| RMS Aquitania | |
| |
| Career | |
| Name |
RMS Aquitania |
| Ordered |
8 December 1910 |
| Builder |
John Brown & Company, Clydebank, Scotland |
| Laid Down |
December 1910 |
| Launched |
21 April 1913 |
| Fate |
Scrapped at Faslane, Scotland in 1950 |
| Characteristics | |
| Length |
901 ft (274.6 m) |
| Beam |
97 ft (29.6 m) |
| Height |
36 ft (11.0 m) |
| Draught |
36 ft (11.0 m) |
| Installed power |
direct drive Parsons steam turbines; 59,000 shp (44,000 kW) |
| Propulsion |
Four shafts |
| Speed |
23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph) (service) 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) (max) |
| Capacity |
1914: 3,230 618 First Class passengers 614 Second class passengers 2,004 Third class passengers 1926: 2,200 610 First Class passengers 950 Second Class passengers 640 Tourist Class passengers |
| Clear | |
The RMS Aquitania was a British ocean liner that sailed for the Cunard Line, a passenger ship company that existed long ago and still exists today. She was the third in Cunard's grand trio. She was the sister ship of the Lusitania and the Mauretania, but way larger, surpassing the White Star Line's renowned RMS Olympic in size. She had roughly the same height as the rivalling mammoth.
Design[]
With Aquitania, Cunard followed the route of the White Star Line, by focussing more on the size, comfort, luxury and space rather than speed, like with 'Lucy and Maury'. The White Star Line had chosen this more conservative approach with their duo, the reliable Olympic and the ill-fated Titanic which could not finish her initial voyage in April 1912, after an iceberg had damaged her enough to sink her. Aquitania was created to impress those, that had already been marvled by the stunning White Star Liners.
Her profile was so attractive that she earned the nickname "the Ship Beautiful". Her equally gorgeous name stemmed from the Ancient Roman province of Gallia Aquitania. Her sisters were also named after 2 other similar provinces. She had a similiarly pointy, ram-bow like the other two of the Grand Trio, but a much larger foredeck.
Like the others, she had four imposing, tall funnels in the typical Cunard colors, dark orange, with 2 ring bands around the body of the smokestacks, which all had a black top. Peskett also designed the superstructure with "glassed in" touches from the smaller Carmania, a ship he also designed. Another design feature from Carmania was the addition of two tall forward deck ventilator cowlings. Although the ship's outward dimensions were greater than that of Olympic, her displacement and tonnage were lower
Her history[]
Cunard naval architect Leonard Peskett was taken aboard to draw her out and further design her. They could use a third ship for the weekly passage between England and New York, so therefore they had a new for a ship bigger than her two older sisters RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania. she was to be around the same height as of the Olympic-Class, with more decks than her sisters.
The Aquitania was first commissioned in 1911 after the keel laying of HMHS Britannic.
She was launched in 1913 and made her Maiden Voyage on May 30, 1914, with World War 1 lurking around the corner. Her inaugrual route led from Liverpool to New York.
After the outbreak of the First World War, she was refitted as a hospital ship and was a temporary running mate with Mauretania and Britannic for the whole length of the war, which ended in 1918. That year, she was refitted as a passengership.
During World War 1, her eldest sister was struck with a torpedo by a German U-boat. Somehow, this had caused a huge explosion and brought her down in the shallower waters surrounding the Old Kinshead near Queenstown, Ireland. The Lusitania sank in 18 minutes, with a huge loss of life. She met her tragic fate on the 7th of May, 1915.
Aquitania was the last remaining vessel out of the Grand Trio, when Mauretania was taken out of service and sold to be broken apart, in 1935. The big rival of the two sisters, Olympic, awaited a similar faith. Our of those 6 remarkable and largest liners of the 1910's, Lusitania, Mauretania, Olympic, Titanic, Aquitania and Brittanic, Aquitania would have the longest career, surpassing her last two colleagues with 15 years.
She was planned to be scrapped in 1938, but this plan was scrapped and her life was prolonged with the outbreak of the Second World War.
She was laid up with 2 other Cunard ships, which were the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, along with the the French ocean liner Normandie, awaiting further orders. In 1940, they refitted her into a troop ship.
She managed to survive the year after German spy ships had attacked her, which almost became her doom. The Merchant Navy awaited her again in 1946.
She continued to sail in the Trans-Atlantic business for 4 more years.
In 1950, she had to make way for bigger and newer ships, so they disassembled her in Faslane, Scotland, the same country where she was born.