Ocean Liners vs. Cruise Ships
Kevin
Here is the full text of a letter which I wrote and was subsequently
published in the travel section of the Los Angeles Times on 3 May, Sunday,
1998.
Crossing? Cruise?
Regarding "Transatlantic Cruise Market Remains Tiny, Not Titanic" (Travel
Insider, April 12): When the QE2 sails from New York to Southapmton it is
not a cruise, it is a transatlantic crossing. There is a difference.
There is also a substantive difference between an ocean liner and a cruise
ship. The QE2 was built to double as both. To purists, the last true
ocean liner was the CGT French Line ship France, which sailed between New
York and Le Havre and was retired from transatlantic service in 1974. This
ship now sails as the Norway for Norwegian Cruise Line.
As a side note, hearing that Carnival had bought Cunard was the worst news
of my Easter morning. How sad that the company that virtually invented the
elegance, stylishness and luxury of crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner
has been taken over by the company that builds the tackiest, gaudiest
cruise ships and promotes a cruise philosophy that appeals to the lowest
common denominator.
Kevin Scarlett
SANTA MONICA
Donald Schmidt
How sad that the company that virtually invented the
> elegance, stylishness and luxury of crossing the Atlantic on an ocean
liner
> has been taken over by the company that builds the tackiest, gaudiest
> cruise ships and promotes a cruise philosophy that appeals to the lowest
> common denominator.
Ha! Well done, Kevin!!!! I LOVED that letter. It's time someone set the
record straight! You caught me coming home from one of my weekends on the
Queen Mary. I stayed in the Windsor Suite. After a weekend of utter
elegance (a bit faded, but wonderful), reading your letter was a perfect
close to a wonderful weekend. Have you gotten any responses? Please, do
tell!!!
A firm handshake and thank you to you!!!
Don Schmidt
RudyFr
The subject is really:
Ocean Liners of Yesteryear and Cruise Ships of Today. One is apples and the
other oranges. It is not one vs. the other. Ocean liners as a poster noted
died with France. Simply put, the liners were no longer attractive to paying
passengers. France was a luxury ship for less than 20% of her capacity. The 80%
had digs probably way below standard cruise ship cabins today. Who was catering
to who?
Cunard no longer was a viable entity. It escapes me why Carnival bought it.
Having stayed aboard Queen Mary Mar 28th I was not impressed with the "First
Class" cabin. Two standard portholes, poor lighting, etc. etc. The next day
boarded Statendam with her picture window, anemities, etc. etc.
Ocean liners needed speed to compete. Today ambiance is what people pay for.
Thus, design factors are different.. It's simple.
Donald Schmidt
RudyFr <rud...@aol.com> wrote in article
<199805181435...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
Rudy, I understand what you are saying and you have a valid point. I think
the trouble that many of us have is with the exterior designs of these new
ships is that they are just plain ugly. There is no beauty or romance to
them at all. Yes, only 20% of the people on the France (now the Norway)
were in real luxury, but I think many of us would rather be in 2nd class on
the Norway or QE2 today than on some Carnival nightmare. I say some of us.
I not judging here. If modern ships are what you like, that's ok. It's
just that many of us long for those old liners. I too stayed on the Queen
Mary. Yes, the lighting can be poor, the rooms can be quirky and I loved
every bit of it. The beautiful wood paneling, the long bathtubs, the art
deco fixtures. To think I was in a room where people stayed during the
1930's through the 60's was a thrill. Also, this ship carried thousand and
of and was so fast she out ran the Nazis during the entire war.
Now, as far as Cunard is concerned, yes, as a transatlantic steamship
company she could no longer stay in business. Cunard knew this when she
retired the two "Queens" and built the QE 2. Cunard today caters to a very
specific market. It's fleet consists of the Sea Goddess I & II. These are
two small ships. Then there are the Vistfiord and Royal Viking Sun. The
QE 2 is the flagship. All the ships, except the Vistfiord get the highest
ratings of ships in their size category. The Vistfiord I think is still in
the top 5 in it's category. And from what I've heard, Carnival is going to
leave things as is because Cunard ships are unique and it's clientele are
at the highest end of the market. I that is true then, they are smarter
than I thought. The good thing about Carnival is that they have the cash
need to keep Cunard going and turn a profit. But, Kathy Lee MUST stay off
the Cunard ships! :)
Louis Epstein
Donald Schmidt (dsch...@san.rr.com) wrote:
:
:
: RudyFr <rud...@aol.com> wrote in article
: <199805181435...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
: > The subject is really:
: > Ocean Liners of Yesteryear and Cruise Ships of Today. One is apples and
: > the other oranges. It is not one vs. the other. Ocean liners as a poster
: > noted died with France.
