Monday, Dec 18, 2006
5 Fascinating Facts | about transatlantic cruises
by Ralph Grizzle
- In 1840, Cunard Line's R.M.S. Britannia became the first ship to take passengers on regularly scheduled transatlantic crossings. Today, the Queen Mary 2 continues Cunard's tradition of Atlantic crossings.
- Holland America Line's first ship crossed the Atlantic in 1873, sailing in 15 days from Holland to New York. The Rotterdam carried eight first-class passengers and 128 in steerage.
- The first commercial jet aircraft crossing of the Atlantic in 1958 brought about the demise of the transatlantic ocean liner and in doing so, spawned the modern-day cruise industry. Out-of-work liners were scrapped or sold for a song. Those that survived sailed toward the sun, giving birth to Caribbean cruising.
- Immigrants to America counted the number of ship funnels as an indication of safety. Companies like White Star began to add fake funnels to their ships, including the Titanic, which featured three working smokestacks and one fake one.
- So the story goes: Cunard's venerable Queen Mary, now docked and operating as a hotel in Long Beach, California, was originally to be named Queen Victoria, following Cunard's tradition of ending ship names with an "ia." Cunard Chairman Sir Thomas Royden was reported to have asked King George V if he would approve of naming the new ship after England's greatest queen, by which Royden meant the king's grandmother, Queen Victoria. The king replied that his wife, Queen Mary, would be honored. The Queen Mary was retired in 1967, after completing 1,001 crossings of the Atlantic. - Ralph Grizzle
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