Supervised at MGM by A Arnold Gillespie, the model featured in this light entertainment musical is a 54 foot (16.5m) long Passenger ship called the "Mayflower". It is built at 3/4" = 12" or 1/16th scale. The ships wake is produced by pumps and what Arnold Gillespie in his book " The Wizard of MGM" calls "syphons". I assume this to mean that there is a venturi effect with a water pump arranged to suck air into the system producing bubbles or white water. The bow wave is effected with nozzles mounted at the bow just under the surface of the water and angled back and up producing that curving wave topped with foam.
For the rough ocean shots there were 3 wave machines in the foreground and three in the back. Also there were three wind machines mounted at the back above the wave machines and a total of 6 modified surplus aircraft as wind machines, two of which were mounted on floating pontoons.
A shot of the ship's deck combines the studio partial set with a matte painting and miniature ocean shot in the tank. All the night scenes are shot in full daylight using filtering and altering the exposure to suit.
One of the shots of the Liner was re-used in the Fred Astaire Movie Royal Wedding 1951.
