Articles with the Tag Mauretania

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Article from the Archives: Britannic: A Glimpse from John Riddell’s Album

 

This post is from an article which was published originally on the Titanic Research & Modelling Association (TRMA) website in February 2008 by Mark Chirnside and Michail Michailakis.  This was the first time that John Riddell’s many Britannic photos were made publicly available. Readers interested in Britannic can learn more about her history in Olympic Titanic Britannic: An Illustrated History of the ‘Olympic’ Class Ships , which includes Riddell’s images. Michail’s website is the leading online Britannic resource.

 

Britannic’s life was all too short. Consequently, researchers have access to far fewer photographs than they would like. As an added difficulty, during wartime the issue of security was very much at the forefront of the British authorities’ concerns. Nurses and Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) personnel were warned that the use of cameras was forbidden at the docks and it was technically illegal to photograph His Majesty’s vessels after 1914. Nevertheless, private photographs have survived and occasionally another photograph is discovered which adds to our knowledge of the ship.

 

Private John Riddell, of the RAMC, served onboard HMHS Panama during the war.  He kept a photograph album which has survived to this day. The album has been identified by his own RAMC card, and a National Identity card issued during World War II which survived with the album. In early January 2008, the album was purchased by the present authors: Michail Michailakis and Mark Chirnside. It is a true gem, as it contains several rare Britannic photographs. We feel that these remarkable photographs – including four unique and apparently hitherto-unpublished images of Britannic – deserve a wider audience. Intriguingly, additional photographs of Mauretania and Aquitania have survived in the album, although – rather disappointingly for the Britannic researcher – two photographs that are captioned as ‘HMHS Britannic’ actually depict the smaller Mauretania!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We know that four of them were taken when Britannic was preparing to leave, and then leaving, Naples (see Figures 1, 5, 6 and 7). Riddell captioned them specifically and there is nothing in the photographs to suggest that Riddell’s captions were mistaken. It is possible to identify when they were taken, right down to the hour, by examining several aspects of the historical record:

 

1: Draft

 

Although part of the stern is missing from the photograph (Figure 6), it is possible to estimate the ship’s draft using this photograph in combination with other images. We can then compare this estimate to the known draft each time Britannic left Naples, and this helps to narrow down the possibilities:

 

Draft of water aft at the time of proceeding to sea, on each Naples departure:

29 December 1915: 36 feet 1 inch.
4 February 1916: 34 feet 8 inches.
27 March 1916: 36 feet 6 inches.
1 October 1916: 36 feet 3 inches.
26 October 1916: 36 feet 8 inches.
19 November 1916: 36 feet 5 inches.

 

If the differences were merely a matter of inches, then this data would not be very helpful, but fortunately it is more than a foot. Britannic does not appear to be drawing any more than 35 feet, and so this narrows the date down to her 4 February 1916 departure.

 

2: Britannic at Naples

 

Britannic arrived at Naples for the second time in her career on 25 January 1916. She took on coal and water, before embarking patients from several smaller hospital ships between 27 January 1916 and 4 February 1916. She left at 3.15 p.m. on 4 February 1916, to return to Southampton.

 

3. Panama at Naples

 

His Majesty’s Hospital Ship Panama transferred 319 wounded to Britannic, between 9.45 a.m. and 11.45 a.m. on 4 February 1916. Riddell appears to have photographed Britannic when he was serving onboard Panama and, given that Panama had only arrived that morning, then it is likely the Britannic photographs were taken as she was leaving Naples at 3.15 p.m.

 

4. Aquitania at Naples

 

Two similar single-funnel vessels appear – one in a photograph of Aquitania (Figure 5a), and then another one in another photograph (Figure 5). However, the historical record shows that the Cunarder was at Naples around the same time as Britannic. It is known that Aquitania arrived at Naples on 7 February 1916. (She departed at 7.20 a.m. on 11 February 1916 and arrived at Southampton five days later.)

 

This information demonstrates that the photographs of Britannic were taken as she was departing on the afternoon of 4 February 1916, nine and a half months before she sank on 21 November 1916.

 

Above: Readers interested in Britannic can learn more about her history in Olympic Titanic Britannic: An Illustrated History of the ‘Olympic’ Class Ships .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lusitania & Mauretania ‘Full Astern’

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Lusitania & Mauretania: ‘Full Astern’

During my lecture at the British Titanic Society’s convention in Belfast in April 2024, one of the themes I highlighted was how various criticisms of Titanic’s design are often made without reference to the broader context.

The ‘Olympic‘ class ships were triple screw steamers with reciprocating engines driving the port and starboard propellers and a low pressure turbine driving the centre propeller.  One such criticism of the ‘combination’ propelling machinery is that the centre propeller only operated ahead and could not be reversed.  The criticism was that this meant only the port and starboard propellers could be reversed in a scenario where a ‘full astern’ order was given.

