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En route to her sea trials, the LNG Aquarius "squeezes" through the Fore River Drawbridge. Three of her five sisterships currently under construction at the Quincy shipyard are shown in the background. The LNG Aquarius Is The First Of Twelve LNG Tankers Being Built By General Dynamics by the shipyard's 1,200-ton-capacity Goliath crane, the largest in the Western Hemis- phere. The highly sophisticated LNG Aquarius will carry a crew of 30, will have a top speed in excess of 20 knots, and can load and dis- charge its cargo in 12 hours. Quincy has the capacity to build four of the LNG tankers yearly. LNG AQUARIUS STATISTICS Length, OA, ft 936.0 Length, BP, ft 897. Length on 36-ft-draft waterline, ft 897.0 Beam, molded, ft-in 143.6 Depth, ft 82. Design draft, ft 36.0 Scantling draft, ft-in 37.9 Displacement, long tons 95,088 Deadweight, long tons 63,600 Shaft horsepower 43,00 Speed, knots 20.4 SPECIFICATION SUMMARY Hull and Machinery Range (Fuel Oil Only) About 10,500 Nautical Miles Fuel Oil 6,600 Long Tons Fresh Water 470 Long Tons Diesel Oil 185 Long Tons Steam Turbine 43,000 Shaft Horsepower Single Propeller 103 RPM Fuel Heavy Fuel Oil or in combination with LNG Boil-off Air-Conditioning Plant 120 Tons Bow Thruster 2,200 Horsepower Bow Anchors (2) @ 27,900 Pounds Cargo System Cargo Tanks 5 Spherical Aluminum Tanks (120 feet inside diameter) Tank Volume 126,750 cubic meters @ 100% Full and —265 F Loading/Unloading Time 12 Hours Cargo Pumps (10) Capacity (minimum) - 1,100 cubic meters per hour Accommodations 35 Accommodations Including 2 Owner, 11 Officers, 1 Pilot, 2 cadets and 19 CPO and crew. (One man per stateroom) Private Toilets and Showers Dining Room, Lounge, and Recreation Rooms for Officers and Crew The largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker ever built in the U.S. was named on May 27, during ceremonies at General Dy- namics Quincy shipyard in Massachusetts. Mrs. David S. Lewis, wife of the chairman and chief executive officer of General Dy- namics, officially named the supertanker LNG Aquarius, before a crowd of several thousand invited guests and shipyard workers and their families gathered at the yard. The 936-foot-long, 95,000-ton vessel is the Mrs. David S. Lewis, wife of the chairman of the Gen- eral Dynamics Corp., watches bursting champagne after she named the new tanker LNG Aquarius. Along- side is P. Takis Veliotis, president, Shipbuilding Divi- sion of General Dynamics. first of 12 being built by General Dynamics. Five of the 12 ships will be used to trans- port LNG from Algeria to the U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports, while the other seven will carry gas from Indonesia to Japan. All the ships will operate under American registry and will be manned by American crews. The LNG Aquarius has been delivered and will enter initial service on the Indonesia to Japan route later this year under long-term charter to a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Com- pany. The naming ceremony culminated more than three years of construction effort on the LNG Aquarius, one of the most techno- logically advanced merchant ships ever built. The tanker will carry 125,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas on each trip, enough gas to serve an American city of 500,000 for a month. The gas will be carried in five 120-foot-diameter spherical aluminum cargo tanks at a temperature of minus 265 degrees Fahrenheit. The 2-inch-thick walls of the tanks are covered with 9 inches of polyure- thane insulation to help maintain the very low temperature and prevent boil-off of the gas. The liquefaction process reduces the vol- ume of the gas some 600 times. The 850-ton spherical tanks are produced at General Dynamics Charleston, S.C., fabri- cation facility and transported to Quincy by barge, where they are installed in the tankers MAJOR SUPPLIERS Aqua-Chem Desalination unit, pump and accessories Airco LNG compressors Alco Diesel for generator Ansul Fire extinguishers Baldt Anchors and chain Bird-Johnson Bow thruster Carrier Reefer plant for AC system Carter Cargo pumps, cargo cooldown spray pumps Cutler Hammer Group control centers, controllers Foster Wheeler Main boilers Frigitemp Joiner work, insulation Gas Atmospheres Inert gas/dry air plant General Electric Main turbines and gears, thrust bearings, turbogenerators, motors ITE Switchboard ITT Mackay Marine Radio system Jorgensen Forgings, main propeller shafting Walter Kidde Carbon monoxide system Lake Shore Anchor windlass, mooring winches Lidgerwood Steering gear Posi Seal Butterfly valves Reactor Controls Engine room and bridge consoles Royal Butterfly valves Rudman Scofield Commissary equipment Simmonds Precision Custody transfer system Sperry Marine Collision-avoidance, gyrocompass and gyropilot steering systems Wager Visual photoelectric smoke indicators, inverted vent check valves, soot blowers (Copes-Vulcan) De Laval Main condenser Ferguson Propelle ITT Mackay Marine Radio system, automatic direction finder Radiomarine Radar systems, Loran A C receiver Raytheon Doppler log system, recording echo depth sounder Warren Pumps Westinghouse Forced draft blowers Worthington Deaerating feed heater July 1, 1977 7
