Biggest U.S. Tanker

In a pouring rain one day last week, S.S. Cities Service Baltimore slid down the ways at Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point shipyard near Baltimore. It is the largest tanker (32,000 deadweight tons) and cargo ship to fly the U.S. flag, with a top speed of 16 1/2 knots and a cargo capacity of 11,473,350 gals., and is so designed that it can carry 18 kinds of oil at once.* Cities Service Baltimore is also the first ship launched under the Maritime Administration's "trade-in-and-build" plan, designed to retire tankers more than ten years old and replace them with ships fast enough for maritime military use.

Cities Service traded in seven World War II T-2 tankers for an average credit of $800,000 apiece to be applied against three supertankers costing a total of $25 million. The three new tankers, all to be delivered by year's end, will more than double the cargo capacity of the old ones, at a total price to Cities Service of $19 million. Esso Shipping Co. has traded five wartime tankers to the Government for $5,500,000, added another $15 million of its own money and will receive two new 35,000-ton-plus supertankers. Texas Co. turned in two old tankers, expects an 18, 500-ton replacement, at a cost of $6,000,000, some time this summer.

* Largest cargo ship under any flag: D. K. Ludwig's Sinclair Petrolore (55,000 deadweight tons), with a speed of 15 knots. She flies the Liberian flag.

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