

"Then you need to ask your Italian designer to design a good ship for us." Princess Mary said with a slightly displeased lips. For women, in addition to shopping, all kinds of clothes, and those shiny and golden things, they also like sports cars and other cool things, and as a princess of a country, it is understandable that she likes luxury cruises... ....

"Uh, recently due to some well-known reasons, Vittorio Cuniberti and I have some disagreements, but if you want to say a suitable ocean-going carrier, I have one!" said the prince.

From the current point of view, the ship, as long as it can be installed, the high-tech and high-input express cruise prince does not plan to get it, and there are no high-end ships such as natural gas ships, mixed passenger and cargo ships, and container ships. On the contrary, the most practical ship is a ship that is convenient for mass production and super-installable, such as a freewheel!

Of course, this plane of Germany cannot be compared with the United States in the 2nd World War. Not to mention the assembly of a ship in less than 5 days, the prince of a 14-ton cargo ship that can be completed in 300 days is Amitabha! However, some of the methods and ideas can still be used for reference.

The first point is product modularization and standardized production! The various accessories of a ship should be standardized as much as possible and distributed to as many factories as possible for production. The principle is similar to that of an assembly line, but it is only made bigger. The prince has already done tentative work in this regard. The prototype of the Seawolf assault ship is actually a civilized ship produced by labeling.

Second, with suitable tonnage and various accessories, it makes sense for the freewheel to choose a displacement of 14,000 tons, because if the tonnage is too small, the sea trial and economy of the ship will be poor. After all, everything is about a scale effect. If it is too large, then the difficulty and cost of construction will be very problematic. So at the beginning, the size of the prince's choice of cargo ship was between 5,000 and 7,000 tons. Now, since he wants to engage in ocean-going ships, he naturally has to increase the tonnage to about 10,000 tons. The ship has a length of more than 100 meters, a width of 20 meters, and a draft of about 7.5 meters. Enough to adapt to most ports in the world.

As for the so-called accessories, it is in response to the diversity of cargo carried by ships. The structure of the freewheel built during the war was very simple, with a total of eight cabins, and the bow cabin was loaded with ballast water and anchor rooms. The fourth cabin in the middle of the hull is the power cabin. The power of the ship is very low. It uses an old-fashioned steam engine with an output of several thousand horsepower and a maximum speed of 11 knots. Then the remaining 6 are all cargo warehouses, and this kind of cargo warehouse has only two floors.

During the war, these ships transported heavy-skinned goods such as planes, artillery, cans, and ammunition. Such a simple result can naturally make do, but if it is normal, then it is inevitable to transport some perishable food crops or other vulnerable items. In this case, the open cargo warehouse needs to be improved. In order to accommodate some fragile items ~lightnovelpub.net~, it is also necessary to set up multiple decks.

The Prince’s method is to produce some other accessories while producing this simple ship, so that it can be used for the transportation of a variety of goods after being improved in the port. Originally, the prince wanted to see if he could get a standardized container for later generations.

But looking at the current situation, cars are not popular, how can the large containers unloaded from the port be transported? Do you use a carriage? Obviously not! Therefore, the prince decided to start getting some smaller standardized boxes, which could be towed by a carriage and accepted by the current unloading equipment such as cranes.

In terms of power selection, the prince finally chose a kerosene mixed-fired boiler for two reasons. The first reason is that the cost of a kerosene mixed-fired boiler of the same power is lower than that of a pure coal boiler. The second reason is that the cost of using a kerosene mixed-burning boiler is relatively low. With the same quality, the best coal can burn about half of the heavy oil. And coal needs to be cleaned of coal ash. The labor cost will be relatively high. Secondly, these ships are going to run international routes, and if they run the Americas route, there will be no shortage of heavy fuel. After all, the United States is now the largest oil producer. And if there is no oil, coal can be improvised!

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