Posted by Felix Bustelo on June 26, 1998 at 10:51:44 in firewall-all.ny.frb.org:
In Reply to: Re: Lustiania,Mauratania VS. Aquitania posted by Steve B on June 25, 1998 at 23:38:21:
:
: The structures in the Lusitania & Mauretania, were basically the same, only except
: for a few minor differences. The Aquitania as mentioned in the 2nd post about this,
: was not a sister ship to these, she was launched 6 years after the Lusitania & the
: Mauretania. The Aquitania was around 901 feet long, & was a bit slower than the
: Lusitania & Mauretania, at 23.5 knots, but yet, she had much more luxery than the
: others. The Lusitania, as you know was sunk by a German U-boat during WW1, taking
: 1,198 people to their deaths, the Mauretania was retired in 1929, & scrapped later,
: & the Aquitania survived WW2, & ended up being scrapped in 1950, after 36 years of
: service. Visit the Cunard archives at http://www.liv.ac.uk/~archives/cunard/ships/ndx.htm,
: or visit www.cunardline.com, & visit The Fleet section of the website.....
:
: Steve B
According to the "Picture History of the Cunard Line 1840-1990", which I just purchased and happen
to have in my briefcase, Cunard needed a third superliner to maintain a weekly express
service between Liverpool and NYC. The original plans were probably to build a ship similar to
the Lusi/Mauri, but with White Star's Olympic, Titanic and "Gignatic" (eventually the Britannic)
and the Hamburg-Amerika Lines successively larger Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck,
Cunard changed plans a built the Aquitania to be larger by about 100 feet and 15,000 tons.
She was slower, Cunard did not install a power-plant to generate the speed of the other ships,
but rather opted to make the Auqitania more opulent, and she was by that day's standards.
Her career was a long one (1914 - 1949) and she served a troopers in both World Wars, in between
as a popular liner, and in the end in austerity service, bringing home troops, war brides and babies
home to North America and eventually refugees from Europe to Canada.
She appears similar in lines to the Lusi/Mauri, but longer. She did have two very tall cowl vents
were positioned on the fore-deck just forward of the cargo booms.
Hope this helps. The book has lots of photos of her, is published by Dover books (softcover) and
was written by Frank Braynard and William Miller, Jr. to two foremost authorities on
ocean liners.
Felix Bustelo