SS France

  Built at Chantiers de l'Atlantique, she was launched 20 September 1910 into the River Loire. The spectacle was watched by scores of cheering Frenchmen who had gathered for the occasion. In the following months, her machinery was installed and her luxurious interior were fitted. Finally completed in 1912, her maiden voyage departed from her homeport of Le Havre on 20 April 1912, just five days after the sinking of the Titanic. As a result of the disaster, the France lost much publicity but quickly established herself on her route. She did much to improve the image of the CGT which, to date, had not had much influence in the North Atlantic. Cuisine onboard was said to have been amongst the finest at sea. Sailing at a service speed of 23.5 knots (43.5 km/h), she was faster than any ship afloat save for the Mauretania and Lusitania. Despite this, she attained a speed of 25.09 knots (46.47 km/h) on her trials. At 23,769 tons, the France was half the size of the newest British liners, such as the Olympic but what she lacked in size, she made up for in opulence. Her first class interiors were amongst the most lavish seen at sea and were decorated in style Louis quatorze earning the nickname the château or Versailles of the Atlantic. Proud of their great achievement, the new France was not without problems; she suffered from disturbing vibrations, and had a marked tendency to roll, even when the seas were flat calm. She was withdrawn from service after just a handful of crossings to have these two serious issues addressed. She was sent to the Harland & Wolff Shipyard in Northern Ireland, where longer and wider bilge keels were fitted to her hull to reduce rolling and new propellers were fitted to reduce vibrations, making her not only more comfortable to travel aboard, but faster as well. When World War I erupted in 1914, the France was immediately requisitioned by the French Navy for use as an armed merchant cruiser and renamed France IV. Her time as a cruiser was short-lived as she was too large, burned too much coal to be of good use, and was consequently reconfigured to carry troops. Later still, in 1916 she was painted white and used as a hospital ship in the Dardanelles, operating in tandem with White Star’s new flagship, Britannic and Cunard's new Aquitania. During her time as a hospital ship she was converted to have 2,500 beds for injured troops.
  When the Britannic was sunk in late 1916, the need for high-capacity hospital ships was even more dire, and she continued in this role until the United States entered the war in 1917, when she was deployed back to the Atlantic to ferry American troops to the continent with space for some 5,000. In 1918, her military service was cut short by an engine room explosion that killed nine crew members and thus required extensive repairs. Returned to the CGT in March 1919, her name was promptly changed back to France, although she was kept busy repatriating American troops until that autumn. She was sent for refurbishment that winter, returning to commercial duty in early 1920. In 1921, she passed flagship status on to the newer and larger Paris, but continued to be a popular means of travel, with a near club-like following among the wealthy. Her affluent passenger loads swayed the CGT in 1924 to convert her to an all first-class ship, save for just 150 third class berths. During the conversion, her boilers were modified to burn oil fuel rather than coal, allowing her engine room staff to be greatly reduced. She sailed without incident, crossing the Atlantic during the peak months and cruising in the winter until 1927. With the advent of the new Ile de France, France was diverted almost totally to cruising. The Great Depression essentially sounded the death knell for the liner. Many of the millionaires she had carried over the years had been financially destroyed and the general downturn in business cut deeply into transatlantic travel. The France spent more and more time idle, until she finally was withdrawn from service in 1932. 
  Laid up at Le Havre, she sat unattended until January 1933, when a fire was discovered by a night watchman. Although it was rapidly extinguished, the fire had caused some minor damage, but by now she was outclassed by her newer running-mates. CGT had by then commissioned a new flagship, the great Normandie which was nearing completion. As a result, the company decided it was time to scrap the 21-year-old liner. On 15 April 1935, the old France departed Le Havre under her own steam to the scrappers at Dunkirk, Scotland. 

SS Normandie

SS Normandie

   SS Normandie was an ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France for the French Line Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. The beginnings of Normandie can be traced to the Roaring Twenties when shipping companies began looking to replace veterans such as the RMS Mauretania which had first sailed in 1907. Those earlier ships had been designed around the huge numbers of steerage-class immigrants from Europe to the United States. When the U.S. closed the door on most immigration in the early 1920s, steamship companies ordered vessels built to serve upper-class tourists instead, particularly Americans who traveled to Europe for alcohol-fueled fun during Prohibition. Companies like Cunard and the White Star Line planned to build their own superliners to rival newer ships on the scene; such vessels included the record-breaking Bremen and Europa, both German. The French Line began to plan its own superliner.

   The French Line's flagship was the Ile de France, which had modern Art Deco interiors but conservative hull design. The designers of the new French superliner intended to construct their new ship similar to French Line ships of the past but then they were approached by Vladimir Yourkevitch, a former ship architect for the Imperial Russian Navy, who had emigrated to France before the revolution. His ideas included a slanting clipper-like bow and a bulbous forefoot beneath the waterline, in combination with a slim hull. Yourkevitch's concepts worked wonderfully in scale models which supported his design's performance advantages. The French engineers were impressed and asked Yourkevitch to join their project. Reportedly, he also approached the Cunard Line with his ideas but was rejected because the bow was deemed too radical.

