NEW MAURETANIA

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 15

NEW MAURETANIA

♦- LINER LAUNCHED AT BIRKENHEAD A 30,000-TON VESSEL LONDON, July 28. Lady Bates, wife of Sir Percy Bates, chairman of the Cunard White Star Line, in the presence of a large gathering, launched at Cammell'Laird’s Birkenhead yard the new Mauretania, a vessel of 30,000 tons. This vessel, the largest intermediate liner so far built in England, was laid down on May 24, 1937. To bring a ship of this size to the launching stage in 14 months is considered an astonishing feat, the more so as Cammell Laird is simultaneously building about 15 other vessels, including the 35,000ton battleship Prince of Wales. The Mauretania will be ready for sea next spring. Her maiden voyage will conincide with the New York World Fair. Everything about the Mauretania is on the imposing scale. The main gear wheels interposed between the turbines and the twin-propeller shafts are the largest ever built for a liner, measuring 46ft in circumference and weighing 85 tons each. The propellers weigh 25 tons each, and are equal in size to those of the 81,000ton Queen Mary. . , . The new liner will bring fresh tradition to a name famous on the sea for nearly 30 years. Ocean travellers mourned the old Mauretania when she sailed on her last voyage to the break-ing-up yard at Rosyth in July, 1935. But her name did not die. To save it for a new liner, it was transferred to a paddle steamer at Southampton. For 22 years the old Mauretania held the world’s speed record for the Atlantic crossing. Her maiden voyage in November. 1907, set up a new record, and three years later she crossed from Queenstown to New York in four days 10 hours 41 minutes at an average speed of 26.06 knots. During the war the Mauretania was used as a transport and hospital ship. In 1924 she recorded an average speed on a day’s run of 27.03 knots. The Bremen wrested the blue riband from her for Germany in 1929, but the Mauretania four years later and when in her "old age" had the distinction of logging 32 knots over a 112-mile run.