Never say die.
: > Simply put, the liners were no longer attractive to paying
And my dream remains to build the largest,longest,fastest,uncompromised
LINER of all time...I wouldn't want a leisure cruise ship in the
slightest.Combine the best of past,present,and future.
Well said,Donald.
BoatFool
I apologize for the length of this post (really an essay I've written), but
you may find it interesting.
Can Titanic save the S.S. United States?
James Cameron’s film Titanic has riveted the attention of the nation.
Millions of people have experienced the grandeur of the huge ship and been
awestruck, millions have “flown” from the bow along with Leonardo DiCaprio as
powerful engines drive the ship forward in the wide open Atlantic, breathless
with excitement and anticipation (even knowing the tragic fate ahead). As a
child in the 1960s, I first learned of the great ocean liners through the
Titanic story. I have only vague memories of the last of these liners at their
New York piers, but names such as Normandie, Aquitania, Lusitania, Ile De
France, America, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth captured my imagination. As
an adult, I have come to appreciate how much these ships shaped events in the
20th century, from the vast immigration that brought millions of
people–including my Italian ancestors–here, to their invaluable service as
troop ships during the First and Second World Wars. Just as importantly,
these ships came to represent the hopes and dreams of mankind. They were
symbols of all that could be accomplished, of their nation’s art and industry,
of freedom, adventure, romance, escape and, at times, tragedy. They were, in
the fullest sense of the word, inspirational. It is interesting to note that
our contemporary world, filled though it is with all manner of technology,
lacks any symbol comparable to these mammoth, yet graceful, creations. Long
distance air travel, the evolution that killed the North Atlantic liners, has
become nothing more than an exercise in mass production efficiency with
passengers jammed into ever smaller spaces, breathing recirculating air,
thankful only that the trip will be relatively brief. Cruise liners are purely
recreational vehicles and this is reflected in their design...and our
relatively dispassionate attitude toward them. Unless and until mankind begins
to colonize distant planets with huge spacecraft taking us to new worlds (a
highly improbable if not impossible scenerio), we may never again have the
spirit of the 20th century ocean liners as an active force in society.
The great ocean liners are nearly all gone. Of the very last generation, only
the France (as the cruise liner Norway) and the Queen Elizabeth II live on.
The Queen Mary found its salvation in retirement in Long Beach, California.
And that is nearly it.
But there is another, and she is in need of rescue. On a November day in
1969, the greatest of all American merchant ships, the S.S. United States,
slipped away from Pier 86 at the foot of W. 46th Street with little notice and
sailed into Newport News, Virginia for an abrupt and premature layup. She was
still very much in her prime. The S.S. United States, fondly known as the Big
U, had won the Blue Ribbon award for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic on
her maiden voyage in 1952, smashing the previous record set by Queen Mary by
ten hours. The record still stands for passenger ships. At a length of 990
feet (110 feet longer than the Titanic) she was the superliner of all time,
capable of carrying 2,000 passengers safely and comfortably across the Atlantic
at speeds nearly double today’s large cruise ships. Her top speed approached
50 miles per hour, astounding considering her 53,000 ton displacemen. The Big
U enjoyed tremendous popularity for most of her career. She was ship of choice
for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, among other notables. But times were bad
for the largest ocean liners in the late 1960s. The jets had killed off
profits on the North Atlantic run, labor problems were disruptive, and the
cruise market had not developed to a point where it could promote such huge
ships profitably. In Newport News, the S.S. United States sat idle as months
turned into years, her absence scarcely noticed as the world marched on, her
giant red, white and blue funnels slowly fading. Lesser ships would have been
scrapped years ago, ripped into shreds and melted down. But it seems–and
thankfully–that no one has had the heart to subject the Big U to this fate.
So, handed off through successive owners, she has ended up presently tethered
to a pier in Philadelphia where she towers over the waterfront, relieved of
her interiors and with paint flaking, but still impressive, still
inspirational. If the Titanic were berthed next door, she would pale by
comparison.
