SEXISM ON SEA? WHY ARE SHIPS ALWAYS A ‘SHE’…..

The late, great SS. Norway was unquestionably a lady…

“I name this ship Queen Elizabeth the Second. May God bless her, and all who sail in her…”

With those immortal words on September 20th, 1967, our current sovereign affirmed the gender of the newest Cunard liner as she slid gracefully into the steel grey waters of the River Clyde.

She also inadvertently committed one of the greatest howlers in maritime history in that same breath.

The ship was simply intended to be called Queen Elizabeth. But, because of that slight and avoidable slip, she would be for evermore the QE2. At least she got the gender right.

Didn’t she?

Most people almost always assume that ships are a feminine presence, for reasons that I’ll get to shortly. But not everyone has always bought into the logic of the feminine gender.

Captain Ernst Lindemann was the first- and as it turned out the last- commanding officer of the Bismarck. That tiger shark of a battleship was commissioned in Hamburg on August 24th, 1940. Lindemann insisted that his crew refer to the Bismarck in the masculine sense; he believed that something so big and powerful could only be masculine in gender.

Gender notwithstanding, Bismarck went to the bottom after the most incredible single ship hunt of all time. Lindemann went with her, too. As did most of her crew.

But most ships are referred to as a ‘she’, and this is especially so in the cases of ocean liners and their naturally evolved cousins, the modern cruise ships.

And again, QE2 serves as a modern paragon for that gender. She could roll the milk out of a cup of tea when in a bad mood. She was capricious, whimsical and prone to change her mind at a moment’s notice. Yet she was also a ravishing beauty, like many of her predecessors. And, once met, you couldn’t help but fall hopelessly in love with her.

Ocean liners as a whole were beautiful, usually welcoming and accommodating, and always immaculately turned out. There’s doubtless some subliminal feminine connection there.

The magnificent Normandie, from a painting by James A. Flood

Yet even the French- of all people- in the 1930’s tried to assert that their brand new, record breaking Normandie should be known as ‘le’ rather than ‘la’- a kind of attempt at gender neutral assignment that fooled no one who ever boarded her. For, despite all her size, strength and power, the Normandie was not only ladylike; she was in every respect a femme fatale par excellence.

No one caught on to this better than the travelling public. At the height of the rivalry between Normandie and Queen Mary in the thirties, one Englishwoman who had sailed on both liners summed up the personalities of each with this beautiful quote;

“In my opinion, the Queen Mary is like a grand Englishwoman in sportswear. And the Normandie is like a very pretty French girl in a beautiful evening gown.”

It became something that we probably did subconsciously over centuries. Something as beautiful, stately and elegant as a passenger liner could only really be defined as a feminine presence. You could argue that tugs and dredgers are masculine, I suppose. But very few of those ever took passengers across oceans.

And, of course, hanging over it all there is always the long shadow of the Titanic…

Though that ship never had a formal naming ceremony, there is no doubt in my mind that the ill fated juggernaut is, without doubt, the Marilyn Monroe of Atlantic liners. Sleek, stylish and beautiful; a goddess taken down at the very height of her youth, beauty and vitality. The idea that the Titanic might ever have been thought of as masculine seems more than faintly ridiculous to my mind.

So, there you go. That’s my take, for what it’s worth. What’s yours?

THE GREATEST SPEED RACE OF ALL TIME; NORMANDIE, QUEEN MARY, AND THE BLUE RIBAND OF THE ATLANTIC

Baggage tag for the Cunard Queens, Mary and Elizabeth. The greatest tag team in Atlantic history

At 11.03 on the morning of June 3rd, 1935, the French Line’s brand new SS. Normandie thundered past the Ambrose Lightship. just off the coast of North America. As she did so, a thirty metre long blue pennant was unfurled at her mainmast, and her steam whistles let out a single, triumphant scream. Normandie, newest and greatest of all ocean liners, had taken the North Atlantic speed record at the first attempt. And now she was letting the world know about it.

Of course, she had not been openly trying for the speed record. No blue blooded ocean liner ever did. But there’s no doubt that the French desperately wanted the Blue Riband; France had never held it before.

The fallacy was exposed when every single one of the maiden voyage passengers was presented with an engraved silver medallion to commemorate the event, complete with the date. As for the actual Blue Riband pennant; that just ‘happened’ to be on board at the time. A happy coincidence, indeed.

That barnstorming maiden voyage of the Normandie was unquestionably the most successful in the history of ocean liner travel. More than a quarter of a million people blackened the banks of the River Hudson to witness her triumphal entry into Manhattan. Her debut attracted newspaper and media coverage fully equal in scale to the first Moon landing, some thirty four years later. And yet, even at the height of all the hoopla and celebration, the French Line directors back in Paris were casting nervous eyes over in the direction of Clydebank, where the Queen Mary was rapidly nearing completion for Cunard White Star.

One commentator summed it up perfectly when he said; ‘The coming of the Queen Mary will inaugurate the greatest speed race of all time. Which ship will be the faster; the Normandie or the Queen?’ It was a question that vexed people all over Britain and France alike. Nothing less than national pride was at stake.

In truth, the two liners had been rivals ever since they were laid down on their respective slipways in Scotland and France, right in the depths of the greatest financial depression that the world had ever known. They were of around the same size- 80,000 tons- and they were the first ships in the world ever to exceed a thousand feet in length. Each was designed to cross the Atlantic in around four days.

The magnificent Normandie, from a painting by James A. Flood

Normandie and Queen Mary were, essentially, vast, swaggering, sea going cathedrals, designed to showcase the greatest attributes and merits- both real and imagined- of their host nations. But, while work on the Queen Mary came to an agonising halt in the midst of the Great Depression, the French ploughed ahead with Normandie. She emerged in the late spring of 1935, and immediately swept the board on the Atlantic crossing. There had never been a ship like her and, in all truth, there has never been one quite like her since.

If the French were nervous about the coming debut of the Queen Mary, then their English rivals were equally jittery. The Normandie had taken every possible honour that the new British liner could hope to aspire to. If Britain was to regain its pre-eminent place as the number one maritime nation in the world, then the Normandie had to be beaten, and decisively at that.

It started well enough. On May 27th, 1936, the Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton, high on jingoism and laden down with the weight of national expectation. Once clear of the English Channel, Commodore Edgar Britten put his foot down, and the big British liner thundered out to the westward. Then, two days out from New York, she hit the fog.

For eleven straight hours, the Queen Mary slowed to a crawl in the middle of a typical Atlantic sea of fog. When she finally cleared it, the big liner poured on power. She soon began to make up time.

But not enough time….

Queen Mary arrived in New York to a stunning, superlative welcome fully the equal of that accorded to her rival. But the next day, when the eastbound Normandie docked in Le Havre, she was still flying her Blue Riband pennant.

That same August, the Queen finally beat her French rival, taking the pennant in both directions. There was an air of general satisfaction back in Britain; the natural order of things seemed to have been restored.

Then, In March of 1937, the Normandie took back the eastbound record in the teeth of a ferocious storm. That same August, she also retook the westbound record as well. Game on.

Pace and grace; the Queen Mary

Finally, in August of 1938, the Queen Mary won back the record in both directions. Yet the British ship had always been the more powerful of the two. Her engines could generate 200,000 horsepower, compared to the 160,000 of her French rival. In theory, that gave the Queen an advantage of around twenty five per cent.

