Olympic: "Old Reliable"

The only thing truly remarkable about the Olympic-class liners was that two ships of great size (record-breaking at the time) were constructed nearly simultaneously, side by side.  When rival Cunard announced plans to build two new superliners, White Star felt they needed to keep pace.  J. Bruce Ismay and Lord Pierre, chairman of shipbuilder’s Harland & Wolff conceived of new vessels that would outclass their rivals in terms of comfort and luxury.  Let Cunard try for the Blue Ribband, they reasoned, we will make our ships so splendid passengers will not mind an extra day at sea.  Working with naval architect Alexander Carlisle, plans emerged for two new ships, with a third and even more splendid ship to follow. Construction of the Olympic began ahead of her sister, Titanic, and so it is to her went the honor of launching the world’s largest ship.  Many people believe that Titanic sailed as the largest ship in the world.  However, when Titanic was launched a year after Olympic, she was only a thousand tons heavier than her sister but the same in all other dimensions.  As Titanic entered service in 1912 she was outclassed by the new German liner Imperator in terms of both measurements and tonnage.  Olympic and Titanic were nearly identical and the design changes incorporated into Titanic were the result of experience with Olympic.  Many of these changes (except for the partially enclosed promenade, the key distinguishing feature) were  later made to Olympic.

1:1250 Scale model of Olympic by Carlo Marquardt.  Replica Ephemera from The Titanic Collection, Chronicle Books/Madison Press, 1998.

 The third ship was intended to take luxury (and later safety) to yet another level.  There is much debate and conflicting evidence regarding the origins of the name Britannic.  Some evidence (advertising copy) suggests that White Star intended to name the vessel Gigantic but was changed after the loss of Titanic for fear of tempting fate with grandiose names.  Other evidence suggests the intended name was always Britannic.  I am inclined to believe the latter is correct.  The Germans were building ships with patriotic names: Imperator (initially to be Europa) and Vaterland and consider the level of national pride in the liners as well as the gather war clouds, Britannic was the fitting patriotic choice for the newest British (though technically American) liner.

When Olympic entered service in 1911 she was the largest liner in the world and settled into a long career on the Atlantic. She is the only one of her class to complete a commercial voyage! Titanic sank four days into her maiden westbound crossing in 1912.  Still under construction as the Great War began, Britannic was requisitioned by the Admiralty as a hospital ship.  In 1915, she made several runs to the Mediterranean theater, and while inbound struck a mine.  Fortunately, Britannic was not carrying wounded soldiers and the casualties were limited to 30.  Somewhat ironically, these people abandoned ship without orders and were lost in a lifeboat that drifted too close to the still moving propellers. Today HMHS Britannic is a protected wreck in the Aegean Sea.

Olympic model and Scientific American, July 1, 1911. Note the two rows of double-stacked lifeboats.  This model represents Olympic 1913 and later.

Olympic served as a troopship during World War I and carried thousands of men to war and back.  On one trip from the United States, lookouts spotted a surfaced German U-Boat.   Olympic proved exceptionally maneuverable and altered course to avoid a torpedo attack.  Her captain ordered her turned again, this time aiming the prow at the U-Boat. The hunted became the hunter!  Horrified, the few men in the conning tower saw the immense bulk of Olympic bear down them.  The U-Boat crumpled like a soda can and quickly sank. The sailors up top were picked up by a British destroyer as Olympic sailed on.  On another occasion, she stopped, at great risk to assist a warship, rescuing the crew and attempting, unsuccessfully, it turned out to tow the vessel.  She proved to be a lucky ship and earned the nickname “Old Reliable” by the end of the war.

When her war duties were over, Olympic underwent a thorough refit and became one of the first major liners converted from coal to oil.  Her accommodations were updated to reflect new tastes and changing times.  Immigrant spaces were removed, third class became Tourist Class, and more amenities: private bathrooms, luxury suites, dance floors, and cinemas were installed at various times throughout the 1920s and 1930s.  Olympic was one of the popular ships of the 20s and like all the liners that sailed between the US and Europe coped with two new realities on the ocean:  immigration restriction and prohibition.  Immigrants provided much of the profits for shipping lines before the war, but now this revenue was largely gone.  Shipping companies sought to attract a new kind of passenger: the tourist.  Ordinary Americans in the 1920s, taking advantage of good economic times took vacations- domestic and overseas.  They also took to the sea to drink.  Once in international waters, the bars opened!  Indeed, the idea of cruising was born in the 1920s and in the lean years of 1930s, shipping companies offered $1 day cruises in North America, British Isles, Mediterranean, and Caribbean.  People needed an escape and shipping companies needed profits.  The Olympic made few cruises however and continued on the North Atlantic run. 