   The French Line commissioned artists to create posters and publicity for the liner. One of the most famous posters was by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, who was also a Russian emigrant to France. Another cutaway diagram by Albert Sébille, 15 feet long, detailed the interior layout and is displayed in the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.

   Work began on the unnamed flagship in January 1931, soon after the stock market crash of 1929. While the French continued construction, the competing White Star Line's ship (intended as Oceanic) – started before the crash – was cancelled and the Cunard ship put on hold. French builders also ran into difficulty and had to ask for government money; this subsidy was questioned in the press. Still, building was followed by newspapers and national interest was deep, as she was designed to represent France in the nation-state contest of the great liners and was built in a French shipyard using French parts.

   On 29 October 1932 – three years to the day after the stock market crash – Normandie was launched in front of 200,000 spectators. The 27,567 ton hull that slid into the Loire River was the largest launched and the wave crashed into a few hundred people, but with no injury. Normandie was outfitted until early 1935, her interiors, funnels, engines, and other fittings put in to make her into a working vessel. Finally, in May 1935, Normandie was ready for trials, which were watched by reporters. The superiority of Vladimir Yourkevitch's hull was visible: hardly a wave was created off the bulbous bow. The ship reached a top speed of 32.125 knots (59.496 km/h) and performed an emergency stop from that speed in 1,700 meters.

  In addition to a novel hull which let her to attain her speed at for less power than other big liners, Normandie was filled with technical feats. She had turbo-electric engines, chosen for their ability to allow full reverse power, and according to French Line officials quieter, more easily controlled, and maintained. The engine installation was heavier than conventional turbines and slightly less efficient at high speed but allowed all propellers to operate even if one engine was shut. This system also made it possible to do away with astern turbines An early form of radar was installed.

  The luxurious interiors were designed in Art Déco and Streamline Moderne style. Many sculptures and wall paintings made allusions to Normandy, the province of France for which Normandie was named.  

  Drawings and photographs show a series of vast public rooms of great elegance. Normandie's voluminous interior spaces were made possible by having the funnel intakes split to pass along the sides of the ship, rather than straight upward.

  Most of the public space was devoted to first-class passengers, including the dining room, first-class lounge, grille room, first class swimming pool, theatre and winter garden. The first class swimming pool featured staggered depths, with a shallow training beach for children. The children's dining room was decorated by Jean de Brunhoff, who covered the walls with Babar the Elephant and his entourage.

  Normandie's maiden voyage was on 29 May 1935. Fifty thousand saw her off at Le Havre on what was hoped would be a record-breaking crossing. Normandie reached New York after four days, three hours and 14 minutes, taking way the Blue Riband from the Italian liner, Rex.

   Normandie had a successful year but RMS Queen Mary, Cunard's superliner, entered service in the summer of 1936. Cunard said the Queen Mary would surpass 80,000 tons. At 79,280 tons, Normandie would no longer be the world’s largest. French Line increased Normandie’s size, mainly through the addition of an enclosed tourist lounge on the aft boat deck. Following these and other alterations, Normandie was 83,423 gross tons. Exceeding the Queen Mary by 2,000 tons, she would remain the world’s largest in terms of overall measured gross tonnage. However in August that year, Queen Mary captured the Blue Riband, averaging 30.14 knots (55.82 km/h), starting fierce rivalry. The Normandie held the size record until the arrival of RMS Queen Elizabeth (83,673 gross tons) in 1940.

   In July 1937 Normandie regained the Blue Riband, but the Queen Mary took it back next year. After this the captain of Normandie sent a message saying "Bravo to the Queen Mary until next time!" This rivalry could have gone on into the 1940s but was ended by World War II.

  The war found Normandie in New York. Soon the Queen Mary, later refitted as a troop ship, docked nearby. Then the RMS Queen Elizabeth joined the Queen Mary. For two weeks the three largest liners in the world floated side by side. In 1940, after the Fall of France, the United States seized the Normandie under the right of angary. By 1941, the U.S. Navy decided to convert Normandie into a troopship, and renamed her USS Lafayette (AP-53), in honor both of Marquis de la Fayette the French general who fought on the Colonies' behalf in the American Revolution and the alliance with France that made American independence possible. Earlier proposals included turning the vessel into an aircraft carrier, but this was dropped in favor of immediate troop transport. The ship was moored at Manhattan's Pier 88 for the conversion. On February 9, 1942, sparks from a welding torch ignited a stack of thousands of life vests filled with kapok, a highly flammable material, that had been stored in the first-class dining room.   The woodwork had not yet been removed, and the fire spread rapidly. The ship had a very efficient fire protection system but it had been disconnected during the conversion and its internal pumping system was deactivated. The New York City fire department's hoses also did not fit the ship's French inlets.

  As firefighters on shore and in fire boats poured water on the blaze, the ship developed a dangerous list to port due to water pumped into the seaward side by fireboats. About 2:45am on February 10, Lafayette capsized, nearly crushing a fire boat.

  The ship's designer Vladimir Yourkevitch arrived at the scene and offered expertise, but he was barred by harbor police. His suggestion was to enter the vessel and open the sea-cocks. This would flood the lower decks and make her settle the few feet to the bottom. With the ship stabilised, water could be pumped into burning areas without the risk of capsize. However, the suggestion was denied by port director Admiral Adolphus Andrews.