The actual speeds varied by only a fraction; both ships routinely ran at over thirty knots. Each in turn brought the crossing time down to a little under four days.

The Normandie benefited massively from her radical new hull design; sleek, clean, sweeping and modern, she was like a space ship compared to the doughty, conventional Cunarder. Her bulbous underwater bow and sharp, tapered prow combined with a broad waist and vast, soaring flanks to create a magnificent, aerodynamic dream of a hull, one as practical and successful as it was bewitching to behold.

By contrast, the Queen Mary was  a bigger, updated version of earlier, proven Cunard mainstays such as the Mauretania and Aquitania. Evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. For all of her considerable warmth and grace, she simply did not have the style, boldness and panache of the French ship.

But the Normandie was not quite the French masterpiece that her owners claimed. In fact, her hull was designed by a Russian emigre by the name of Vladimir Yourkevitch. Before the 1917 revolution, he had been an architect working for the Imperial Russian Navy.  Leaving Russia seemed a smart move at that turbulent time. And it was he who came up with the stunning hull design for the Normandie.

Yourkevitch was by no means prepared to work solely for-or with- the French. As specifications for both Normandie and Queen Mary were being worked out, Yourkevitch touted his revolutionary designs to both Cunard White Star and the French Line. The British sidelined the Russian refugee; the French did not.

And, in the most exquisitely agonising twist of all, Yourkevitch had to stand back and watch his great creation burn and die in front of his own eyes. As she slowly flooded and capsized at her Manhattan Pier in February of 1942, Yourkevitch begged the American admiral in charge of the scene to let him go on board.

He knew the Normandie blindfolded; better than anyone else. Yourkevitch could have opened the flood valves that would have ensured that the ship settled on an even keel. But this insignificant seeming little man was rebuffed. Admiral Adolphus Andrews told Yourkevitch that it was ‘a navy job’.

The bridge of the Queen Mary as it appears today

The result? The needless, total destruction of the Normandie. With her went the chance of shaving up to six months from the end of World War Two.

Of course, the Queen Mary went on to a fabled, illustrious career that straddled both war and peace. She finally lost the Blue Riband to the barnstorming SS. United States in 1952. The new American liner had turbines developed for fast attack aircraft carriers in the Pacific theatre, and a hull shape that owed more than just a nod or two to the Normandie.

Both ships- Queen Mary and Normandie-  have rightly become immortal. They were designed, built and sailed with great style and panache. Everything about them was front page news at the time. Both survive after a form; the Queen Mary as a dilapidated, yet still dignified hotel cum tourist attraction in Long Beach, California. And as for Normandie, her reputation as the most beautiful, brilliant and daring ocean liner of all time is safe; cherished and inviolable, the magnificent French Line flagship remains the absolute epitome of luxury, style and glamour to this day.

THINGS FROM MY BUCKET LIST….

At the end of a cross USA train journey, to be greeted by this view…

Most people who know me would say that I’m well travelled. My general response to that is that I travel well. And, for sure, I do.

But looked at in either context, a simple fact remains the same; the more we experience of the world, the more we become painfully aware of how little we actually have seen. Travel is like peeling an onion; just when you think you’ve got down to the heart of it, you find another hundred layers, lying in wait to be unravelled.

And that is exactly as it should be, too.

To truly travel, the mind should always be constantly exploring new horizons and, at the very least, contemplating new stuff. Many of us have what we call a ‘bucket list’; a set of trophy things we want to do, sights we yet want to see,

Trust me, I’m no different in that regard. So, without further ado, here’s some of the adventures I still want to experience at least once in my lifetime. Hang on- this could get messy….

TRAVEL BY RAIL ACROSS THE USA

From sea to shining sea. West to East. Starting in Los Angeles with a stay on the dear old Queen Mary, and then making my way on those fabulous Amtrak double decker trains, all the way to New York.

I’d make a two night stop in certain cities along the way; New Orleans, Chicago, and Philadelphia come first to mind. There would be a final couple of nights in New York and then- as a truly grand finale- I’d sail back across the Atlantic to England on the Queen Mary 2. 

That’s living, all right.

THREE WEEKS IN THE GREEK ISLANDS

This would be the complete opposite to my normal, organised routine. Just an open return flight ticket to Athens, as little luggage as possible, and then just island hopping for three weeks, using the local ferries like buses.

Where to? Wherever the mood and the music takes me. A day here. Three days there. Two days anywhere. Repeat as necessary until you become so chilled out that you’re almost liquid.

So many choices, and all dependant on a mood, a whim, People watching and drinking wine in the sun. Repeat as necessary. Jacket and tie? I don’t think so. Not for this one, Colonel.

Rio bound??

SAILING DOWN TO RIO

Anyone with even a hint of romance in their soul has a sacred duty to sail down to Rio; the most sultry and sensuous city south of the Equator. Why sail? Because tourists fly. And you are not a tourist; you’re a child that has to follow the sun. We don’t ‘do’ mundane, chico. That’s not what we’re about, is it? That’s not how we roll.

And, if you are going to arrive in Rio, you want to make that spectacular, dramatic entry from the sea. Sailing in past Corcovado and the statue of Christ the Redeemer. And do it in style; arrive on the biggest, most swaggering and spectacular ship you can find. You owe it to Rio. And you owe it to yourself. Don’t let me down.

PADDLE WHEELER ON THE MISSISSIPPI

In the immortal words of Churchill, D; Oh, yes…

I want to sit on a rocking chair on some huge, hulking great wedding cake of  a paddle steamer, and pretend I’m Huckleberry Finn while I sip on a mint julep. I want to swagger down one of those impossibly over fussed, Gone With The Wind style grand staircases. To roll on out of New Orleans, with the paddle wheel thrashing up the river behind us, and a dixieland jazz soundtrack ringing in my ears. I still want to be able to hear that music until my dying day. Yes sir, I’ll take some of that Mississippi mud pie, with a big slice of old style steamboating.

Is there more? Oh Lord, yes. Lots. But these are the brightest stars I’ll be aiming to reach for. Bucket list? The only thing that I’m sure of with any real certainty is that I’m going to be needing a bigger bucket.

How about you?

HISTORIC SOUTHAMPTON- ENGLAND’S GATEWAY TO THE WORLD

While no one would claim that Southampton is a tourist resort on a par with nearby Bournemouth and Torquay, the city is, for my money, a very under rated gem in a great number of ways. It has history and heritage that rivals and surpasses many, plus a series of wonderful, open parks that give the city a much needed, verdant green lung. You can find peace and calm here, combined with the busy pace of a modern commercial city, and all within walking distance of each other.

The city was fortified to a quite astonishing extent in the years after William the Conquerer’s rule, and the remnants of these impressive bulwarks are still littered around the lower city like gaunt exclamation marks. Most famous of all is the imposing Bargate, which juts up in the pedestrian heart of the city centre like some gaunt old molar. Walking though the arch in the centre, you gain a real sense of insight into how formidable these ramparts must have been when new. They still are to this day.

Of course, Southampton is synonymous with ocean liners, but it was for many years the second choice to Liverpool as the premier port for the biggest passenger ships. Up until the turn of the 20th century, the pre-eminent passenger leviathans of Cunard and White Star made Liverpool their home; embarking and returning to the Mersey on a regular schedule.

