Ocean liner

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A postcard of SS United States.

An ocean liner is a passenger ship or passenger-cargo ship which transports people and often freight from one port to another along regular trans-oceanic routes according to a schedule. The term also refers to vessels designed to engage in such trades, even if temporarily used for other purposes (such as on cruises or as troopships). The category does not include ferries or other vessels engaged in short-sea trading, nor cruise ships where the voyage itself, and not transportation, is the prime purpose of the trip. Nor does it include tramp steamers even if equipped to handle limited numbers of passengers, nor other cargo vessels (although many shipping companies refer to themselves as "lines" and their container ships, which often operate over set routes according to established schedules, as "liners"). Ocean liners typically were strongly built with high freeboards to withstand sea states and adverse conditions encountered in the open ocean, and had large capacities for fuel and other stores which would be consumed on their multi-day or multi-week voyages.

Ocean liners were the primary mode of intercontinental travel for over a century, from the mid-19th century to the 1960s, when they were finally supplanted by airliners. In addition to passengers, liners also carried mail and cargo. Ships contracted to carry British Royal Mail used the designation RMS. Liners were also the preferred way to move gold and other high value cargos. ^[1]

The busiest route for liners was on the North Atlantic with ships traveling between Europe and North America. It was on this route that the fastest, largest and most advanced liners travelled. But while in contemporary popular imagination the term "ocean liners" evokes these transatlantic superliners, most ocean liners historically were mid-sized vessels which served as the common carriers of passengers and freight between nations and among mother countries and their colonies and dependencies in the pre-jet age. Such routes included Europe to African and Asian colonies, Europe to South America, and migrant traffic from Europe to North America in the Nineteenth and first two decades of the Twentieth Centuries and to Canada and Australia after the Second World War.

1 Definition
2 History
3 At war
4 Famous and infamous
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Definition

A derivation of the word liner is from the term "ship of the line", a warship capable of taking its place in the Royal Navy's tactical line of battle during the Age of Sail. Shipping companies came to be known as "Shipping Lines" and hence their vessels were "ships of the line".^{[citation needed]} An alternative derivation is based on the kind of trade carried out by liners. Regular scheduled voyages on a set route are called "line voyages" and vessels (passenger or cargo) trading on these routes to a timetable are called liners. The alternative to liner trade is "tramping" whereby vessels are notified on an ad-hoc basis as to the availability of a cargo to be transported. The term "Ocean Liner" has come to be used interchangeably with "Passenger Liner", although it can refer to a cargo liner or cargo- passenger liner.

[edit] History

[edit] The 19th century

Brunel before the launching of the SS Great Eastern.

In 1818, Black Ball Line, with a fleet of clipper ships, offered the first regular passenger service with emphasis on passenger comfort, from England to United States. From the early 1800s, steam engines began to appear in ships, but initially they were inefficient and offered little advantage over sailing ships.

The clipper domination was challenged when SS Great Western, designed by railway engineer Isambard Brunel, began its first Atlantic service in 1837. It took 15 days to cross the Atlantic compared to two months for sail powered ships. Unlike the clippers, the steamers offer a consistent speed and the ability to keep up schedules. The early steam ships still had sails as well though, as engines at this time still required large quantities of fuel. Having sails enabled vessels like the Great Western to take advantage of favourable weather conditions and minimise fuel consumption.

In 1840, Cunard Line’s Britannia began its first regular passenger and cargo service by a steamship, sailing from Liverpool to Boston. Despite some advantages offered by the steamships, clippers remained dominant. In 1847, SS Great Britain became the first screw driven ship with an iron hull to cross the Atlantic. More efficient propellers began to replace bulkier paddle wheels, found on earlier ocean liners.

In 1870, White Star Line’s RMS Oceanic set a new standard for ocean travel by placing the first class cabin amidships, adding large portholes and offering running water and electricity. The size of ocean liners increased from 1880 onward because of massive immigration to United States.

RMS Umbria and her sister ship RMS Etruria were the last two Liners that were fitted with auxiliary sails. Umbria was built by John Elder & Co of Glasgow, Scotland in 1884. Umbria and Etruria by the standards of the time were record breakers. They were the largest liners then in service and they plied the Liverpool to New York Service.