  The ship was stripped of superstructure and righted in 1943 in the world's most expensive salvage operation. The cost of restoring her was subsequently determined to be too great. After neither the US Navy nor French Line offered, Yourkevitch proposed to cut the ship down and restore her as a mid-sized liner. This failed to draw backing and the hulk was sold for $161,680 to Lipsett Inc., an American salvage company. She was scrapped on October 1946.

RMS Aquitania

  RMS Aquitania was a Cunard Line ocean liner that was built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland. The origins of Aquitania lay in the rivalry between the White Star Line and Cunard, Britain's two leading shipping companies.

  The Aquitania was designed by Cunard naval architect Leonard Peskett. Peskett drew up plans for larger and wider vessel than his two previous large Cunard ships Lusitania and Mauretania. With her four large smokestacks she would resemble the famous speed duo but also Peskett designed her superstructure with "glassed in" touches from the smaller Carmania, a ship he also designed.

  Aquitania was built in the John Brown and Company yards in Clydebank, Scotland, where the majority of the Cunard ships were built. In the wake of the Titanic disaster, Aquitania was one of the first ships to carry enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew. Two of these lifeboats were motorised launches with Marconi wireless equipment. As required by the British Admiralty, she was designed to be converted into an armed merchant cruiser, and was reinforced to mount guns for service in that role.   Aquitania was launched on 21 April 1913 after being christened by Alice Stanley, the Countess of Derby, and fitted out over the next thirteen months. In May 1914 she was tested in her sea trials and steamed at one full knot over the expected speed.

  Although the Aquitania lacked the lean, yacht-like appearance of her running mates, the Mauretania and Lusitania, her greater length and wider beam allowed for grander and more spacious public rooms. Her public spaces were designed by the British architect Arthur Joseph Davis of the interior decorating firm Mewès and Davis. 30 May 1914 saw the Aquitania sail on her maiden voyage under the command of Captain William Turner. This momentous event was however overshadowed by the sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland in Quebec the previous day on 29 May with over a thousand drowned. The following month the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated and the world was plunged into World War I, interrupting Aquitania's civilian career. After only three round trips she was taken over for military use. At first she was converted into an armed merchant cruiser, for which provision had been made in her design. However, the Admiralty found that large liners were too profligate in their use of fuel to serve as cruisers, so Aquitania did not serve long in that role. After being idle for a time, in the spring of 1915 she was converted into a trooper, and made voyages to the Dardanelles. She then was converted into a hospital ship, and served in that role in the Dardanelles campaign. In 1916, she was returned to the trooping front, and then in 1917 was again laid up. In 1918, she was back on the high seas in troopship service, conveying North American troops to Britain. Many of these departures were from the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia where her spectacular dazzle paint scheme was captured by artists and photographers, namely Antonio Jacobsen. On one occasion she transported over 8,000 men.

  During the 1920s Aquitania became one of the most popular liners on the North Atlantic route. She sailed with the Cunarders Mauretania and Berengaria in a trio known as "The Big Three." As times grew better, Aquitania grew into the role of being one of the most profitable ocean liners ever. The American restriction on immigration in the early Twenties ended the age of mass emigration from Europe, but as ocean travel was the only means of transportation between the continents, the ocean liners survived and even surpassed old records. Some of the big money now came in from movie stars and royalty, other aristocracy and politicians. Aquitania became their favorite, as the 1920s became one of the most profitable ages in ocean travel history.

  However following the stock market crash of 1929 many ships were affected by the devastating consequences. Aquitania found herself in a tough position. Only a few could afford expensive passage on her now, so Cunard sent Aquitania on cheap cruises to the Mediterranean.

As time went on Aquitania grew older and was scheduled to be replaced by RMS Queen Elizabeth in 1940. This plan was shattered with the coming of World War II. In 1940 Aquitania was in New York awaiting further orders. For a time she was tied up alongside RMS Queen Mary, RMS Queen Elizabeth and the Normandie and the four ships made an impressive sight amongst large liners.

  After completing troopship service, she was handed back to Cunard in 1946, in December 1949, she was taken out of service when her Board of Trade certificate was not renewed as the condition of the ship had reached a stage where she was too old to be economical and brought in to line with safety standards of the day. By 1949 as mentioned in Cunard commodores Harry Grattidge's autobiography "Captains of the Queens" that the ship had deteriorated considerably with age and her decks leaked in foul weather and a piano had fallen through the roof of one of the dining rooms during a corporate luncheon being held on the ship from the deck above. This truly signaled the end of Aquitania's operational life. The vessel was retired and scrapped in 1950 in Scotland, thus ending an illustrious career which included steaming 3 million miles in 450 voyages. Aquitania carried 1.2 million passengers over a career that spanned nearly 36 years, making her the longest serving Express Liner of the 20th Century. (RMS Aquitania photos are courtesy of MaritimeQuest.).

HMHS Britannic

HMHS Britannic

  HMHS Britannic was the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line. It was the sister ship of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner.