That all began to change in 1907.

That year, the White Star Line decided to move it’s main base of operations to Southampton. The city had better rail links with London, and provided an easier starting and finishing point for picking up passengers from continental France. And the city was also investing massively in it’s infrastructure; creating the world’s largest open dock area, as well as the largest dry dock. For, while Cunard continued to favour Liverpool. White Star had committed irrevocably to Southampton, and the city spent lavishly to please it’s platinum chip customer by providing the most comprehensive facilities of any port.

This paid off in spades with the arrival of the brand new Olympic in the summer of 1911. The debut of the largest ship in the world was a real coup for the Hampshire port- the first time that such a leviathan had not been ‘baptised’ on the Mersey. Liverpool was stunned; Southampton was now truly in the ascendant.

Within a year, that euphoria turned to shock, disbelief and sheer, numbing horror, as the city confronted the fallout from the sinking of the Titanic.

As second of the Olympic class liners, the Titanic was the largest ship in the world when she arrived in Southampton at midnight on April 3rd, 1912, to remarkably little fuss. There was more an atmosphere of quiet, satisfied confidence than the euphoria seen at the maiden sailing of the Olympic. The arriving Titanic tied up at the same spot vacated just twelve hours before by her sister ship.

She stayed there for a week; embarking crew and provisions and, ultimately, passengers. Though White Star made little fuss of her first sailing, a large crowd still gathered to watch the awe inspiring bulk of the Titanic as she began her maiden voyage on Wednesday, April 10th, 1912. No one could possibly have guessed that all that swaggering magnificence would be at the bottom of the Atlantic just days later.

Her sinking hit Southampton like a hydrogen bomb. More than two-thirds of the ship’s entire crew of almost nine hundred came from Southampton, and precious few of them came home alive. On one street alone, eleven families lost a crew member in the sinking. Family after family was left both grieving and destitute at the same time. In one school classroom of thirty, every single child lost a relative on the Titanic.

Even today, the Titanic is regarded very much as a ‘Southampton ship’, though her port of registry was actually Liverpool, where the White Star Line had it’s headquarters. Over time, Southampton and the Titanic would become synonymous; even now, this is a deep, emotional raw wound in Southampton’s psyche. Here, the story of the Titanic was never a black joke. You only have to walk around the city centre to see what an emotional lightning rod she still is to this day.

Yet none of this changed Southampton’s unique edge over it’s famed rival on the Mersey. After the Great War, the first string of giant Cunarders finally forsook Liverpool for the Hampshire port. It also became the port of call for the express liners sailing from Germany and France, as well as Holland and Scandinavia.

These platinum chip companies were joined by the first string liner services to South Africa, South America and Canada. On any one day, a dozen of the world’s largest liners could be found berthed in Southampton. It was, quite literally, the ‘Gateway to The World’ that the posters proclaimed. Even through the Great Depression, the greatest ships in the world came and went with the regularity of passenger trains.

During the Second World War, Southampton played a vital role in the life and death struggle against Hitler and, as D-Day approached, it became a massive marshalling point for what remains, quite simply, the largest flotilla of ships ever assembled in the history of the world. As a consequence, the city suffered brutally at the hands of Luftwaffe bomb aimers but, by the time of D-Day, Hitler’s once vaunted air force was pretty much running on fumes; a mere shadow of its former self.

After the war, the express services gradually resumed as the heyday of the Atlantic ferry boomed like the sirens of the departing Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. The city and the docks were busier than ever. Southampton saw the triumphant debuts of the barnstorming United States and the suave, beautiful France. But the arrival of regular, reliable commercial air travel put those same, proud liner services to the sword one at a time, until they all but vanished.

For many years, only the Queen Elizabeth 2 remained in regular liner service. The initially troubled Cunarder became Southampton’s adored, totemic ship; an iconic throwback, sailing proudly back and forth against incredible odds. And, even more incredibly, that magnificent ship persevered. There are few things more emotive than watching Southampton’s final farewell to it’s beloved Queen when she sailed for the last time on November 11th, 2008, at the end of an epic thirty nine years at sea.

Cruising gave the venerable city berths a whole new lease of life. A whole new generation of vast seagoing giants now visit the port on a regular basis, and the city plays host to many naming ceremonies for new ships. While these do not equate to the glamour days of the past- the times when hordes of reporters would surround gangways and boat trains, hoping to get a shot of Bob Hope, Hemingway or Jean Harlow- they have become a vital lifeline in reviving this proud, ancient sea city in the first years of a new century.

And of course, Southampton does much to advertise and raise income from it’s past. Nothing illustrates this more than the recently opened Sea City museum. Here, the full story of Southampton’s maritime history is laid out across a couple of fascinating floors.

One of these inevitably tells the full story of the Titanic, from the perspective of the city that supplied her with shelter, sustenance, and solid Southampton labour. It is truly staggering- even for those who know her story well- to realise just how hard and wide that awful disaster hit home back in 1912. The iceberg’s kiss literally knocked the breath out of hundreds of homes, and the museum brings it back to life with stark, unsparing clarity.

The disaster is commemorated in various locations and landmarks around the city, but  the one dedicated to the memory of the Titanic engineers is, without doubt, the most poignant. More than a hundred thousand people turned up to it’s unveiling in April, 1914. It still stands in East Park to this day.

Just as poignant in it’s own way is the anchor from the QE2 that forms the centre piece of the renamed QE2 Mile that runs up from the Bargate. Here, Southampton’s most famous resident is lovingly commemorated in a manner that is as unique and enduring as the great ship herself.

So, if you happen to be starting or, indeed, finishing a voyage in Southampton, don’t just rush through the place. Linger. Listen. Because every one of those ancient stone walls, every last ripple that laps against those old, weathered docks, has a story to tell. Amid the hustle and the bustle of a modern, cutting edge city, the past is all around you, and it is still crying out to be heard. Just engage, and enjoy.

THE INCREDIBLE IMPERATOR; A CENTURY ON

The Imperator was a ship of many firsts; the first to weigh in at over 50,000 tons; the first to exceed more than nine hundred feet in length. The first of a world beating trio that was intended to dominate the lucrative Atlantic passenger trade like nothing ever had before. Even  one hundred years later, the sheer, spectacular scale of the towering, Teutonic three stacker is impossible to deny.

She was laid down for the Hamburg-Amerika Line (now known as Hapag-Lloyd) as a direct, dramatic response to rival British liners such as Olympic, Titanic, and the upcoming Cunarder,  Aquitania. She was the brainchild of the brilliant Albert Ballin, a man of uncompromising taste and style. Ballin had an eye for detail and a grasp of the truly sybaritic, perhaps equalled only by that of Cesar Ritz himself. Ballin was way ahead of his time.

That is probably why he hired the London Ritz architects, Charles Mewes and Arthur Davis, to create the fairy tale interiors of the Imperator. Ballin was determined to outclass all opposition, at every level. One example of this materialised just weeks before the ship’s maiden voyage.

News had somehow leaked out that the new Aquitania would actually be a few feet longer than the Imperator on her forthcoming 1914 debut. Within days, a huge crate arrived at the German liner’s fitting out dock.