Olympic model and Scientific American May 6, 1911.  Note the balanced profile and evenly spaced funnels.  The fourth funnel was a "dummy"- it did not vent smoke from the boilers but did provide ventilation for the galleys.

Hard times also forced changes to the shipping companies themselves.  In the early 1920s, Morgan’s combine, IMM, fractured, and White Star returned to British ownership as an independent company. When the Depression threatened the survival of British shipping, Parliament underwrote measures that forced a merger between the old rivals, White Star and Cunard.  The new company emerged as Cunard-White Star, Ltd.  The combined tonnage made many vessels redundant and many were sold to other lines or scrapped in the mid 1930s.

While Olympic led a charmed life, her service was bookmarked by two incidents.  In 1911 as the liner was leaving Southampton the cruiser HMS Hawke broke her moorings and was drawn into Olympics wake.  The suction of the propellers and her much larger displacement caused the smaller ship to ram the Olympic. An inquiry placed blame on the Olympic and seemed to show that harbor pilots were not used to vessels of such size.  In one of her last crossings in 1934, Olympic was in heavy fog of Nantucket.  The channel is marked by a lightship, whose crews complained for years that the big liners pass too close and too fast for comfort.  Lookouts spotted the lightship too late and the Olympic rammed and sank it.  Seven of the lightship’s crew members lost their lives in the collision.  Once again, an inquiry found Olympic responsible.  Shortly after this incident, she was withdrawn from service. 

Olympic's fine profile.

Olympic saw her passenger numbers decline in the 1930s as fewer people crossed the Atlantic and those who did opted for newer ships.  She did make cruises, but none to the warmer climes.  In 1934-1935 she was largely laid up, and sailed for the breakers in 1935.  She was very sound and could have sailed for several years more.   Today pieces of Olympic’s woodwork and furnishings can be found throughout the United Kingdom. 

RMS Olympic (1911-1935).  Built by Harland & Wolff, Ltd. Belfast, Ireland.  As built in 1911: 45,324 gross tons, 882 ½ feet long, 92 feet wide.  Steam triple expansion engines geared to triple screw. Service speed 21 knots. Total capacity of 2,764 passengers (1,054 first class, 510 second class, 1,200 third class).

White Star Line

Cunard’s chief British rival was the White Star Line.  White Star, formally the Oceanic Steamship Navigation Company, was founded some thirty years after Cunard by Thomas Ismay.  White Star pioneered the construction of larger and better ships and though a smaller line than Cunard, managed to keep pace in terms of tonnage and passenger popularity.  As Cunard built the fastest ships and then later lost the honor to the Germans, White Star sought to build the most comfortable and well-appointed vessels.  Indeed it was a White Star ship, Teutonic, that captured the Kasier’s attention at Spithead.  In the late 1890s White Star competed with Cunard, and the upstart Germans for size.  One of White Star's finest liners was built while it was still an independent company.  The liner Oceanic of 1899 was a record breaker- the first ship to exceed 700 feet in length.  She was larger than the German record breaker Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, then the world’s fastest ship.  Externally, Oceanic was a cross between the old and the new.  She had three masts to balance her profile and remind nostalgic travelers of age of sail.  She also had a graceful, but knife-like (then an ideal!) prow and rounded stern and two funnels.  The ship exuded reliability and comfort.  Steerage and Third Class passengers had more spacious accommodations than in other vessels of the day and, unlike “rolling Billy” and the fastest ships, Oceanic promised a stable ride. 

Oceanic's balanced profile.  1:1200 Scale model produced by Carlo Marquardt.

            

Her First Class accommodations were exquisite for the day.  Passengers dined beneath a twenty-one foot dome and oversized portholes flooding the space with natural light.   She had one of the finest libraries at sea and her public rooms featured the finest woods from the Empire.  The ship proved very popular from her debut and gained a loyal following among frequent travellers.  Her career ended rather abruptly when she ran aground while in Admiralty service in 1914.

Oceanic and her subsequent fleet mates of 1901-1907 Celtic, Cedric, Baltic, and Adriatic were each an improvement on a design for a large and comfortable vessel.  The capital available to White Star from J.P. Morgan's combine, IMM (International Mercantile Marine) from 1902 onward enabled director J. Bruce Ismay to push the envelope with ship design and comfort at sea.  To me, one can look at Oceanic and see how the basic shape of the Olympic class liners evolved from this design.  Just like Oceanic, the Olympic in many ways looked as much to the past as to the future.

R.M.S. Oceanic (1899-1914).  Built by Harland & Wolff, Ltd. Belfast, Ireland.  17,272 gross tons, 704 feet long, 63 feet wide.  Steam triple expansion engines geared to twin screw. Service speed 19 knots. Total capacity of 1,710 passengers (410 first class, 300 second class, 1,000 steerage).

