ACROSS the road from a golf course and next to a verdant, cow-filled field in Whetstone, a village about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in England, there is a ship's engine-room in a barn. The area is dripping with history—Frank Whittle, one of the inventors of the jet engine, used a neighbouring shed for his project—but this is not some clanking historical curiosity, such as a steam engine rebuilt by an amateur enthusiast. The whirring gas turbine and whining motor being put through their paces in bucolic Leicestershire are at the cutting edge of maritime engineering. The electric drive being tested there could represent the next leap forward in ship design, as significant a technological shift as the one from sail to steam power in the 19th century.