It contained a monstrous, gilt trimmed, giant golden eagle, clutching a globe of the world in it’s talons. It was bolted like a figurehead of old onto the prow of the Imperator. And it did, indeed, have the desired effect of making her longer than her British rival.

The bird did not last. A howling Atlantic storm literally clipped the eagle’s wings within a few weeks of the Imperator’s entry into service. The rest of the largely unloved, scowling brute was discreetly removed soon afterwards.

The Imperator was launched in 1912, just six weeks after the apocalyptic sinking of the Titanic. The original, intended name was Europa but, with an entire continent now increasingly on edge at the sabre rattling in the royal houses of Europe, Ballin opted to name the ship Imperator, after his friend and mentor, the erratic, unstable Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was jingoistic sleight of hand of the first order.

The first swing of the champagne bottle somehow failed to connect with the prow of the biggest man made object on the planet. The inbound bottle was deftly caught by the Kaiser himself, who smashed it neatly against the ship that now bore his name. Amid much pomp and ceremony, the huge hull slid sedately into the waters of the Elbe.

The inquiries into the Titanic disaster in both England and America resulted in a whole raft of new maritime legislation; none of which had been in force when the Imperator had first taken shape on a drawing board. The most obvious of these was a mushrooming of literally dozens of extra lifeboats, many of them stowed in impromptu bays, carved out of the lower superstructure. These unplanned, yet necessary changes upset her original centre of stability quite a lot.

Ballin sheathed her incredible, unmatched interiors in a byzantine brew of marble, gilt, and deep, rich carpeting. Potted palms flanked her vast, vaulting staircases in a series of triumphant cascades. Those sublime interiors were a cake rich confection of stunning old masters, over the top statuary, and vast chandeliers that held sway above a sea of deep, clubby sofas and chairs. It was, indeed, the ambiance of the Ritz afloat, and the overall look was quite simply stunning.

And it all conspired to make her hugely unstable. On her maiden arrival in New York, she leaned ominously to port as thousands of passengers rushed the railings to get a first glimpse of the Statue Of Liberty. New York harbour pilots promptly nicknamed her the ‘Limperator’. The tug boat captains there said that she never came in on an even keel.

What Ballin could do with her, he did. Thousands of tons of pig iron were added to her as ballast; some nine foot was cut from the top of each of her trio of towering smoke stacks. Inside, a token reduction was made in the opera house style, overblown splendour. It all helped but, to the very end of her days, both she and her two sisters would remain ‘tender’ ships at sea.

But the Imperator was an instant, immediate success. In her first year of service, she was one of the most popular and profitable liners on the Atlantic. The outbreak of the Great War found her safely at home in Hamburg, where she would remain for the duration of the conflict.

Her brand new sister was not so lucky. The Vaterland, second of the Ballin trio, was in New York, in the middle of her third round trip, when the war descended. Ordered to remain put, she was seized as a war prize by the Americans in 1917, outfitted as a troopship, and renamed the Leviathan. She never sailed under the German flag again.

And neither did the poor, proud Imperator. The 1918 armistice surrendered the entire German merchant marine- the largest in the world- to it’s former enemies. And, as the largest ships in the world, the Ballin trio were by far the biggest prizes of all. The only question was; who would get them?

Leviathan stayed with the United States Lines, who put her into passenger service in 1922. Prohibition crippled her from the start. Wet outside and largely dry on the inside, she never had a chance. She was withdrawn from service in 1934, and finally scrapped in 1938.

Third of the class, Bismarck was launched just weeks before the war broke out, and all work was stopped on her for the duration. She was completed for the White Star Line in 1922. Renamed the Majestic, White Star marketed her as ‘The Queen of the Western Ocean’. She was the largest ship in the world until the debut of the Normandie in 1935. Ultimately converted into the cadet ship Caledonia, she burned and sank at her pier just prior to the outbreak of another global conflict in September, 1939.

The Imperator went to Cunard, as a replacement for the torpedoed Lusitania. She was converted to oil burning, painted in Cunard colours and renamed the Berengaria, before being put back into service on the Atlantic ferry from Southampton to New York.

The Berengaria was, in fact, the first Cunard liner to be actually named after an English queen; the lady in question had been the wife of Richard the Lionheart.

Cunard had the good sense to leave her plush interiors pretty much as they were, apart from some subtle rearranging of the first class public rooms. Her vast, beautiful Pompeiian swimming pool had been modelled after one that can still be seen at the Royal Automobile Club in London. Even today, it is still considered by many to be the most beautiful ever crafted on any ship.

The Berengaria sailed the gilded Atlantic run with her former rivals and new fleet mates, Mauretania and Aquitania. She became the Cunard line flagship and, by some inexplicable whim, she also became the most popular ship on the crossing. For several years, she was very much the ship to be seen on. In that incredible age of steamships, baseball, flapper girls and prohibition, the Berengaria was the brightest jewel in the company’s crown. As such, she was immensely profitable to boot.

That all changed with the 1927 debut of the splendid new Ile De France. Swathed in a stunning new Art Deco look, the swanky new French liner was an instant, spectacular success. Next to her, all the older, pre war liners suddenly looked dowdy, outdated, and hopelessly behind the times. And worse was to come.

The 1929 stock market crash, and the Great Depression that followed, decimated the liner trade on the Atlantic by almost half within four years. At the same time, a string of new, government subsidised, Italian and-ironically, German- ships began to appear on the run. State of the art and sleek, they were soon snapping at the heels of the doughty old timers still being operated by both Cunard and White Star. Soon, both premier British shipping lines were in deep trouble.

The Berengaria and her ilk survived by offering five and six day ‘booze’ cruises from New York, up to Halifax, and down to Bermuda. With her bars open around the clock, the iconic Cunarder earned the nickname of the ‘Dead and Bury’er’. It was the equivalent of expecting  Audrey Hepburn to appear in pantomime. Cruising eked out her life, at the expense of her soul and reputation. But time was still running out.

On Clydebank, the incomplete, rust shrouded hulk that would one day be the Queen Mary sat, deserted by everyone save the birds that nested in her. As a condition for lending the money to finally complete her, the British government forced the shotgun wedding of those age old rivals, Cunard and White Star.

With Cunard holding a 62-38 per cent majority shareholding in the new amalgam, the inevitable disposal of suddenly redundant, surplus tonnage hit White Star especially hard. It also largely explains why the Majestic  went to the block, while the Berengaria earned a reprieve.

By 1936, the ageing diva was still making the Atlantic crossing, but now in company with the brand new Queen Mary. Hopelessly outclassed by flash, new foreign tonnage like the Rex, the Normandie and-irony of ironies- the new Europa, her end was hastened by a rash of small, electrical fires that started to break out all over through the summer of 1938. She was finally sold for scrap that same December. Her eventual replacement would be the second Mauretania of 1939.

Her story had many ups and downs, but ultimately, Ballin’s dream ship endured for almost a quarter of a century. Her triumphs, style, and sheer splendour are undeniable; the stuff of true ocean going legends. One hundred years after her launch, the Imperator has truly earned her berth in the Valhalla of vanished North Atlantic nobility.

THE FRENCH LINE- UNSURPASSED OCEAN ROYALTY

Painting of the Normandie by James Flood, maritime artist extraordinaire

In the world of travel, no people are as nostalgic as fans of the vanished ocean liners. I know. I am one. An incurable case, with zero chance of remission.

