Biggest to Sea

To get the 79,000-ton Normandie, world's largest ship, away from St. Nazaire where she was built, hardy Bretons have dredged out of the harbor a special channel six miles long, made more exciting by five unavoidably sharp curves. Last week the completed Normandie, drawing 40 ft. of water and with the French Line Chairman Marcel Olivier aboard, was shoved off by ten frantically churning tugs while Bretons, gathered from miles around, cheered and whooped in the rain. Hardly had the Normandie cleared the first buoy when driving mists shut her out of sight from shore. Most ticklish moment came when she was eased past the sunken wreck of the Beignon. Then the four largest electric motors in the world began to turn the Normandie's four propellers, each with a diameter equal to the height of a two-story house, and out into the murk she thrust.

Newshawks were assigned to the French Destroyer Foudroyant, bucking and wallowing through the gale. Since no destroyer could keep up speed in such a blow, the Normandie, designed as the world's fastest liner with a speed of 32 knots plus, soon vanished from the Foudroyant's sight, planned to cruise to the Azores, returning for her maiden voyage from Havre to Manhattan on May 29.

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