The Empire Strikes Back

British shipping was in a fix.  The German superliners were the fastest and among the most splendidly appointed ships on the Atlantic.  The Cunard Line in particular worried about the future.  By the time the Kaiser-class ships were winning speed records, J.P. Morgan was on the warpath.  He sought efficiency—and monopoly in transportation.  By 1900 he controlled directly or held a major share in most American rail lines.  Now he sought to pair the rails with the waves.  He bought shipping line after shipping line. He made Albert Ballin managing director of HAPAG and J. Bruce Ismay nominal chief of White Star.  By 1903 Morgan controlled nearly every line- large or small- except the French Line (CGT) and Cunard.  Cunard worried desperately about business and succeeded in worrying the Admiralty about war.  What if war came?  Could ships owned by an American, even if they flew the British flag, be compelled to His Majesty’s service?  Could these vessels ultimately be used against the Empire?  Cunard and the Admiralty lobbied for protective legislation for Cunard and for a generous subsidy to build two new superliners—larger, faster, and more impressive than the German rivals.  They also would be designed for swift conversion into armed cruisers in the event of war.  These were to be the first turbine-driven superliners and a mechanical wonder of the Edwardian age.

Mauretania's near sister ship, Lusitania.  The ships entered service in 1907 and briefly competed to be the fastest ship.  Mauretania proved to be faster, but if her sister survived the war, she may have regained the Blue Ribband.  1:1250 Model by Albatros.

            The new ships, Lusitania and Mauretania emerged in 1907.  They were sister ships, similar in overall design, but they were distinct.  James Miller’s interiors for Lusitania were very airy and white plasterwork was commonplace.  By contrast, Harold Peto’s Mauretania was filled with hardwoods and darker colors (perhaps fitting since she was built in England).  Both vessels were equally magnificent and initially both vibrated terribly at high speeds.  The ships were quietly returned to the yards after their trials to remedy the problem before the travelling public was on board.  The vibration was so severe that the Mauretania’s captain was nearly shaken off the bridge as the four steam turbines drover her to 25 knots. 

My growing collection of models, books, and ephemera related to this great liner.

            Lusitania entered service first sailing for New York in September of 1907.  On her second voyage she captured the Blue Riband from the Germans.  Mauretania entered service in December and took the speed prize herself.  The two ships would share a friendly rivalry over the next few years.  While there has been much debate, the records of the vessels point to Mauretania as the faster of the two.  Unfortunately, Lusitania’s service was cut short in 1915 (a story for another day) and we will never know if she may have outpaced her sister in the long run.

Real Photo Postcard view of Mauretania.  Note the smoke and waves have been added to the photograph.

Mauretania, 1:600 kit by Airfix. I built this model in the summer of 2000.   The model rests on a 1924 brochure and behind is Humphrey Jordan's 1935 biography of the ship.

            Mauretania survived WWI performing stellar service as a hospital and troop ship.  In the 1920s, she remained a popular and fast ship.  Her accommodations were changed over the years to accommodate more budget tourists in “tourist class,” private suites were added, as were more bathrooms to first class cabins.  

Original snapshot of Mauretania in New York, ca 1930.

Dance floors, extended bars, and cinemas were installed to lure travelers away from some of the newer ships that emerged later in the decade. She also, like many of the other major liners was converted to oil fuel.   In 1929, North German Lloyd sought to bring Germany back to supremacy on the sea with two superliners, Bremen and Europa.  The Bremen outpaced the Mauretania on her maiden voyage.  Over the next few years she tried to regain her title but proved unable to beat the sleek new German liners.

This view shows her sleek and balanced profile.  She held the Atlantic speed record from 1909-1929. 1:1250 model by Albatros.

            The Great Depression hurt all of the shipping lines and all of the liners.  Cunard and White Star (released from the Morgan combine, IMM, after the war) were forced to merge and become Cunard-White Star, Ltd.  The new company was planning two new superliners for express service (and to beat the Germans) and one was under construction. Despite running older liners, Mauretania included, on cruises to exotic (tough for vessels without air conditioning) and on $1/day bank holiday excursions, the liners ran into the red.  The combined fleet sadly made Mauretania redundant.  She was withdrawn from service and sold for scrap in 1935.  A sad fate indeed for a liner with many years of reliable service behind her- and more ahead- especially in the war that was coming. 

R.M.S. Mauretania (1907-1935) Built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Newcastle on Tyne, England.  31,938 GRT; 790 feet long, 88 feet wide.  Steam turbines, quadruple screw.  Service speed 25 knots.  Passenger arrangement in 1907: 560 first class, 475 second class, 1,300 tourist; 2,335 passengers total.