Word has it that the end may now be near for the Big U. Plans for refit as a
cruise liner have been bandied about many times over the years, but it seems
the cruise industry would rather design new ships than rebuild a ship designed
for a very different type of service many years ago, no matter how impressive
her fundamental design still is. The cruise lines can scarcely be blamed. As
business enterprises, they are not guardians of past achievements, though they
may well be underestimating the marketing advantages her legacy could convey.
But why save the S.S. United States? Because this ship represents so
much of the history and spirit of human endeavor. She is, on one level, a
completely unique creation, literally one of a kind, the product of the
genius and imagination of America’s greatest naval architect, the late William
Francis Gibbs. And to those intimate with the details of her creation, this
is reason enough to want her preserved–in the same way that we would not want,
for instance, the Empire State Building or Brooklyn Bridge to be demolished and
we cherish the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Yet the S.S. United States is much
more than the work of one man. Mr. Gibbs provided the spark that ignited her
existence but she was, in fact, the culmination of centuries of nautical
evolution. The fastest of all ocean liners was built long before the days of
CAD/CAM, of computer modeling and simulation. She was built with knowledge
handed down over generations, refined in her many sisters on the North
Atlantic. Her almost unfathomably powerful steam turbine engines–240,000+
hp–were the pinnacle of the industrial revolution. As an example of human
striving for greatness, the S.S. United States is as potent a symbol as one
could find. For this reason, her loss would be profound.
Ironically, precisely because ships are mobile and thus can be removed,
hidden from view and destroyed, “progress” has been particularly unkind to
them. History and heritage have been lost in the bargain...along with a piece
of our collective soul. As a society that literally could not have come into
being without ocean travel, and particularly the huge liners of the 20th
century, we should have had more respect for these tremendous ships. But the
pace of advancement in 20th century travel left little time for
reflection–consider that at the start of the century horse drawn carriages met
the transatlantic liners at their piers and by mid century jets were crossing
the ocean on a regular schedule. Newer and faster was always better and even
the greatest of North Atlantic liners passed into obsolescence in the blink of
an eye and were quickly forgotten.
How might the S.S. United States be saved? At best, she would at last
return to service–as the fastest worldwide cruise liner or perhaps as a sort of
living monument visiting different U.S. and world ports– rebuilt to her
original brilliance and then some. If this is a dream beyond the resources
and imagination of any commercial venture, then she should at least return to
her home on the Hudson, as a museum, perhaps part convention center and hotel,
to be savored by successive generations. In such capacity, she could not only
tell her tale, but that of all the great ships of the past, of how so many
Americans came to be here, of the incalculable significance of the Port of New
York to the development of world history. The Big U’s berth is now occupied
by the aircraft carrier Intrepid as part of the Air/Space Museum, her existence
marked there only by one of her giant bronze props. Why just the prop, why
not the whole ship! Her majestic presence would give broader perspective to
the museum and contribute tremendously to the revitalization of the waterfront.
The S.S. United States can be saved because she still is, a simple yet
miraculous fact. (One that can be contrasted with the futile effort to raise a
small rusted piece of Titanic from the ocean floor a few years ago.) I hope
that we as a nation can come to appreciate the magnitude of this potential loss
and act before it is too late. What a strange and wonderful irony if it is
through the movie Titanic that we come to appreciate and save our one and only
ship of state, the SS United States.
(For more information on the S.S. United States visit the web site
www.SS–United–States.com.)
Douglas A. Henderson
Louis Epstein
BoatFool (boat...@aol.com) wrote:
: I apologize for the length of this post (really an essay I've written), but
: you may find it interesting.
: Can Titanic save the S.S. United States?
:
: James Cameron’s film Titanic has riveted the attention of the nation.
: Millions of people have experienced the grandeur of the huge ship and been
: awestruck, millions have “flown” from the bow along with Leonardo DiCaprio as
: powerful engines drive the ship forward in the wide open Atlantic, breathless
: with excitement and anticipation (even knowing the tragic fate ahead). As a
: child in the 1960s, I first learned of the great ocean liners through the
: Titanic story. I have only vague memories of the last of these liners at their
: New York piers, but names such as Normandie, Aquitania, Lusitania, Ile De
: France, America, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth captured my imagination.
I was a child in the 1960s as well,but was introduced to liners by my
grandmother using them to visit from and return to Norway.I recall
seeing the France and Leonardo da Vinci at the pier as well.I heard of
the retirement of the Queen Elizabeth and arrival of the Queen Elizabeth 2,
regretting that the new ship was smaller.
