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    Transatlantic Liners
    Transatlantic Liners
    Transatlantic Liners
    Ebook107 pages42 minutes

    Transatlantic Liners

    By J. Kent Layton

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    Since the end of the nineteenth century there has been a stunning succession of transatlantic liners, from the White Star Line's Oceanic of 1899 to the Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2 of 2004. These floating palaces often contained luxurious staterooms, ballrooms and lounges for the rich, and noticeably more modest and basic accommodation for poorer travellers. Their designs and powerplants were often cutting-edge as each competed to be the largest, most luxurious and fastest ship on the Atlantic. As the tides of passenger demand rose and fell through the years and the world plunged twice into global conflict, these ships had to adapt to survive. Many of these vessels – including Mauretania, Olympic, the first Queen Mary and France – had long and glorious careers; others – Titanic, Lusitania and Normandie among them – suffered tragic endings. J. Kent Layton describes the heyday of the superliners and explains what life was like for passengers, both rich and poor.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJul 20, 2012
    ISBN9781782000983
    Transatlantic Liners

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      Transatlantic Liners - J. Kent Layton

      funnels.

      THE EMERGENCE OF THE SUPERLINER

      AS THE NINETEENTH CENTURY was drawing to a close, incredible progress had been made in the design of seagoing vessels. As that century began, ships were wooden-hulled, sail-powered craft ranging from less than a hundred tons up to several thousand tons for prestigious naval ‘ships of the line’. The speed and safety of the passage across the ocean depended greatly on prevailing winds for propulsion, and many of these craft were lost when the capricious whims of nature turned violent. Schedules were difficult to keep – particularly when ships came upon doldrums. If navigators became uncertain of their location, or made even minor errors in judgement at critical moments when in the vicinity of the shore, disaster was often not far off. This was particularly true when sailing vessels found themselves too close to dangerous shorelines with the winds against them. Indeed, many vessels merrily set sail from port with cargo and passengers, and were never seen or heard of again.

      As the industrial revolution began to take firm hold on land, however, it was only natural to expect that keen minds would begin to apply technology to the problems of ocean travel, and this they did. The application of steam engines and of iron, and then steel, hulls allowed ships both to abandon reliance on sails and to offer unprecedented comforts to prospective passengers. Ships grew larger and faster with astonishing speed, and competition on the North Atlantic – which connected Europe and the Americas, and was thus a focal point for international trade between the world’s leading powers – grew ever greater. There was also no small amount of national pride over who had the world’s largest, fastest or most luxurious ocean liners, and this further drove competition between the great steamship lines.

      Despite the hazards involved, there were many reasons why people travelled across the Atlantic. Some travelled for business, some for pleasure, and others formed part of the mass migration from the Old World to the New. These passengers were divided into different categories, or classes, based on their financial and social status. Immigrants formed a large proportion of ocean-going clientele. Steamship lines provided them with simple, relatively inexpensive accommodation in the less desirable areas of their ships, and found great profits in doing so. This group comprised third class, also known as steerage in a term held over from the early days of immigrant ships. In some continental vessels, third class was subdivided again to form third class and fourth class/steerage.

      Above was second class, where one found business people, teachers, students, and other middle-class people. Their accommodation was comfortable, spacious, and well thought out. First-class passenger lists, by way of comparison, included very successful businessmen, stars of the stage, heads of state and royalty, and the stratospherically wealthy. They were given the most desirable locations on the ship, and no expense was spared in giving them the most comfortable and luxurious accommodation.

      Passengers in general were keen to travel on the largest, fastest and most prestigious ships. In the name of technological progress, sails had eventually given way to steam engines with screw propellers, wooden hulls to iron and then to steel, and clipper stems to knife-like vertical prows. Ships became more reliable, and were better able to withstand the navigational hazards and forces of nature that they encountered. Taking passage across the Atlantic had become less of an overtly danger-fraught ordeal and more of a routine occurrence.

      Then on 14 January 1899, the next great step forward in maritime progress took to the water for the first time. Built for the White Star Line – White Star and the Cunard Line held prominence as the two foremost British steamship companies – this great vessel was named Oceanic. The launch ceremonies took place in the prominent Harland & Wolff shipyard, located in Belfast, Ireland. The Oceanic, actually the second ship of that name built for White Star, was the largest ship in the world at the time, at 704 feet in length and with a gross tonnage – a technical term that actually measured enclosed space rather than weight – of 17,272. She could carry over two thousand passengers and crew, and upon her maiden voyage in September 1899 from Liverpool to New York, she carried a near-capacity load of human cargo: 1,890. At a designed speed of 19 knots, the Oceanic was also a rather quick liner for her time. However, she was by no means a contender for the famous Blue Riband, the title held by any liner making a record-speed passage across the

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