Following the loss of the Titanic and the subsequent inquiries, several design changes were made to the remaining Olympic-class liners. With Britannic, these changes were made before launching (Olympic was refitted on her return to Harland and Wolff). The main changes included the introduction of a double hull along the engine and boiler rooms and raising six out of the 15 watertight bulkheads up to 'B' Deck. A more obvious external change was the fitting of large crane-like davits, each capable of holding six lifeboats. Additional lifeboats could be stored within reach of the davits on the deckhouse roof, and in an emergency the davits could even reach lifeboats on the other side of the vessel. The aim of this design was to enable all the lifeboats to be launched, even if the ship developed a list that would normally prevent lifeboats being launched on the side opposite to the list. These davits were not fitted to Olympic.

    Britannic's hull was also 2 feet (0.61 m) wider than her predecessors due to the redesign after the loss of Titanic. To keep to a 21 knots (39 km/h) service speed, the shipyard installed a larger turbine rated for 18,000 horsepower (13,000 kW)—versus Olympic's and Titanic's 16,000 horsepower (12,000 kW)—to compensate for the vessel's extra width.

  Although the White Star Line always denied it, most sources say that the ship was supposed to be named Gigantic.

   Britannic was launched on 26 February 1914 at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast and fitting out began. She had been constructed in the same gantry slip used to build RMS Olympic. So by reusing Olympic's space saved the shipyard time and money in clearing out a third like size slip as had been used for Olympic and Titanic. In August 1914, before Britannic could commence transatlantic service between New York and Southampton, World War I began. Immediately, all shipyards with Admiralty contracts were given top priority to use available raw materials. All civil contracts (including the Britannic) were slowed down. The military authorities requisitioned a large number of ships as armed merchant cruisers or for troop transport. The Admiralty was paying the companies for the use of their vessels but the risk of losing a ship during military operations was high. However, the big ocean liners were not taken for military use, as smaller vessels were much easier to operate. The White Star decided to withdraw RMS Olympic from service until the danger had passed. RMS Olympic returned to Belfast on 3 November 1914, while work on her sister continued slowly. All this would change in 1915.

   The need for increased tonnage grew critical as military operations extended to the Eastern Mediterranean. In May 1915, Britannic completed mooring trials of her engines, and was prepared for emergency entrance into service with as little as four weeks notice.

  on 13 November 1915, Britannic was requisitioned as a hospital ship from her storage location at Belfast. Repainted white with large red crosses and a horizontal green stripe, she was renamed HMHS (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) Britannic and placed under the command of Captain Charles A. Bartlett.

   At 08:12 on 21 November 1916, a loud explosion shook the ship. The cause, whether it was a torpedo from an enemy submarine or a mine, was not apparent. The reaction in the dining room was immediate; doctors and nurses left instantly for their posts. Not everybody reacted the same way, as further aft the power of the explosion was less felt and many thought the ship had hit a smaller boat. Captain Bartlett and Chief Officer Hume were on the bridge at the time, and the gravity of the situation was soon evident. The first reports were frightening. The explosion had taken place on the starboard side between holds two and three, but the force of the explosion had damaged the watertight bulkhead between hold one and the forepeak. That meant that the first four watertight compartments were filling rapidly with water. To make things worse, the firemen's tunnel connecting the firemen's quarters in the bow with boiler room six had also been seriously damaged and water was flowing into that boiler room.

  Bartlett ordered the watertight doors closed, sent a distress signal and ordered the crew to prepare the lifeboats. Unfortunately, another surprise was waiting. Along with the damaged watertight door of the firemen's tunnel, the watertight door between boiler rooms six and five also failed to close properly for an unknown reason. Now water was flowing further aft into boiler room five. The Britannic had reached her flooding limit. She could stay afloat (motionless) with her first six watertight compartments flooded and had five watertight bulkheads rising all the way up to B-deck. Those measures were taken after the Titanic disaster (Titanic could float with her first four compartments flooded but the bulkheads only rose as high as E-deck). Luckily, the next crucial bulkhead between boiler rooms five and four and its door were undamaged and should have guaranteed the survival of the ship. However, there was something else that probably sealed Britannic's fate: the open portholes of the lower decks. The nurses had opened most of those portholes to ventilate the wards. As the ship's list increased, water reached this level and began to enter aft from the bulkhead between boiler rooms five and four. With more than six compartments flooded, the Britannic could not stay afloat.
 The Captain officially ordered the crew to lower the boats and at 08:35, he gave the order to abandon ship. The forward set of port side davits soon became useless. The unknown officer had already launched his two lifeboats and managed to launch rapidly one more boat from the after set of portside davits. He then started to prepare the motor launch when First Officer Oliver came with orders from the Captain. Bartlett had ordered Oliver to get in the motor launch and use its speed to pick up survivors from the smashed lifeboats. Then he was to take charge of the small fleet of lifeboats formed around the sinking Britannic. After launching the motor launch with Oliver, the unknown officer filled another lifeboat with seventy-five men and launched it with great difficulty because the port side was now very high from the surface due to the list to starboard. By 08:45, the list to starboard was so great that no davits were operable. The unknown officer with six sailors decided to move to mid-ship on the boat deck to throw overboard-collapsible rafts and deck chairs from the starboard side. About thirty RAMC personnel who were still left on the ship followed them. As he was about to order these men to jump then give his final report to the Captain, the unknown officer spotted Sixth officer Welch and a few sailors near one of the smaller lifeboats on the starboard side. They were trying to lift the boat but they had not enough men. Quickly, the unknown officer ordered his group of forty men to assist the Sixth officer. Together they managed to lift it, load it with men, then launch it safely.
  At 09:00, Bartlett sounded one last blast on the whistle then just walked into the water, which had already reached the bridge. He swam to a collapsible boat and began to co-ordinate the rescue operations. The whistle blow was the final signal for the ship's engineers (commanded by Chief Engineer Robert Fleming) who, like their heroic colleagues on the Titanic, had remained at their posts until the last possible moment. They escaped via the staircase into funnel #4, which ventilated the engine room.
  The Britannic rolled over onto her starboard side and the funnels began collapsing. Violet Jessop (who was also one of the survivors of Britannic's sister-ship Titanic, as well as the third sister, Olympic, when she collided with the HMS Hawke), described the last seconds: "She dipped her head a little, then a little lower and still lower. All the deck machinery fell into the sea like a child's toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air until with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths, the noise of her going resounding though the water with undreamt-of violence...
The Britannic was the largest ship lost during World War I. ( some photos are courtesy of Maritime Quest).