[edit] The 20th century

RMS Mauretania at sea.

The period between the end of the 19th century and World War II is considered the "golden age" of ocean liners. Driven by strong demand created by European emigration to the United States and Canada, international competition between passenger lines and a new emphasis on comfort, shipping companies built ever larger and faster ships.

Canadian Pacific Railway became one of the largest transportation system in the world combining with ships and railways operating from Canada. In 1891 CPR shipping division began its first Pacific operation. In 1903, CPR began its first Atlantic service because of rising migration of Europeans to western Canada as the result of free land offered by the Canadian government.

Since the 1830s ships had unofficially been competing for the honour of making the fastest Atlantic crossing. This honour came to be known as the Blue Riband; in 1897 Germany took the award with a series of new ocean liners, starting with the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Große. In 1905, British company Cunard fitted their liner Carmania with steam turbines and it outperformed its near identical sister Caronia, which was powered by triple expansion steam engines. At the time, these were the largest ships in the Cunard fleet, and the use of the different propulsion methods in otherwise similar ships allowed the company to evaluate the merits of both. The engines in Carmania proved to be a success and consequently in 1907, the Cunard Line introduced the much larger Lusitania and Mauritania, both powered by steam turbines. The Mauritania would go on to hold the Blue Riband for an astonishing 20 years.

Cunard's dominance of the Blue Riband did not keep other lines from competing in terms of size and luxury. In 1910 White Star launched the Olympic, the first of a trio of 45,000 plus gross ton liners that was also to include the Titanic and Britannic. These ships were almost 15,000 tonnes larger and 100 feet longer than the Lusitania and Mauritania.

Hamburg-America Line also ordered three giant ships, Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck; all over 51,500 gross tons. The first of these ships, Imperator, was launched in 1912. The largest, Bismarck, would be the largest ship in the world until 1935. These ships would see little or no service with Hamburg-America before World War I. After the war they were seized as war reparations and given to British and American lines.

The surge in ocean liner's size outpaced the shipping regulations. In 1912, Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, claiming more than 1,500 lives. A factor contributing to the high loss of life was that there were not enough lifeboats for everyone. After the Titanic disaster, the regulation was revised to require all ocean liners to carry enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew. In addition, International Ice Patrol was established to monitor the busy north Atlantic shipping lanes for icebergs.

Until the 1920's most shipping lines relied heavily on emigration for sales and they were hard hit when the US Congress introduced a bill to limit immigration into the United States. As the result, many ships took on cruising and the least expensive cabins were reconfigured from third class to tourist class. To make matters worse, the great depression put many shipping lines into bankruptcy.

SS Normandie

Despite the harsh economic conditions, a number of companies continued to build larger and faster ships. In 1929 the German ships Bremen and Europa beat the crossing record set by the Mauritania 20 years earlier with an average speed of almost 28 knots. The ships used bulbous bows and oil fired boilers to reach these high speeds while maintaining economical operating costs. In 1935 the French liner SS Normandie used a revolutionary new hull design and powerful turbo-electric propulsion to take the Blue Riband from the Italian Rex. Because of the poor economic conditions the British government forced Cunard Line and White Star Line to merge. The newly merged company countered with its liners RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth; the Queen Mary was to hold the Blue Riband from 1936-37 and 1938-52.

The post World War II era was a brief but busy period. Notable transatlantic liners included the SS United States, which was the last ocean liner to hold the Blue Riband and the SS France, which held the record for the longest passenger ship from when she entered service in 1961 until the launch of RMS Queen Mary 2 in 2003. Australian Government sponsored immigration resulted in a busy trade between Europe and Australia, producing such notable ships as the SS Oriana and SS Canberra. These two, operating on the P&O-Orient Line service, were the last, largest and fastest liners built for the Australian route.