Yet of all those long vanished icons of ocean travel, none for me exerts the regret or sense of loss that the French Line does. Because if ever a line could be said to embody the real panache and elegance of ocean liner travel, then the French Line is surely it.

Why? For me, there are a number of factors. Where lines such as Cunard and White Star built ships in pairs to operate as running mates, the French Line never did. Each one was a true individual, as finely crafted a statement of intent as it was possible to produce.

There’s also no doubt that the French Line offered the best food and service afloat of any of the great lines. The dinner menu on the Ile De France listed no less then 275 different items each evening. ‘Bon Voyage is always French’ was the line’s mantra. It was something the line lived up to in deed as well as the spoken word.

For instance, the wine cellar on the Normandie was stocked on board a full six months before her maiden voyage, in order to give the wine time to settle. What is more, it was loaded in such a way that, should the ship ever roll, the motion would least upset the wine. Seasick passengers were an unavoidable hazard of Atlantic travel, but bad wine was a mortal sin.

On the subject of wine, vin du table was always free aboard the French Line; the company considered it a vital part of the ambiance of ‘France afloat’. The French Line insisted that you were actually in France the moment that you boarded one of their ships. Announcements on board were only ever made in French, despite the fact that most of the passengers were, invariably, American.

They had style in spades. When the Ile De France first made her stunning debut in 1927, a churlish passenger remarked to her captain that she was smaller than many rivals. His reply? ‘She may not be the biggest, madame; but then, neither is the Ritz’…

Of course, the Ile De France became a legend. She introduced Art Deco to the Atlantic crossing, and her striking, modern interiors at once made every other liner afloat look dowdy and old fashioned. So sensational was her impact, that many veteran travellers were prepared to wait for a week, just to cross on her. For years, she carried more first class passengers than any other Atlantic liner. Even Noel Coward immortalised her in song.

And, even after the war, she was regarded with awe and reverence; a place where you could have onion soup for breakfast, even in tourist class.

The post war Liberte became the most popular ticket on the Atlantic. No matter that the Cunard Queens were bigger,  and the United States faster. And she became a movie star three times over. When Marilyn Monroe tells Jane Russell that she is off to Europe, Russell asks; “On the Liberte?” Marilyn’s reply; “How else?”

Those grand, French Line public rooms had scale to match their splendour as well. When the company introduced it’s first, stunning SS. France in 1912, she featured a magnificent, two story first class dining room. The reason? ‘Low ceilings do not aid the appetite’, said the line. In fact, this was nothing less than a dig at the single story, first class dining room aboard the rival White Star line’s Olympic and Titanic.

But the impact of the Normandie was nothing short of seismic. No ship, either before or since, has made such a sensational, stunning debut as the immortal French Line flagship. Even now, the superlatives flow like fine wine.

The first ocean liner over a thousand feet in length, and the first of the eighty-thousand ton monsters; the first to be the largest, fastest and most luxurious on her maiden crossing. That crossing itself was the most epochal in maritime history.

In terms of beauty, style and chic, she was unapproachable. When she and Queen Mary were playing ping pong with the Blue Riband in the 1930’s, it took the similarly sized British ship an extra forty thousand horsepower just to reach the same speed as the Normandie. The French masterpiece was space age, sumptuous and spectacular. The world would never see the likes of her again.

But that did not stop the French from trying…

‘I have given you a new Normandie!’ With that fatuous burst of egotism on his lips, General De Gaulle watched as his wife, Yvonne, set her successor afloat on May 11th, 1960. Two hundred thousand people cheered as the second France slid serenely into the River Loire, launched from the same slipway as her elegant predecessor.

France was lithe, fabulous, and way too late. By the time she arrived in New York for the first time, the jets already had more than seventy per cent of the transatlantic trade. The writing was truly in the sky.

Everyone knew it, too. The American press described her as an eighty million dollar gamble. The French Line called her ‘the last refuge of the good life’.

Yet, to the end, the last great flagship embodied all that was special, elegant and stylish about her country. Audrey Hepburn fell in love with her. The France even carried the marginally less beautiful Mona Lisa to New York for the 1964 World Fair. Salvador Dali liked to walk his pet Ocelots on deck. Burt Lancaster would show passengers his hand spring skills.

The dining rooms were still double height and, naturally, Camembert cheese would only be offered to passengers on the fourth day out from Le Havre, when it was considered to be at its absolute best. A French Line Maitre d’ would have chosen suicide over slightly over ripe cheese. It was the French Line way.

Her layup in 1974 brought down the guillotine blade on 110 years of French Line excellence and style. But the great France, magically resurrected as the fabulous, Art Deco suffused Norway, would go on to become a legend for the second time in her magnificent career.

Something of her grand, French Line past always lingered like fine perfume within that sumptuous hull. And those great, winged stacks made her unmistakable. For that, and for the memories that she embodied, I for one will always be grateful.

TIME OUT IN THE 1930’S- TIME TRAVEL FOR REAL….

I said in a previous blog that I had enjoyed an overnight stay in Long Beach on the venerable old Queen Mary. In fact, as things go on my ‘to do’ bucket list, this was right near the top. But I still approached the old girl with mixed feelings, and not without reason.

By the time I got to her, the Queen Mary had spent more time on life support in her Long Beach exile than in service; forty-three years against thirty-one, to be exact. I’d always assumed that there would be something mournful about her.

There would be that moment when I leaned over the railings, thrilled at the unique magic of being on such a fabled, legendary ship. The adrenaline would flow like tap water as I waited for the engines to start.

But of course, they never will….

I was reminded again of the curious tourists that pay up to file past Lenin’s waxy corpse in Moscow. Was the Queen Mary the equivalent? The once great, iconic Cunarder now some tremendous, tethered mummy, wrapped in a hundred coats of black, white and red paint?

I had other reservations. A lot of time and effort has gone into making the Queen Mary appear as some kind of temple to Art Deco. In fact, her interiors were much more of a Bauhaus/Odeon mixture. In terms of decor, she was by far the most conservative of the great ‘ships of state’ of the 1930’s.

Sure, there are plenty of streamlined, petrified Art Deco motifs still adorning the walls of her public rooms. But to call her an Art Deco ship- especially when compared to her great rival, the Normandie- has always seemed more than a little desperate to me.

But on the other hand….

Here was the ship that had, in the immortal words of Winston Churchill, shortened the war by at least a year with her troop carrying capacity. The ship that had held the Blue Riband unchallenged for fourteen consecutive years.

She was the ship of film stars, politicians, sportsmen. The great and the good. Noel Coward, Laurel and Hardy. Hepburn and Spencer Tracey. Bob Hope and John Wayne. Greta Garbo. Bogart, Bacall, and even the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. In her post World War Two heyday, anybody who was anybody at all sailed across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary at some stage.

And she still looks marvellous. No matter that her three funnels are plastic replicas of the originals. Those were wisely dismantled when it was found that the only thing still holding them together was one hundred and four coats of Cunard black and red paint.

The lady truly has a remarkable, swaggering stance. Even now, the Queen Mary is still a spectacular statement of intent. Just walking her outer decks is exhilarating. Stand on the wing of her bridge, look back at those three gigantic funnels, and you feel as if the old girl is ready to slip her ropes and sail off at any moment.