RMS Lusitania

RMS Lusitania

  RMS Lusitania was an ocean liner owned by the Cunard Line and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. Lusitania was designed by Cunard's naval architect, Leonard Peskett. Peskett built a large model of the proposed ship in 1902 showing a three-funnel design. A fourth funnel was implemented into the design in 1904 as it was necessary to vent the exhaust from additional boilers fitted after Parson's then-revolutionary single reduction steam turbines had been settled on as the powerplant. Before installing the turbine powerplant in the ships, Cunard installed a smaller version of the turbine in its soon to be launched Carmania, 1905, so as to obtain a performance report on the new technology's operation.
  Lusitania's keel was laid at John Brown & Clydebank as Yard no. 367 on 16 June 1904. She was launched and christened by Mary, Lady Inverclyde on 7 June 1906. Lord Inverclyde (1861-1905), who had provided the main impetus with the British government to get the two ships built, had died before this occasion. Much of the trim on Lusitania was designed and constructed by the Bromsgrove Guild.
   Starting on 27 July 1907, Lusitania underwent preliminary and formal acceptance trials. The shipbuilder's engineers and Cunard officials discovered that high speeds caused severe vibrations in the stern, and this led to the fitting of stronger internal bracing. After these modifications, the ship was finally delivered to Cunard later in the year on 26 August. At the time of her launch Lusitania (and her sister ship Mauretania) possessed the most luxurious interiors afloat. In common with all major liners of the period, Lusitania’s interiors were decorated with a mélange of historical styles.
  Lusitania and Mauretania were smaller than the White Star Line's Olympic-class vessels. Both vessels had been launched and had been in service for several years before the Olympic class ships were ready for the North Atlantic. Although significantly faster than the Olympic class would be, the speed of Cunard's vessels was not sufficient to allow the line to run a weekly transatlantic service from each side of the Atlantic. A third ship was needed for a weekly service, and in response to White Star's announced plan to build the three Olympic class ships, Cunard ordered a third ship: Aquitania. Like White Star Line's Olympic, Cunard's Aquitania had a slower service speed, but was a larger and more luxurious vessel. Lusitania departed Liverpool for her maiden voyage on 7 September 1907 under the command of Commodore James Watt and the ship arrived in New York City on 13 September. At the time she was the largest ocean liner in service and would continue to be until the introduction of the Mauretania in November that year. During her eight-year service, she made a total of 202 crossings on the Cunard Line's Liverpool-New York Route.
  In October 1907 Lusitania took the Blue Riband for eastbound crossing from Kaiser Wilhelm II of the North German Lloyd, ending Germany's ten-year dominance of the Atlantic. Lusitania averaged 23.99 knots (44.43 km/h) westbound and 23.61 knots (43.73 km/h) eastbound.
  With the introduction of Mauretania in November 1907, Lusitania and Mauretania continued to swap the Blue Riband. Lusitania made her fastest westbound crossing in 1909, averaging 25.85 knots (47.87 km/h). In September of that same year, she lost it permanently to Mauretania.
  When Lusitania was built, her construction and operating expenses were subsidised by the British government, with the proviso that she could be converted to an Armed Merchant Cruiser if need be. At the outbreak of the First World War, the British Admiralty considered her for requisition as an armed merchant cruiser, and she was put on the official list of AMCs. The Admiralty then cancelled their earlier decision and decided not to use her as an AMC after all; large liners such as Lusitania consumed large quantities of coal and became a serious drain on the Admiralty's fuel reserves, so express liners were therefore deemed inappropriate for the role.
  General characteristics of Lusitania, Tonnage: 31,550 gross register tons (GRT) , Displacement: 44,060 Long Tons , Length: 787 ft (239.88 m), Beam: 87 ft (26.52 m) , Draught: 33.6 ft (10.24 m), Installed power: 25 Scotch boilers. Four direct-acting Parsons steam turbines producing 76,000 hp (57 MW), Propulsion: Four triple blade propellers. (Quadruple blade propellers installed in 1909),  Speed: 25 knots (46.3 km/h / 28.8 mph) Top speed (single day's run): 26.7 knots (49.4 km/h / 30.7 mph) (March, 1914), Capacity: 552 first class, 460 second class, 1,186 third class. 2,198 total , Crew: 850.
  She was torpedoed by the SM U-20, a German U-boat on 7 May 1915 and sank in eighteen minutes, eight miles (15 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, killing 1,198 of the 1,959 people aboard. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany, and was instrumental in bringing the United States into World War I. The sinking of the Lusitania caused great controversy, which persists to this day. (Lusitania photo is courtesy of NorthAtlanticRun).