[edit] The end

SS Norway, formerly SS France, docked in Bremerhaven, Germany

Prior to World War II, aircraft weren’t a huge threat to ocean liners. Most pre-war aircraft were noisy, cramped and vulnerable to bad weather, few had the range needed for transoceanic flights, and all were expensive and had a small passenger capacity. However, World War II accelerated the development of aircraft. Four engine bombers such as the Avro Lancaster and Boeing B-29, with their long range and massive carrying capacity, were a natural prototype for a next generation airliner. Jet aircraft technology also accelerated after the development of jet aircraft for military use in World War II. In 1953, the De Havilland Comet became the first commercial jet airliner; the Sud Aviation Caravelle, Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 followed later. In the 1960s airlines gradually took over the business formerly done by ocean liners. By the early 1970s passenger ships were used almost exclusively for cruising.

After the end of the large scale passenger liner business, many ships continued in use as cruise ships; as of 2003 a small number of former liners were still in service. A few more, such as RMS Queen Mary, are still afloat but permanently docked and used for other purposes; in the case of the Queen Mary, as a museum ship. The only large liner still used on scheduled line voyages in 2006 is Cunard Line's RMS Queen Mary 2, which replaced the line's Queen Elizabeth 2 on the transatlantic route in 2004. QE2 made her maiden voyage in 1969 and was the only major operational ocean liner for several decades, but now is given over to cruising.

[edit] At war

Ocean liners played a major role in World War I. Large ocean liners, such as Mauretania and Olympic, were used as troopships and hospital ships while smaller ocean liners were converted to armed merchant cruisers. The Britannic, sister to the Titanic and Olympic, never served on the liner trade for which she was built, instead entering war service as a hospital ship as soon as she was completed; she lasted a year before being sunk by a mine. Some other liners were converted to Q-ships purposely designed to hunt down submarines. In 1915, Lusitania was torpedoed by German U-boat, despite its speed and supposed non-military role. Germany justified the attack by claiming Lusitania was carrying military cargo; contrary to popular belief there has never been any proof to support these allegations. The work of respected marine archeologists such as Dr Robert Ballard have failed to find any evidence of military items on board. This lack of evidence supports the Lusitania's original manifest which did not declare any cargo of military origin.

Ocean liners such as Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were used once again used in World War II, although not as merchant cruisers; they were mostly used as troop ships and hospital ships. Normandie sailed to the United States in 1942 for conversion to a troop ship, but never saw service in that role. A fire during the conversion work caused her to sink in New York. Salvage attempts failed and she was scrapped in 1946. The majority of the superliners of the 20's and 30's were victims of U-boats, mines or enemy aircraft. The Empress of Britain was attacked by Nazi planes, then torpedoed by a U-boat when tugs tried to tow her to safety. She was the largest British ocean liner to sink during WW II. Germany's speed queen Bremen fell victim to a disgruntled crew member in 1941 - she was set aflame and became a total loss. Italy's giants, the Rex and the Conte di Savoia were destroyed by the British RAF and the retreating Nazis, respectively. The United States lost the American President Lines' SS President Coolidge, to of all things, an Allied mine in the South Pacific. No shipping line was untouched by WW II.

More recently, during the Falklands War, three ships that were either active or former liners were requisitioned for war service by the British Government. The Cunard liner QE2 and P&O cruise ship and former England to Australia liner Canberra served as troop ships, carrying British Army personnel to Ascension Island and the Falkland Islands to recover the Falklands from the invading Argentine forces. The P&O educational cruise ship and former British India Steam Navigation Company liner Uganda was requisitioned as a hospital ship, and after the war served as a troop ship until an airport was built at Port Stanley that could handle RAF trooping flights.

[edit] Famous and infamous

RMS Titanic in Belfast

The most well-known liner was the Titanic, infamous for sinking on her maiden voyage from Britain to the United States in 1912 with the loss of 1,523 lives. In 1914 the Empress of Ireland sank in the Saint Lawrence River with 1,012 lives lost. The Lusitania was lost in 1915 to a German U-Boat during World War I while on passage from the United States to Britain. The worst disasters were the loss of the Cunarder Lancastria in 1940 off Saint-Nazaire to German bombing while attempting to evacuate troops of the British Expeditionary Force from France, with the loss of over 3,000 lives; and the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic Sea with over 9000 lives lost in 1945. The Italian liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with Stockholm in heavy fog in 1956, despite the fact that Andrea Doria was fitted with RADAR. The Cunard Line's Mauretania and Aquitania were widely considered the finest liners of their generation and in the following decade many people had a similar affection for the Normandie.