Mafhilda's Granddaughter

Like a dignified dowager being escorted into a drawing room, the glistening white ship moved up New York's harbor last week. A Navy blimp, helicopters, patrol boats, tugs and water-tossing fireboats hovered around her. A "home-longing pennant"--42 meters long for the 42 months she was abuilding--fluttered from her aftermast. Other liners roared their welcomes to the Swedish American Line's Kungsholm* newest addition to the North Atlantic fleet and a big sister to the Gripsholm.

Far from the fastest (19 knots) or biggest (22,071 tons) member of that fleet, the Kungsholm justified all Sweden's pride in her. She has an atmosphere of quiet elegance. All cabins have a bath and their own air-conditioning controls; all are outside.

The Kungsholm also looked like a handsome moneymaker because of the ease with which she can switch accommodations depending on her bookings. Although designed for 626 tourist--and 176 first-class passengers for the North Atlantic run, one entire deck can be converted from first to tourist by closing two doors. On cruises (400 passengers), a children's playroom becomes a snack bar; two cargo hatches, swimming pools.

Her profits are also helped by Sweden's fast tax-amortization laws. From the day the contract was let for the $10 million ship, SAL could start writing off 20% of her cost. Furthermore, Swedish shipping unions demand less than half the American scale, though the country's sailors are still the highest-paid in Europe. They also get outside double rooms and their own swimming pool on cruises.

SAL has consistently made money except for two depression and two World War II years when seven of her freighters were sunk. Since 1946. SAL has paid annual dividends of 15%, and last year tossed in a 25% stock bonus. As an unsubsidized line, SAL does not have to buy in Sweden if prices are less elsewhere. The Kungsholm was built in Holland of German steel, uses Danish diesels and U.S. air conditioning.

SAL's stock is widely held by small Swedish investors (and 508 Americans), but working control of the line, which runs 24 ships, belongs to Sweden's Brostroem Lines, one of the world's ten biggest (694,483 tons) shippers. The combine was started in 1865 when 27-year-old Axel Brostroem borrowed money to buy a wooden trading ketch, Mathilda. Last week Axel's grandson and SAL's board chairman, Tor Erland Brostroem, stood on the Kungsholm's glassed-in decks and beamed as New York harbor saluted Mathilda's youngest descendant.

* The first Kungsholm, originally leased for a year from the Holland-American Line, was scrapped in 1929 by HAL. The second Kungsholm, built in 1928, became famed as a cruise ship in the 19303, was taken over by the U.S. in late 1941 and converted into a troopship. Renamed the Italia, she is now owned by Italy's Home Lines, Inc., and operates on a North Atlantic run.

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