OCEAN RIVALRIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22434, 2 June 1936, Page 8

OCEAN RIVALRIES

When the Queen Mary set out from Southampton for New York there were high hopes that on this maiden voyage she would regain for Britain the speed supremacy won in the days of the Lusitania and the Mauretania. Those hopes were popularly held in spite of her commander's disclaiming of any intention to establish a new record. They have been dashed by the news of delay by fog, but interest in the vessel's speed has not waned to any great extent, for judged by this test she has given good proof of her quality. Sir Edgar Britten and his officers have rightly emphasised that considerations other than speed have to be heeded, especially on this initial voyage. These are manifest even to the onlooker little versed in the intricacies of machinery. Nevertheless, the British eagerness to see the record broken at the outset of the Queen Mary's career needs no apology, even if this eagerness be scarcely justified. That she is deemed capable of all thus hoped is evident from the decision that the Normandie, the French holder of the record, whose engines were altered when fhe Queen Mary was approaching completion, must reduce her present schedule by ten hours. In June last she made the crossing in four days three hours five minutes, at. an average speed of 20.68 knots. How small arc the recent margins of excellence is impressed by the figures since the 25 knots of the Lusitania and the Mauretania were reeled off: 28knots by the German giants Bremen and Europa ; just under 20 knots by the Italian liner Bex ; and this 29.(58 knots by the Normandie. These figures prove how good was the Queen Mary's average of 30.04 knots for the first day. To call the Atlantic " the herring pond " was once upon a time an idle jest, hut its dimensions are certainly shrinking at the touch of these modern craft, the limits of whose deeds are not yet reached.