Nantasket Test

Into the middle of the James River near Lee Hall, Va., last week tugs towed from her anchorage the dirty, 389-ft. freighter Nantasket, built in 1918 for the Wartime Emergency fleet. Aboard were experts appointed by the U. S. Senate's Commerce Committee to find ways of preventing future fires at sea as fatal as the Morro Castle disaster. While spectators lined the nearby shores, the experts proceeded to do their best to burn up the Nantasket.

Specially constructed on the ship were eight staterooms made of wood, metal and asbestos panels submitted as fireproof by various manufacturers. In each stateroom were piled 750 Ib. of tinder-dry oak logs and scrap kindling, representing the combustible material in an average stateroom. Located inside and outside each room were electric thermocouples connected with dials in a recording room. In each stateroom the experts started a fire, let it roar. In each case the inside heat reached 1,700DEG. This made the half-inch steel plates of the Nantasket turn red-hot and buckle. Glass doors cracked but held. Some of the panels under test bulged and transmitted intense heat to the outside. Others resisted it so well that the outside thermocouple registered only 250DEG.

Satisfied that the fire-resisting material had shown them how to confine ship blazes to their place of origin, the experts disembarked from the gutted old Nantasket, refused to disclose which materials had made good, but announced that they would present their conclusions to the Senate as a basis for legislation to make all U. S. passenger ships completely fireproof.

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