If only that were so…

Inside, many of her vast, double height public rooms can be viewed, as can the famous, supposedly haunted swimming pool. They run haunted tours on the ship. Maybe best not to give Clive Palmer any more money making ideas, though, eh?

The famous wood panelling is still waxed and buffed to an incredible degree, Just as in her heyday, the play of light on wood gives her a kind of dark, feverish feel in places.

Of course, the legendary Veranda Grill has not been restored yet. If only they could achieve that, It would enhance her pulling power enormously. In the late forties and fifties, that room was the equivalent of the Savoy Grill, or the Ritz. The food and service was certainly among the best anywhere in the world.

The promenade decks are long, ghostly expanses. On my visit, they were as silent as a graveyard. Compared to how busy they must once have been, this was truly sad.

But my cabin- A-36- was wonderful. Just off the main lobby, and handy for what is still a fantastic shopping arcade; a true thirties time capsule with some excellent, eclectic memorabilia stores worth a few hours of anybody’s time. I browsed. I spent. I treasured. And I still do.

But, for me, the real highlight was the famous Observation Bar, curved around the base of the lower superstructure.

Here huge, floor to ceiling windows form a circular sweep that embraces a bewitching series of chrome balustrades, original floor and ceiling light fixtures, and groups of formal furniture. I could almost hear Noel Coward bitching about Ira Gershwin over a couple of apple martinis, or imagine Marlene Dietrich wafting into the room, all shimmering white and trailing a cloud of exquisite perfume in her wake.

Here, the very essence of what the Queen Mary once was hits home like a cruise missile. The past is seared into every nook and cranny of this beautiful, expansive room. And, it has to be said, they make a pretty mean chocolate martini as well. It’s all good here.

I left the ship feeling sad on several levels. Firstly, I was sad to end what had been a marvellous holiday (see previous blogs) and yes, I was sad to be leaving the Queen Mary, too. I want to return, and soon.

There was sadness, too, for all the parts of the ship that her owners simply cannot afford to renovate. Too much remains closed, dark and inaccessible.

Yet I am, after all, grateful that she is still there. Still proud, still beautiful, and still with a million stories to share.

Partly for those reasons, I hope her venerable successor- the equally legendary Queen Elizabeth 2– can be preserved for other, future adventurers to love, cherish and wonder at. On that front, only time will tell I’m afraid.

SWEET TREATS- CRUISING DOWN TO CATALINA ISLAND

If you’re on a package tour or fly drive to California, you might be in blissful ignorance of an added opportunity to put a bit of added zing into your trip. Why not add on a short, three or four day cruise out of Long Beach down to Ensenada and the gorgeous, chocolate box time capsule that is Catalina Island. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

It was an adventure made better by an overnight, pre- cruise stay on the Queen Mary; that proud, petrified one time monarch of the North Atlantic ocean. My stay was a wonderful experience; but that’s a story for another day.

The three day Carnival cruise leaves on the Friday, visits Ensenada, and returns on Monday morning. The four day Monday departures follow the same route, but add in Catalina as a first port of call.

Here’s the thing; I think Ensenada is unrelentingly grim. There’s little to see here of merit, and the appalling poverty of many of the locals is simply heartbreaking to experience. Yes, you can shop, and drink margaritas, too. But the flies are the size of stealth bombers, and twice as fast.

There’s a hermetically sealed, faux Mexican village at the cruise terminal. It is off limits to the ordinary locals, and painted in an eye boggling shade of bubonic yellow. For me, that’s pretty much it.

But Catalina is a creature of a completely different kind.

It sits not far off shore from Los Angeles, but about five decades behind in terms of appearance and ambiance. The stance of the place is breathtaking, and the clapboard houses, fishing fleets and bustling quaysides of the tiny capital, Avalon, will put you straight in mind of New England. You come ashore by tender, and even the short ride across the water is an exhilarating jaunt.

The coastline unwinds in a series of sinuous, serpentine curves. At the end of Avalon’s waterfront sprawl is a circular, charming theatre from the thirties. It resembles nothing so much as a grand, slightly faded wedding cake; like most of the island, it seems slightly lost in the mists that can blanket the place in a heartbeat.

But take a slow, gentle walk along to that theatre, and you’ll pass benches framed by beautiful, coloured tile work that looks as if lifted intact from a Lisbon side street. Oleander and hibiscus fringe the edges of a small, dusky bronze beach that shelves almost reluctantly into the sparkling, early morning sweep of the Pacific. Canoes and kayaks are piled up like so much driftwood. This was January, after all.

The town centre is full of quirky little shops,bars and restaurants set along the main drag. They spill down into the side streets of this pocket sized town. On the opposite side of the road, a gaggle of seagull draped piers jut out into the mostly placid Pacific.

Catalina Island will always be associated with the unfortunate, still controversial death of Natalie Wood on a stormy night on this same, still water. But the town was defined by its past long before that tragic night in 1981.

Because Catalina feels very like a slice of what I imagine mainland California must have been like in the fifties. People in loud shirts, drinking sunset martinis and dining on fresh caught local fish. Lounge singers  crooning in crowded, smoke suffused waterfront bars in an age before discos. Yachts and fishing smacks bobbing like contented swans in the moonlight…

Los Angeles is just twenty four miles away, yet it feels like an entirely different planet. Catalina seems to be almost unfeasible, adrift in its own time and space. A surf kissed Brigadoon, more apparent than real. And there lies the charm.

Lunch was spent in a fantastic, rustic fish restaurant on one of the piers. A forest of eclectic, amazing bric a brac climbed the walls all around me as the noon sun ghosted in through huge, louvered windows. The fish- fresh caught and landed that day- was stupendous, especially washed down with a cold Heineken. The whole thing was a feast for the senses as well as the palate.

Back aboard, I realised that a couple of days in Catalina would probably be a great idea, especially in the summer. Any longer would probably be too much. Not a lot seems to happen. I suspect that the sense of languid charm would wear off after a few days.

So then we proceeded on down to Ensenada. I took the most sensible option open to someone who has been here before, and stayed on board. Sheer bliss ensued.

As the ship emptied and the on board vibe slowed to something quite pleasantly agreeable, I simply sagged down into the wonderful little Serenity area that all Carnival ships have. I enjoyed the solace and the sunshine, a lazily thrown together lunch, and some quality hot tub time. By the time our frazzled, sometimes slightly sozzled Mexican adventurers returned on board, my bathrobe and I had bonded quite wonderfully. And yes, I still got some sun.

Recommended? Oh yes. Absolutely.

ENDLESS SAILINGS ON A STARLIT SEA PART TWO- WAR AND OTHER HAZARDS

In September of 1939, Adolf Hitler’s panzers slammed into Poland, igniting the time bomb that mushroomed into the most destructive war in history. By its end six years later, millions would be dead, and the ranks of famous Atlantic liners would be decimated.

The outbreak of war found both the Normandie and Queen Mary in New York, shackled to their piers. They would be joined the following March by the brand new Queen Elizabeth, after the incomplete new Cunarder made a spine tingling dash across the Atlantic. Converted for trooping duties, both Queens would go on to make an indelible contribution to human history.