Last voyage of the Rms Olympic

Rms Mauretania's last voyage

RMS Mauretania

RMS Mauretania ("Maury") was an ocean liner built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson at Wallsend, Tyne and Wear for the British Cunard Line, and launched on 20 September 1906. At the time, she was the largest and fastest ship in the world. Mauretania became a favourite among her passengers.             The ship's name was taken from Mauretania, an ancient Roman province on the northwest African coast, not related to the modern Mauritania. In 1903, Cunard Line and the British government reached an agreement to build two superliners, the Lusitania and Mauretania, with a guaranteed service speed of no less than 24 knots, the British government were to loan £2,600,000 for the construction of Mauretania and Lusitania at an interest rate of 2.75% to be paid back over twenty years with a stipulation that the ships could be converted to Armed Merchant Cruisers if needed; also to fund these ships further the admiralty arranged for Cunard to be paid an additional £150,000 per year to their mail subsidy. The Mauretania was designed by Cunard naval architect Leonard Peskett with Swan Hunter working from the plans for an ocean greyhound with a stipulated service speed of twenty-four knots in moderate weather for her mail subsidy contract. RMS Mauretania had of ton 31000, length 240, beam 26 and passengers capacity 2165 passengers total. In 1906, Mauretania was launched by the Duchess of Roxburghe. At the time of her launch, she was the largest moving structure yet built. Mauretania left Liverpool on her maiden voyage on 16 November 1907 under the command of her first captain, John Pritchard and later that month captured the record for the fastest eastbound crossing of the Atlantic with an average speed of 23.69 knots (43.87 km/h). In September 1909, the Mauretania captured the Blue Riband for the fastest westbound crossing a record that was to stand for more than two decades. Cunard withdrew Mauretania from service following a final eastward crossing from New York to Southampton in September 1934. The voyage was made at an average speed of 24 knots, equalling the original contractual stipulation for her mail subsidy. She was then laid up at Southampton alongside the former White Star Line flagship Olympic, her twenty-eight years of service at a close.

In May 1935 her furnishings and fittings were put up for auction and of the 1st of July that year she departed Southampton for the last time to T.W Wards shipbreakers at Rosyth. One of her former captains, the retired commodore Sir Arthur Rostron, captain of the RMS Carpathia during the Titanic rescue, came to see her on her final departure from Southampton. Rostron refused to go aboard Mauretania before her final journey, stating that he preferred to remember the ship as when he commanded her.
En route to Rosyth Mauretania stopped at her birthplace the Tyne for half an hour, where she drew crowds of sightseers and was boarded by the Lord Mayor of Newcastle. The mayor bid her farewell from the people of Newcastle, and her last captain, A.T. Brown, then resumed his course for Rosyth. With masts cut down to fit, the ship passed under the Forth Bridge and was delivered to the breakers.
The demise of the beloved Mauretania was protested by many of her loyal passengers, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt who wrote a private letter arguing against the scrapping. Mauretania is one of most famous ocean liner of Cunard.

RMS Titanic

  

The Titanic was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, and designed to compete with the rival Cunard Line's Lusitania and Mauretania. The Titanic, along with her Olympic-class sisters, the Olympic and the Britannic (called Gigantic at first), were intended to be the largest, most luxurious ships ever to operate. The designers were Lord Pirrie, a director of both Harland and Wolff and White Star, naval architect Thomas Andrews, Harland and Wolff's construction manager and head of their design department, and Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager. 

  Construction of RMS Titanic, funded by the American J.P. Morgan and his International Mercantile Marine Co., began on 31 March, 1909. Titanic's hull was launched on 31 May 1911, and her outfitting was completed by 31 March the following year. Her length overall was 269.1 m, the moulded breadth 28.0 m, the tonnage 46,328 GRT, and the height from the water line to the boat deck of 18 m. She was equipped with two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines and one low-pressure Parsons turbine, which combined drove three propellers. There were 29 boilers fired by 159 coal burning furnaces that made possible a top speed of 23 knots. Only three of the four 19 m funnels were functional: the fourth, which served only for ventilation purposes, was added to make the ship look more impressive. The ship could carry a total of 3,547 passengers and crew.

  The Titanic closely resembled her older sister Olympic. Although she enclosed more space and therefore had a larger gross register tonnage, the hull was almost the same length as the Olympic's. Two of the most noticeable differences were that half of the Titanics's forward promenade A Deck  was enclosed against outside weather, and her B Deck configuration was different from the Olympic's. As built the Olympic did not have an equivalent of the Titanic's Café Parisien: the feature was not added until 1913. Some of the flaws found on the Olympic, such as the creaking of the aft expansion joint, were corrected on the Titanic. The skid lights that provided natural illumination on A deck were round, while on Olympic they were oval. The Titanic's wheelhouse was made narrower and longer than the Olympic's. These, and other modifications, made the Titanic 1,004 gross register tons larger than the Olympic.

