HISTORIC SHIPS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 108, 7 April 1936, Page 10

HISTORIC SHIPS

ATLANTIC BLUE RIBAND. At a time when the eyes of the world are watching the progress of the mammouth liner Queen Mary, which is due to make her maiden voyage shortly, it is interesting to recall famous ships that have held the blue riband of the Atlantic. The British paddlewheel steamer Scotia caused a sensation in 1862 when she made the crossing from England to America in two hours under nine days, but improvements in the speed of steamers came rapidly, and her time was soon surpassed. The Oceanic came in 1871,, and her ability to maintain an average speed of knots brought her the title of “The Flyer.’’ Thirteen years later, however, the sister ships Umbria and Etruria were launched and reached a speed of 20 knots. It was then that really fast crossings of the Atlantic began. The Etruria crossed from Queenstown to New York in 6 days, 6 hours, 36 minutes. In 1892 were built the two British ships which challenged the rest of the world, the Lucania and the Campania. The Campania made the crossing in five and a half days, and there were those who considered that America could be brought no closer to the Continent. By this time, however, German shipping companies, most of whose larger ships had hitherto been built in Scotland, had decided to extend the Fatherland’s imperialism to the sea. In 1897 there appeared the magnificent Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, the average speed of which on a large number of Atlantic crossings was 22£ knots. a Britain’s reply was to build larger and more luxurious ships, British companies temporarily abandoning the speed race. It was not until 1907 that the Ge'rmans, by this time with a 23j knots ship in the Kaiser Wilhelm 11., were seriously challenged. The Cunard Company then laid down those two magnificent ships, the Lusitania and the Mauretania. With .25 knots they were able to cross the Atlantic in just over five days, and they remained supreme, the Lusitania until she was sunk by a German submarine in 1915, and the Mauretania until 1929.

In 1929 the German giants Bremen and Europa appeared, and easily recaptured the riband for Germany with an average speed of 28j knots. Not prepared to allow this to go unchallenged, the Cunard line laid plans for the largest and speediest ship in the world. But their immediate reply was to have certain improvements carried out in the Mauretania, and the veteran record-breaker attained to within half a knot of the new German ships.

The Italians entered the field in 1333 with the 51,000-ton liner Rex, which crossed from Gibraltar to New York in just more than four and a half days, at ah average speed of just under 29 knots. The Bremen in the same year made a new record for the crossing from Cherbourg (France) to New York. Meanwhile the French had laid down the Normandie, which was to rival the Queen Mary in both size and -speed. In June last the French ship, 79,000 tons gros-’, made the crossing in 4 days, 3 hours, 5 minutes, at an average speed of 29.68 knots.

Under the contract between the builders and the Cunard-White Star Line, the 80,000-ton, Queen Mary is to have a speed of knots, and it is expected that the British ship will take the blue riband and hold it.