However, those voicing this criticism have evidently paid little attention to competitors such as Lusitania and Mauretania.  The two Cunarders were quadruple screw steamers driven solely by turbine engines.  They entered service in 1907 and, by 1911, Cunard’s staff had plenty of experience from their day to day operation.  A memo entitled ‘New Fast Steamer’, dated 7 February 1911 and stamped with an Executive Committee stamp on 21 August 1912, noted a problem based on their experience to date.  Only the two inboard propellers [‘centre shafts’] were reversible:


When going full speed ahead and the order is given to go astern, the rotors on the centre shafts are going astern quite a time before the ahead rotors on the wing shafts have stopped going ahead.  This will retard the progress astern and of course there will be a little drag from the wing propellers after they have stopped going ahead.

As a result, it was suggested that the ‘new fast steamer’ (Aquitania) should be designed so that all four propellers could be reversed: ‘Astern rotors on the wing [propeller] shafts [as well] would overcome this difficulty and enable all four shafts to be revolved in the required direction, which of course would be a great advantage when manoeuvring’.

There are advantages and disadvantages between different propulsion systems.  One system might be superior in one aspect, whereas another might be better on another comparison.  Looking at twin screw ships such as Oceanic (1899), both propellers could be reversed.  Modern day analysis of Titanic‘s or any other vessel’s design simply needs to consider the broader context.  Not only did Lusitania and Mauretania have a similar issue in that only two of their four propellers could run in reverse, but Cunard’s own engineering staff noted that the two wing propellers were still going ahead for a period that the two inner propellers were running astern. 

Big Ships and Small Boats

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New Article: Big Ships and Small Boats

A new article, ‘Big Ships and Small Boats’ has been uploaded.

In the years leading up to the Titanic disaster, ships were getting significantly larger.  A lot of comment at the time and up to the present day has focused on the increasing size of ships in relation to the lifeboats they needed to carry under the law.  However, this overlooks the fact that the size of a ship was not necessarily a reliable indicator of how many passengers and crew she could carry.  This article provides a snapshot comparison between Olympic and Carpathia in April 1912 and some comparative British government data looking at the largest foreign-going passenger steamers, their passenger and crew capacity and lifeboat provision.

It was first published in the Titanic International Society’s Voyage September 2022: Pages 3-4.

 

 

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Article from the Archives: ‘Lusitania and Mauretania: Perceptions of Popularity’

One of the common problems with research into Titanic history in particular, and ocean liner history more generally, is the repetition of claims in secondary sources (such as articles, books and television programmes) which do not match up to the available evidence.  One such claim is that Cunard’s Lusitania was more popular with the travelling public than her sister Mauretania.  Perhaps her tragic loss in May 1915 has distorted perception and memory as the years passed, because the available data on the number of passengers carried by both ships in the 1907-14 period is clear that Mauretania carried more passengers in total and a higher average passenger list. 

 

My article, ‘Lusitania and Mauretania– Perceptions of Popularity‘, was published in the Titanic Historical Society’s Titanic Commutator 2008 : Volume 32 Number 184: Pages 196-200.  It examined the number of passengers carried by each ship year by year and even included selected break downs by each class (first, second and third) and direction (westbound and eastbound). Although Lusitania carried slightly higher numbers of passengers initially, they drew level by 1909 and, from that point on, Mauretania was clearly in the lead.

‘Olympic & Titanic: “A Very Remote Contingency” – Lifeboats for All’

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‘‘Olympic & Titanic: “A Very Remote Contingency” – Lifeboats for All’ 

 

 

 

My presentation in September 2021 at PRONI discussed the topic of lifeboats.  I set the scene by covering the key points about lifeboat provision during the decades preceding the Titanic disaster; the regulations in 1912 and how they had evolved; and how Harland & Wolff and the White Star Line exceeded the legal requirements for lifeboat capacity.

 

Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that Harland & Wolff recommended to the White Star Line that more lifeboats should be fitted.  What they did do is provide a new Welin davit design which would enable them to carry more lifeboats in the future, if the regulations changed.  They also provided four additional semi collapsible boats for each ship.  Comparing the number of lifeboats shown on the ‘Design “D”‘ concept which the White Star Line approved in July 1908 with Titanic as completed in April 1912, the number of lifeboats increased from 16 to 20.     

I closed the presentation by covering some examples of inaccurate claims about Titanic‘s lifeboats in the mass media.  One was a completely inaccurate characterisation of a Harland & Wolff drawing office notebook, which a television programme claimed was evidence that Harland & Wolff had intended originally for Titanic to be fitted with enough lifeboats for everyone (in fact, it was a document recording changes to Olympic‘s lifeboat configuration in the 1912-13 refit).  Another was a newspaper article mischaracterising notes which were authored by Board of Trade surveyor Captain Maurice Harvey Clarke.  They were written after the disaster, not before.   

Mark explores the issue of lifeboat regulation over the decades preceding the Titanic disaster and discusses the context immediately prior to 1912. He discusses the question of lifeboat provision for these new White Star giants and dispels a few longstanding myths and false claims made about Titanic’s lifeboats.