 The vessel began her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, bound for New York City, New York on 10 April 1912, with Captain Edward J. Smith in command. On the maiden voyage of the Titanic some of the most prominent people of the day were travelling in first-class. Among them were millionaire John Jacob Astor IV and his wife Madeleine Force Astor, industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, Macy's owner Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, Denver millionairess Margaret "Molly" Brown (known as 'Unsinkable Molly Brown'), Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife couturière Lucy (Lady Duff-Gordon), George Elkins Widener and his wife Eleanor; cricketer and businessman John Borland Thayer with his wife Marian and their seventeen-year-old son Jack, journalist William Thomas Stead, the Countess of Rothes, United States presidential aide Archibald Butt, author and socialite Helen Churchill Candee, author Jacques Futrelle his wife May and their friends, Broadway producers Henry and Rene Harris and silent film actress Dorothy Gibson among others.

  Titanic surpassed all her rivals in luxury and opulence. The First-class section had an on-board swimming pool, a gymnasium, a squash court, Turkish bath and a Verandah Cafe. First-class common rooms were adorned with ornate wood panelling, expensive furniture and other decorations. In addition, the Café Parisien offered cuisine for the first-class passengers, with a sunlit veranda fitted with trellis decorations. There were libraries and barber shops in both the first and second-class. The third class general room had pine panelling and sturdy teak furniture. The ship incorporated technologically advanced features for the period. She had three electric elevators in first class and one in second class. She had also an extensive electrical subsystem with steam-powered generators and ship-wide wiring feeding electric lights and two Marconi radios, including a powerful 1,500-watt set manned by two operators working in shifts, allowing constant contact and the transmission of many passenger messages. First-class passengers paid a hefty fee for such amenities. The most expensive oneway transatlantic passager.

  On the night of Sunday, 14 April 1912, the temperature had dropped to near freezing and the ocean was calm. The moon was not visible and the sky was clear. Captain Smith, in response to iceberg warnings received via wireless over the preceding few days, had drawn up a new course which took the ship slightly further southward. That Sunday at 13:45, a message from the steamer Amerika warned that large icebergs lay in the Titanic's path, but as Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, the Marconi wireless radio operators, were employed by Marconi and paid to relay messages to and from the passengers, they were not focused on relaying Ice messages. Later that evening, another report of numerous large icebergs, this time from the Mesaba, also failed to reach the bridge.

  At 23:40, while sailing about 400 miles south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, lookouts Fredrick Fleet and Reginald Lee spotted a large iceberg directly ahead of the ship. Fleet sounded the ship's bell three times and telephoned to the bridge. First Officer Murdoch gave the order "hard-a-starboard", using the traditional tiller order for an abrupt turn to port (left), and adjusted the engines. The iceberg brushed the ship's starboard side (right side), buckling the hull in several places and popping out rivets below the waterline over a length of 90 m. As seawater filled the forward compartments, the watertight doors shut. However, while the ship could stay afloat with four flooded compartments, five were filling with water. The five water-filled compartments weighed down the ship so that the tops of the forward watertight bulkheads fell below the ship's waterline, allowing water to pour into additional compartments. Captain Smith, alerted by the jolt of the impact, arrived on the bridge and ordered a full stop. Shortly after midnight on 15 April, following an inspection by the ship's officers and Thomas Andrews, the lifeboats were ordered to be readied and a distress call was sent out.

   Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were busy sending out CQD, the international distress signal. Several ships responded, including Mount Temple, Frankfurt and Titanic's sister ship, Olympic, but none was close enough to make it in time. The closest ship to respond was Cunard Line's Carpathia 93 km away, which could arrive in an estimated four hours

 From the bridge, the lights of a nearby ship could be seen off the port side. The identity of this ship remains a mystery but there have been theories suggesting that it was probably either the Californian or a sealer called the Sampson. The first lifeboat launched was Lifeboat 7 on the starboard side with 28 people on board out of a capacity of 65. The Titanic carried 20 lifeboats with a total capacity of 1,178 people. While not enough to hold all of the passengers and crew, the Titanic carried more boats than was required by the British Board of Trade Regulations. At the time, the number of lifeboats required was determined by a ship's gross register tonnage, rather than her human capacity.

  Around 02:10, the stern rose out of the water exposing the propellers, and by 02:17 the waterline had reached the boat deck. The last two lifeboats floated off the deck, collapsible B upside down, collapsible A half-filled with water after the supports for its canvas sides were broken in the fall from the roof of the officers quarters. Shortly afterwards, the forward funnel collapsed, crushing part of the bridge and people in the water. On deck, people were scrambling towards the stern or jumping overboard in hopes of reaching a lifeboat. The ship's stern slowly rose into the air, and everything unsecured crashed towards the water. While the stern rose, the electrical system finally failed and the lights went out. Shortly afterwards, the stress on the hull caused Titanic to break apart between the last two funnels, and the bow went completely under. The stern righted itself slightly and then rose vertically. After a few moments, at 02:20, this too sank into the ocean.

