PRIDE OF THE ATLANTIC.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 26 March 1926, Page 8

PRIDE OF THE ATLANTIC.

THE REMODELLED AQUITANIA

“TRIUMPH OF CRAFTSMANSHIP.”

“A magnificent advertisement for British craftsmanship,” is the descrip, tion given by the Morning; Post of the Cunard .Company’s fine steamer Aquitania, as she emerged from her recent overhaul from stem to stem.

Britain has always been proud of the Aquitania. With a /gross tonnage of 45,647, she is the largest ship built to date on British shores. But now Britain has another source of pride in this beautiful liner; the incomparable artistry of the decorative schemes in the suites and en suite rooms on “B” deck. To enlarge these twenty-four suites, the former raised deck-chair deck,, 7ft. wide, situated between the artists’ suites and the main promenade, has been swept away. But it is not the new spaciousness of the suites that makes the vivid appeal, It is the sheer beauty of the decorative colour schemes. The Cunard Company’s designer has drawn on the artistic lore of the ages and lias woven and 1 interwoven his own conceptions so delicately, ' embellished the chosen styles with so many individual touches, that he has created a. series of distinctive designs reminiscent here of the Queen Anne period, there of the Sheraton influence, elsewhere of the art of the Pharaonic era, but all essentially modern, all essentially British. ‘He has, in brief, cast the master-designs of the past in a British mould. < British Designs and Materials. Take but on© instance. For one suite lie has cliosen the soft grey that one will find on the walls of sonw of the Royal mortuary chapels in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Luxor. The mural decoration is based on the- vivid lines that limn the rock around the sarcophagus. But instead or the stiff, angular figures, he has woven his simple chaplet. With oxidised silver bedsteads, mahogany dressing tables with large wing mirrors, a series of shaded globes diluting a soft glow from the ceiling, ;jnd bedhead lamps flooding a rosy radiance through beautiful alabaster bowls of crystal pine-cone design, the designer lias cultivated the flower of Pharaonic art in an atmosphere as deliciously intime as the Parisian boudoir. There is surelv matter for just pride in the reflection that the new designs and the materials used on these suites are British products. For five weeks 1500 men have been working on the Aquitania day and night. The army iof upholsterers/, painters, joiners, polishers, electricians, plumbeijs, shipwrights, fitters, drillers, caulkers, burners, riggers, coppersmiths, marble masons, platers —even bricklayers —swarmed from the tops of those mammoth funnels to- the depths of the lowest engine room. Over 3000 gallons of paint were used to restore to the ship the glimmer of polished brightness. Curtains- and hangings tv ere replaced, new linoleum substituted for old, and half an acre of carpet cut and laid. A Ship of Power and Beauty.

Extra promenade space was secured on the promenade deck by a. rearrangement of the lifeboats. All cargo gear was thoroughly overhauled. The great turbine engines were lifted and cleansed. The machines on which depend the facilities for ventilation, sanitation, cold storage and pumping were adjusted and repaired. Even the giant 100-ton rudder has been unshipped a lid overhauled. And all done right jto time —another tribute to British industry. When, right on the stroke of noon on January 20 the Aquitania swung out in the brilliant sunshine for Cherbourg and New York, with her company of distinguished passengers almost garlanded in the wealth of bouquets,'she seemed conscious of her power and her beauty. And, as if her pride were infectious, the crowd massed upon the dock raised a cheer that grew and rang again.