Building
The Vickers-Armstrong shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness built all five "Strath" class liners. Strathaird was launched on 18 July 1931, completed in January 1932 and left Tilbury on her maiden voyage on 12 February 1932.
In 1929 P&O had introduced its first large turbo-electric liner, RMS Viceroy of India. The company chose the same propulsion system for Strathnaver and Strathaird, but the "Straths" were slightly larger ships, their turbo-electric equipment was much more powerful and they were about 3 knots (5.6 km/h) faster than Viceroy of India.
Strathaird was very similar to Strathnaver. Each had four water-tube boilers and two auxiliary boilers. The boilers had a combined heating surface of 56,000 square feet (5,203 m2) and supplied steam at 425 lbf/in2 to two turbo generators. These supplied current to two electric motors with a combined rating of 6,315 NHP or 28,000 shp. British Thomson-Houston of Rugby, Warwickshire built the turbo-generators and motors. The motors drove a pair of inward-rotating screw propellers. Like Strathnaver, Strathaird had three funnels but only the middle one served as a smoke stack: the first and third funnels were dummies.
Strathaird and Strathnaver were each equipped with direction finding equipment, an echo sounding device and a gyrocompass As built, Strathaird had accommodation for 498 first class and 668 tourist class passengers.
Read more about this topic: RMS Strathaird
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