 Only two of the 18 launched lifeboats rescued people after the ship sank. Lifeboat 4 was close by and picked up five people, two of whom later died. Close to an hour later, lifeboat 14 went back and rescued four people, one of whom died afterwards.

 As the ship fell into the depths, the two sections behaved very differently. The streamlined bow planed off approximately 609 m below the surface and slowed somewhat, landing relatively gently. The stern plunged violently to the ocean floor, the hull being torn apart along the way from massive implosions caused by compression of the air still trapped inside. The stern smashed into the bottom at considerable speed, grinding the hull deep into the silt.

 After steaming at 17.5 knots for just under four hours, the RMS Carpathia arrived in the area and at 04:10 began rescuing survivors. By 08:30 she picked up the last lifeboat with survivors and left the area at 08:50 bound for New York.

 The idea of finding the wreck of Titanic, and even raising the ship from the ocean floor, had been around since shortly after the ship sank. No attempts were successful until 1 September 1985, when a joint American-French expedition, led by Jean-Louis Michel (Ifremer) and Dr. Robert Ballard (WHOI), located the wreck using the side-scan sonar from the research vessels Knorr and Le Suroit. In June 1985, the French ship Le Suroit began systematically crossing the 150-square-mile target zone with her deep-search sonar. Le Suroit covered 80 percent of the zone, leaving only 20 percent for the American ship Knorr. It was found at a depth of 4 km, slightly more than 600 km south-east of Mistaken Point, Newfoundland at 41°43′55″N 49°56′45″W / 41.73194°N 49.94583°W / 41.73194; -49.94583 Coordinates: 41°43′55″N 49°56′45″W / 41.73194°N 49.94583°W / 41.73194; -49.94583, 21 km from fourth officer Joseph Boxhall's last position reading where Titanic was originally thought to rest. Ballard noted that his crew had paid out  (3,810 m of the sonar's tow cable at the time of the discovery of the wreck, giving an approximate depth of the seabed of 3,795 m. Ifremer, the French partner in the search, records a depth of 3,800 m, an almost exact equivalent. These are approximately 2.33 miles, and they are often rounded upwards to 2.5 miles or 4 km. Video cameras aboard the unmanned submersible Argo were the first to document the Titanic's visual state on the bottom of the ocean. The submersible was based on the Knorr and the images retrieved were featured in National Geographic by December 1985. In 1986, Ballard returned to the wreck site aboard the Atlantis II to conduct the first manned dives to the wreck in the submersible Alvin.

  Ballard had in 1982 requested funding for the project from the US Navy, but this was provided only on the then secret condition that the first priority was to examine the wreckage of the sunken US nuclear submarines Thresher and Scorpion. Only when these had been photographed did the search for Titanic begin.

  The most notable discovery the team made was that the ship had split apart, the stern section lying 600 m from the bow section and facing opposite directions. There had been conflicting witness accounts of whether the ship broke apart or not, and both the American and British inquiries found that the ship sank intact. Up until the discovery of the wreck, it was generally assumed that the ship did not break apart.

  The bow section had struck the ocean floor at a position just under the forepeak, and embedded itself 18 m into the silt on the ocean floor. Although parts of the hull had buckled, the bow was mostly intact. The collision with the ocean floor forced water out of Titanic through the hull below the well deck. One of the steel covers  was blown off the side of the hull. The bow is still under tension, in particular the heavily damaged and partially collapsed decks.

  The stern section was in much worse condition, and appeared to have been torn apart during its descent. Unlike the bow section, which was flooded with water before it sank, it is likely that the stern section sank with a significant volume of air trapped inside it. As it sank, the external water pressure increased but the pressure of the trapped air could not follow suit due to the many air pockets in relatively sealed sections. Therefore, some areas of the stern section's hull experienced a large pressure differential between outside and inside which possibly caused an implosion. Further damage was caused by the sudden impact of hitting the seabed; with little structural integrity left, the decks collapsed as the stern hit. Approximately 6,000 artefacts have been removed from the wreck. Many of these were put on display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, and later as part of a travelling museum exhibit.

  Many scientists, including Robert Ballard, are concerned that visits by tourists in submersibles and the recovery of artefacts are hastening the decay of the wreck. Underwater microbes have been eating away at Titanic's steel since the ship sank, but because of the extra damage visitors have caused the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that the hull and structure of the ship may collapse to the ocean floor within the next 50 years. Surrounding the wreck is a large debris field with pieces of the ship, furniture, dinnerware and personal items scattered over one square mile (2.6 km²). Softer materials, like wood, carpet and human remains were devoured by undersea organisms.

 Contrary to popular mythology, the Titanic was never described as "unsinkable", without qualification, until after she sank. There are three trade publications (one of which was probably never published) that describe the Titanic as unsinkable, prior to her sinking, but there is no evidence that the notion of the Titanic's unsinkability had entered public consciousness until after the sinking.RMS Titanic in past and now, present, is one of the most famous ships that the world known. In James Cameron movie was "the ship of dreams". (some photos are courtesy of Maritime Quest).