: As
: an adult, I have come to appreciate how much these ships shaped events in the
: 20th century, from the vast immigration that brought millions of
: people–including my Italian ancestors–here, to their invaluable service as
My father's parents came on ships,one to New York and one to Texas,
and my mother came over on the SS United States.
: troop ships during the First and Second World Wars. Just as importantly,
: these ships came to represent the hopes and dreams of mankind. They were
: symbols of all that could be accomplished, of their nation’s art and industry,
: of freedom, adventure, romance, escape and, at times, tragedy. They were, in
: the fullest sense of the word, inspirational. It is interesting to note that
: our contemporary world, filled though it is with all manner of technology,
: lacks any symbol comparable to these mammoth, yet graceful, creations. Long
: distance air travel, the evolution that killed the North Atlantic liners, has
: become nothing more than an exercise in mass production efficiency with
: passengers jammed into ever smaller spaces, breathing recirculating air,
: thankful only that the trip will be relatively brief. Cruise liners are purely
: recreational vehicles and this is reflected in their design...and our
: relatively dispassionate attitude toward them. Unless and until mankind begins
: to colonize distant planets with huge spacecraft taking us to new worlds (a
: highly improbable if not impossible scenerio), we may never again have the
: spirit of the 20th century ocean liners as an active force in society.
I have been a space enthusiast from childhood,but also seek the revival of
the ocean liner.
: The great ocean liners are nearly all gone. Of the very last generation, only
: the France (as the cruise liner Norway) and the Queen Elizabeth II live on.
The France is two years from threatened retirement,and cruiser conversion
has crippled it from an engineering standpoint.
: The Queen Mary found its salvation in retirement in Long Beach, California.
As a no-longer-seaworthy floating hotel.
: And that is nearly it.
: But there is another, and she is in need of rescue. On a November day in
: 1969, the greatest of all American merchant ships, the S.S. United States,
: slipped away from Pier 86 at the foot of W. 46th Street with little notice and
: sailed into Newport News, Virginia for an abrupt and premature layup. She was
: still very much in her prime. The S.S. United States, fondly known as the Big
: U, had won the Blue Ribbon award for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic on
It's traditionally called "Blue Riband".Embodied at least since 1935 by
the Hales Trophy,though it dates far back into the 19th century.
: her maiden voyage in 1952, smashing the previous record set by Queen Mary by
: ten hours. The record still stands for passenger ships.
Under threat of a court battle,the Trophy trustees handed it to a
catamaran ferry in 1990...another such ferry plans a record attempt
next month.A 53-knot racing yacht was denied the trophy in 1992,
but I would like to see it restored to a true liner.
: At a length of 990
: feet (110 feet longer than the Titanic) she was the superliner of all time,
A subjective distinction,but the Normandie,Queen Mary,Queen Elizabeth,and
France were all longer.
: capable of carrying 2,000 passengers safely and comfortably across the Atlantic
The capacity is far from a record,the comfort has been deemed
uncompetitive by some.(My mother is seasickness-prone,but I
refer to other reminiscences).
: at speeds nearly double today’s large cruise ships. Her top speed approached
: 50 miles per hour,
This is rumor.The record crossing averaged not quite 41 miles per hour
(35.59 knots).The unofficial and official top speeds are different.
: astounding considering her 53,000 ton displacemen. The Big
Meanwhile,can ANYONE explain to me why the gross registered tonnage was
abruptly lowered from 51,988 to 38,216 in 1972??
: U enjoyed tremendous popularity for most of her career. She was ship of choice
: for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, among other notables. But times were bad
: for the largest ocean liners in the late 1960s. The jets had killed off
: profits on the North Atlantic run, labor problems were disruptive, and the
: cruise market had not developed to a point where it could promote such huge
: ships profitably. In Newport News, the S.S. United States sat idle as months
: turned into years, her absence scarcely noticed as the world marched on, her
: giant red, white and blue funnels slowly fading. Lesser ships would have been
: scrapped years ago, ripped into shreds and melted down. But it seems–and
: thankfully–that no one has had the heart to subject the Big U to this fate.
: So, handed off through successive owners, she has ended up presently tethered
: to a pier in Philadelphia where she towers over the waterfront, relieved of
: her interiors and with paint flaking, but still impressive, still
: inspirational. If the Titanic were berthed next door, she would pale by
: comparison.
It would be visibly smaller,but as the very existence of this newsgroup
shows,it has its admirers rational and otherwise.