The Normandie was not so lucky. A catastrophic fire, started in the last phase of outfitting her as a trooper, would be compounded by a disastrous ingress of slowly freezing water that eventually capsized her in the middle of New York harbour like a beached whale. Her scarred, gutted remains were refloated in 1943, but by then she was useless. The most brilliant and original ocean liner of all time could have shaved another six months from the end of World War Two. Instead, her carcass was butchered in a New Jersey shipyard. For all her magnificence, she never earned a penny in profit.

Of the German liners, the Bremen escaped the Royal Navy by the skin of her teeth at war’s outset, only to be burned to waterline level by a disgruntled crew member in 1941. The two Italian beauties, Rex and Conte Di Savoia, both succumbed to bomb and rocket attacks in shallow home waters. Only the Europa survived to become a prize of war, awarded to France as a makeshift replacement of sorts for the fallen Normandie.

But it was the two Queens, Mary and Elizabeth, that were the real game changers. Sailing alone, at high speed and painted grey, they often wafted up to fifteen thousand troops each across the Atlantic to swell the ranks of the D-Day invasion force. Between them they carried more than 1.2 million men, without the loss of a single life. It was the greatest single troop lift in history, and it ultimately decided the outcome of the war in Europe.

No less a person than Winston Churchill recorded that the two ships between them shortened the European war by at least a year. Adolf Hitler was no less aware of their potential; he offered a quarter of a million reichsmarks to the U-boat commander that sank either of them. None even came close.

After the war, the two proud but grimy Queens were completely refurbished. By 1947 they were offering the most spectacular and successful two-ship service ever seen on the Atlantic. Despite their size, both were sold out more than six months in advance. Anyone who was anyone travelled on them, and Cunard was profiting as never before.

Stunned by the loss of Normandie, the French Line resumed service with the sassy, legendary Ile De France. Just over a year later, she was joined by the Liberte. This was nothing less than the heavily powdered, art deco suffused Europa. She arrived in New York to a grand welcome in August 1950 as virtually a new ship. With fabulous food and service, she quickly, quite inexplicably. became the most popular ship on the Atlantic.

Up above, commercial air travel across the Atlantic had now begun. Fledgling airlines like TWA, Pan Am and BOAC used propeller driven planes that were usually derivatives of heavy, four engined, World War Two Allied bombers, converted for passenger service. The flights were noisy, often shaky affairs. And they were also very expensive. A one way flight from Europe to America typically took around twelve hours, and often necessitated a fuelling stop on some barren Canadian airfield en route.

But, while the vast majority of the travelling public continued to prefer the fun and frivolity of crossing by sea, those flights were still a warning shot that the shipping companies closed their ears to. It would prove to be a fatal mistake.

Meanwhile, the old Atlantic run boomed like never before. When America got in on the act and introduced the brilliant, barnstorming SS United States in 1952, more than 1.2 million people were crossing the Atlantic by sea each year, either on business or pleasure. In high summer, even the biggest and most prestigious ships- the Queens, the Liberte and the Ile De France- were sold out many months in advance.

The United States was built for rapid conversion into a trooper, and outfitted with engines designed for fast aircraft carriers in the Pacific war. It was a power plant without equal; one displayed to dazzling effect in her July 1952 debut, when she swept the board in the Atlantic speed stakes. For some years, the ‘Big U’ carried the cream of American society, though the Brits continued to favour the clubby Queens, and more cosmopolitan types swore by the French Line.

It was an incredible time. It became common for the liners to sail from their New York piers at midnight, wreathed in technicolor showers of streamers and ablaze with light from bow to stern. On board farewell parties would continue until the last possible minute, and sometimes beyond. It seemed that the good times were here to stay.

There were occasional salutary reminders of who was really the boss. In July 1956, the sumptuous, state of the art Andrea Doria sank off Nantucket, after being rammed in thick fog by the small Swedish liner, Stockholm. This was despite both ships being radar equipped. Some fifty-six passengers and crew lost their lives.

Then, in October 1958, the first Pan Am jet airliner flew from New York to Paris in just six hours, and the death knell of the ocean liner screamed overhead at thirty thousand feet. Within two years, the jets had seventy per cent of the travelling public on board. Soon, the once crowded Queens were often compared to deserted seaside resorts. An irreversible decline had begun. Even the United States was suffering, and badly at that.

There were attempts to use all these ships for warm weather cruises, especially in the quieter winter months. But the Queens, especially, were woefully ill suited to this kind of a role. One somewhat akin to expecting a professional footballer to adapt to playing top level, championship rugby. The attempt eked out their careers for a while, but often at the expense of their fading dignity. The United States fared better, but her deep draft meant that she could dock at very few of the more attractive cruise ports. She, too, was on borrowed time.

So it was with bemused amazement that thousands lined the banks of the Hudson in February, 1962, to witness the maiden arrival of the brand new SS. France. Built to be a ‘second Normandie’, she embodied all the style, grace and panache that the French Line had proudly excelled at for almost a century. Food and service aboard her were as impeccable as ever. Her owners called her ‘the last refuge of the good life’.

She was the longest passenger ship ever built. The American press called her an eighty million dollar gamble yet, for years, she averaged more than eighty per cent occupancy. She was joined in 1969 by the new Queen Elizabeth 2, a radically modern replacement for the venerable Queens. For the Elizabeth, that retirement ended with her destruction by fire in Hong Kong in 1972. The more beloved Queen Mary remains a proud, petrified relic of sorts in Long Beach to this day.

From Italy, a pair of lithe, white swans called the Michelangelo and the Raffaello were briefly able to buck the airborne assault. Highly styled and snappily served, they were ultimately to fall prey to the jets. Ironically, both were destroyed by bombers while serving as static Iranian garrison ships in the 1980’s.

The United States fell by the way in 1969, leaving the France and the QE2 to struggle on. Then, in 1974, the French government finally guillotined the $24 million operating subsidy for the France. Unwanted and abandoned, the great French liner was laid up to await an uncertain fate. The QE2 was alone,

A scheme to convert the France into a floating casino sank without trace. For five dark and silent years she sat alone and unloved. And then, even as scrapyard owners around the world opened their cheque books and sharpened their knives, there came a sudden, fantastically implausible reprieve….

Against all the odds, the beloved liner France was converted over eight months into the Norway, the largest, most staggering and revolutionary cruise ship ever created. Her new Norwegian owner, Knut Kloster, envisaged a bright future for her as a Caribbean cruise ship; one three times larger than her nearest rival.

His rivals thought the idea mad, and not without reason. But Kloster had the last laugh. The first thing he did was close down the forward of her two engine rooms, reducing her speed to a level more suited to leisurely cruises than fast ocean crossings. In her French Line days, the France had guzzled fuel like so much cheap table wine. At one stroke, Kloster slashed her fuel bill by a full two thirds.

With a vast amount of open deck space superimposed on board and a pair of new swimming pools added, the Norway went ‘back to the future’ with a total art deco refurbishment from bow to stern. Two vast, 400 passenger tenders were shipped on board for ferrying duties in the Caribbean. On board came the first television station ever to go to sea, an indoor promenade with eleven different shops set along a pair of window walled boulevards, and the first Broadway style shows ever to go to sea.

It went on and on. The Norway loaded aboard a fifteen piece big band, embarked a thousand passengers, and then set off on a nostalgic crossing to New York and her new home port of Miami. She became a resounding success, paving the way for every modern cruise ship that would follow her. She would dominate the Caribbean for years.