: Word has it that the end may now be near for the Big U. Plans for refit as a
: cruise liner have been bandied about many times over the years, but it seems
: the cruise industry would rather design new ships than rebuild a ship designed
: for a very different type of service many years ago, no matter how impressive
: her fundamental design still is. The cruise lines can scarcely be blamed. As
: business enterprises, they are not guardians of past achievements, though they
: may well be underestimating the marketing advantages her legacy could convey.
And why allow the ship to be downgraded from its designed purpose to the
overgrown pleasure-boating that is the cruise industry?
: But why save the S.S. United States? Because this ship represents so
: much of the history and spirit of human endeavor. She is, on one level, a
: completely unique creation, literally one of a kind, the product of the
: genius and imagination of America’s greatest naval architect, the late William
: Francis Gibbs. And to those intimate with the details of her creation, this
: is reason enough to want her preserved–in the same way that we would not want,
: for instance, the Empire State Building or Brooklyn Bridge to be demolished and
: we cherish the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Yet the S.S. United States is much
: more than the work of one man. Mr. Gibbs provided the spark that ignited her
: existence but she was, in fact, the culmination of centuries of nautical
: evolution. The fastest of all ocean liners was built long before the days of
: CAD/CAM, of computer modeling and simulation. She was built with knowledge
: handed down over generations, refined in her many sisters on the North
: Atlantic. Her almost unfathomably powerful steam turbine engines–240,000+
: hp–were the pinnacle of the industrial revolution. As an example of human
: striving for greatness, the S.S. United States is as potent a symbol as one
: could find. For this reason, her loss would be profound.
But think of all the improvement that the modern engineering technologies
could provide.That's my dream...to make a new supership with far more
powerful engines that will shatter the transatlantic speed records.
Human striving for greatness does not survive pickled under glass...it
must KEEP striving.The Olympic class were state of the art in their day;
the SS United States was state of the art in its day;but to call either
the pinnacle is to call the art dead.
: Ironically, precisely because ships are mobile and thus can be removed,
: hidden from view and destroyed, “progress” has been particularly unkind to
: them. History and heritage have been lost in the bargain...along with a piece
: of our collective soul. As a society that literally could not have come into
: being without ocean travel, and particularly the huge liners of the 20th
: century, we should have had more respect for these tremendous ships. But the
: pace of advancement in 20th century travel left little time for
: reflection–consider that at the start of the century horse drawn carriages met
: the transatlantic liners at their piers and by mid century jets were crossing
: the ocean on a regular schedule. Newer and faster was always better and even
: the greatest of North Atlantic liners passed into obsolescence in the blink of
: an eye and were quickly forgotten.
And only by building a new,classic liner can we show that this spirit has
not died.I see weekly round trips possible with a single supership.
: How might the S.S. United States be saved? At best, she would at last
: return to service–as the fastest worldwide cruise liner or perhaps as a sort of
: living monument visiting different U.S. and world ports– rebuilt to her
: original brilliance and then some. If this is a dream beyond the resources
: and imagination of any commercial venture, then she should at least return to
: her home on the Hudson, as a museum, perhaps part convention center and hotel,
: to be savored by successive generations. In such capacity, she could not only
: tell her tale, but that of all the great ships of the past, of how so many
: Americans came to be here, of the incalculable significance of the Port of New
: York to the development of world history. The Big U’s berth is now occupied
: by the aircraft carrier Intrepid as part of the Air/Space Museum, her existence
: marked there only by one of her giant bronze props. Why just the prop, why
: not the whole ship! Her majestic presence would give broader perspective to
: the museum and contribute tremendously to the revitalization of the waterfront.
I wish the ship well,but I want to see it surpassed in liner technology.
And I want to see pier space in Manhattan available for my concept ship,
over 1100 feet long.
: The S.S. United States can be saved because she still is, a simple yet
: miraculous fact. (One that can be contrasted with the futile effort to raise a
: small rusted piece of Titanic from the ocean floor a few years ago.) I hope
: that we as a nation can come to appreciate the magnitude of this potential loss
: and act before it is too late. What a strange and wonderful irony if it is
: through the movie Titanic that we come to appreciate and save our one and only
: ship of state, the SS United States.
:
: (For more information on the S.S. United States visit the web site
: www.SS–United–States.com.)
For those whose software renders funny characters above,that's
http://ss-united-states.com
: Douglas A. Henderson