Leaving New York, she passed the incoming QE2, and the air reverberated with their whistles as the two great ships saluted each other for the first time in six years. A massive mural of that meeting was displayed on the walls of New York’s Grand Central Station for years.

And here, with that moment and those two ships, is where the story of my sea travels truly begins…….

ENDLESS SAILINGS ON A STARLIT SEA

, SAILING BY STARLIGHT- THE EVOLUTION OF TRAVEL AT SEA

The German liner Europa, for many years one of the great ‘ships of state’ on the Atlantic crossing. Post WW2, she would go on to a second, stellar career as the French Line’s much-loved SS. Liberte.

Imagine, if you can, a world without commercial air travel. It was not until a full decade after World War Two that the first jet airliners began whispering across the skies. In their vapour trails was written a simple message; it was nothing less than the death warrant of the transatlantic liner as a way of moving between continents.

For a full century, ocean liners were the only way of travelling the Atlantic with any degree of reliability. Only three years elapsed between Louis Bleriot’s first brave, stuttering flight across the English Channel in 1909 and the apocalyptic shock and numbness that followed the sinking of the Titanic. By the time that ship- the ultimate technical pinnacle of her day- had foundered, liners had already been traversing the most relentless stretch of ocean in the world for more than seven decades.

Immigration fulled the era. It fattened the profits of the shipping lines. Between 1890 and 1914, the most desperate mass exodus in the history of humanity poured forth in a human tidal wave. More than twenty million people, of at least twice as many nationalities, fled wars, pestilence, religious persecution and famine- sometimes all four- in an unstoppable flood towards the open, welcoming arms of America, the land of opportunity.  Many literally had nothing but the shirts on their backs.

Final twilight of the Titanic. As she races into the sunset and the passengers savour fine food and wine, the iceberg lies in wait…

The vast profits earned by the steamship lines resulted in a series of ever larger ships. Their first class interiors evolved into palatial spaces, resplendent with ornate wooden panelling,  glittering chandeliers that held sway above swathes of deep, rich carpeting, and random scatterings of plush, upholstered furniture. Palm courts full of wicker seating appeared almost everywhere. Cuisine and service came to resemble levels enjoyed at the Ritz, the Adlon or the Negresco. At least, it did in first class.

The First World War blew all of this out of the water. Quite literally in the case of the Lusitania, the famed Cunard liner that had been one of the ‘Queens’ of the Atlantic in the boom years.

America’s post war imposition of the Volstead Act limited incoming migration to just three per cent of the pre-war levels. Owners suddenly found themselves top heavy with fleets of ageing tonnage, and fewer people to fill them. Necessity led to the invention of tourism.

Former immigrant cabins were spruced up with fancy bed covers and linoleum floors, and the food quality was improved over time. Most ships were converted to oil burning, allowing for massive economies over the old coal burning days. Engine room crew numbers were scythed, and the amount of time needed to turn a ship around was halved.

This all went hand in hand with a burning desire among Americans to ‘see’ Europe. Now no longer the exclusive preserve of the moneyed first class, a whole new generation of young, professional Americans wanted to see the continent so many of them had fought and died for.

The bright lights of Paris were irresistible, as was London, then the capital of the greatest empire in the world. Further afield, the indolent lidos of Sorrento and the spires of Istanbul exerted an almost magnetic pull. Tourism took off like a rocket, and suddenly the liners were full again. Fuller, in fact, than ever.

It was an incredible age; a time of steamships, flapper girls, baseball, prohibition and jazz. Thirsty Americans, travelling abroad by liner, soon discovered that the ocean was wet in more ways than one. It rolled on and on until the Great Depression ushered in the greatest fiscal hangover of modern times.

The crash of 1929 was disastrous for the steamship lines. Passenger numbers plummeted by over fifty per cent in four short years, just as a string of new liners began to emerge to replace the dusty old survivors of the Edwardian era. First out of the blocks came the Germans.

The Bremen and her twin, the Europa, were designed from the start to be world beaters. New, streamlined and gleaming, the two Germans had modern, sterile interiors, and cabin service second to none. For three years, they played ping pong with the Blue Riband of the Atlantic.

The depression hit both of them hard and later, when the Nazis came to power, they suffered again from association with the Hitler regime. And soon they had competition,

The advent of those German giants was a real slap in Britannia’s imperial face, and she picked up the gauntlet with a snarl. In the Clydebank yards of John Brown, work began on a thousand foot long monster, one so vast that she blotted out parts of the skyline. Known as number 534, she was intended to seize back the initiative on the Atlantic. She would be the biggest ship the world had ever seen. But across the channel there lay a slight problem.

The Normandie.

Conceived at the same time as the ship that would become immortal as Queen Mary, Normandie was every bit as huge and impressive, almost as fast and, ultimately, much more brilliant and original. They would be rivals from the day they were laid down in Scotland and France respectively. They were both extravagant to the maximum, and both were sailed with great style and panache. But as a result of financial snarl ups in Britain, the French ship arrived first.

Normandie emerged in the summer of 1935, and thundered across to New York in what remains the single most auspicious maiden crossing in maritime history. More than a quarter of a million people blackened the banks of the Hudson river to witness her triumphal entry into port, surrounded by tugs and fire boats, and flying a thirty metre blue pennant to symbolize her record breaking debut.

A flotilla of biplanes flew over her in salute, as the whole scene was filmed from a blimp that hovered over Manhattan. One of the New York papers put out no less than eight editions that day, covering her progress. Normandie earned media coverage fully equal to that of the first moon landing, some thirty-four years in the future. It remains the most sensational (successful) debut in the history of sea travel.

Inside, she was exquisite, like a Hollywood movie set brought to life. Huge, double height public rooms were lined with exquisite lacquered panels, vast ‘light towers’, and wonderfully obscene amounts of glittering lalique. Those superb, sumptuous interiors would mark out the Normandie as the most beautiful, singularly brilliant ship ever to cut salt water. Even today, she remains very much the ocean liner.

Queen Mary made her debut almost exactly a year later. She was a much more conservative ship; evolutionary rather than revolutionary; a scaled up version of her illustrious predecessors. But she had great style, and a warmth many found lacking amid the glittering, almost overpowering style salons of the Normandie. On her sixth voyage, she took the record from the French ship. For the next two years, they would beat each other now and again by a fraction of a knot, engaging in what remains quite simply the greatest speed race of all time.

From time to time, crews on both ships would glance nervously up at a gleaming, silver grey vision in the sky that ghosted effortlessly past them at a height of several hundred feet. The Hindenburg brought snappy, elegant travel to the skies for the first time. Carrying seventy or more passengers, she could fly to New York in just two days. She had fabulous food and service, and was often wait listed weeks in advance.

Bonfire of the vanities; the Hindenburg bursts into flame at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in May 1937

Only her fiery, still controversial demise at Lakehurst in the spring of 1937 put an end to a string of passenger airships that would have given the liners their first serious challenge. But by then, all of Europe was already twitching nervously at the increasing sabre rattling of Hitler and his Italian lackey, Benito Mussolini. A second global conflagration hung in the skies, one as ominous as the funeral pall of the Hindenburg herself….

Even the sinking of the Titanic did nothing to deter the food of migrants to America in the years prior to the Great War