The Blue Riband

XI

 

The Blue Riband Trophy in 1935, won by the French vessel Normandie. The last Blue Riband was won by the SS United States in 1954

 

 

Mail service (of a sort) was begun between London and New York as early as 1736, though the Royal Navy ships that were pressed into this duty carried only official dispatches and government cargo. Any civilian mail or cargo that crossed the Atlantic was carried aboard whatever ship might be making the voyage. There was no scheduling and no delivery service, so mail usually never reached its intended recipients. Letters were usually entrusted to passengers, who might, at least, try to find a pub nearby to the addressee where a letter might be left. 

It was an impossible system, but it wasn't until the 1830s that the British government considered setting up regular mail service across the ocean. The idea was flummoxed by the fact that there still weren't regularly scheduled ships crossing the Atlantic, but a few entrepeneurial souls bid on the very lucrative contract. One promised delivery every six months. One promised quarterly delivery. And one, Samuel Cunard, a Nova Scotian of Loyalist American roots, promised fortnightly service --- but he didn't own any ships. Bureaucracy being what it is, Cunard was awarded the contract.

Cunard never doubted himself. He had opened his own general store at age 17 and made it a success. At 20, he bought into a lumber mill that cut and sold wood for shipbuilding, and so he bought into that. A relentless self-promoter (and lucky in his investments) he soon knew most of the business leaders of Nova Scotia, including one who built engines for ships. Cunard quickly put together a consortium that bought a couple of packet ships, and his overnight shipping line began delivering mail on schedule. It also began building its own vessels.

(Top) The RMS Carpathia. On the night of April 14-15, 1912, the Carpathia, crossing the Atlantic on the southern route, heard distress signals coming from the Titanic. Carpathia's Master, Captain Arthur Rostron, turned the ship north and raced through an iceberg-studded floe to find Titanic's 20 remaining lifeboats with 705 survivors in them. Rostron was knighted and made Commodore of the Cunard fleet for his actions

(Bottom) RMS Lusitania. Launched in 1907 as the largest ship in the world, by 1915, Lusitania had made 202 safe Atlantic crossings. She was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Ireland's Old Head of Kinsale on May 7, 1915. She went down in under fifteen minutes. 1,198 passengers died. It has been speculated that as a Royal Naval Reserve Ship (R.N.R.S) she may have been carrying munitions which caused the huge explosion that sank her

The mail contract allowed Cunard to designate his craft as "Royal Mail Service" ships, or just "Royal Mail Ships" (R.M.S.) and to fly a Crown burghee. Although the volume of mail and cargo soon required that other lines (like Inman and White Star) be granted R.M.S. status, Cunard had had a monopoly for a short time. He promoted his line as "the first" and "the oldest," hence the most dependable and experienced line around.

Needing to find another "hook" for his shipping line, Cunard considered the Blue Riband. The Blue Riband was an informal designation given to the vessel that made the "sunset" run the fastest in any given year. Cunard took the informal tip-a-congratulatory-glass-to-the-captain event and promoted it shamelessly. He took out ads on both sides of the Atlantic announcing that his line would win the Blue Riband annually. Essentially, Cunard singlehandedly created a buzz around the Blue Riband, pulling the other British lines into a formal contest.

RMS Mauretania was Lusitania's running mate, launched not long after her. She was the biggest ship in the world for a time, and held the Blue Riband as the fastest several times and once for a consecutive twenty years

Cambria was the first Cunard Blue Riband winner, and Cunard went all out to celebrate. He liveried the ship with a blue hull stripe, he gave the captain a trophy and a bonus, and he advertised his line as the fastest on the Atlantic.

When the Blue Riband competition was opened to non-British shipping lines it became not only a matter of company pride but a matter of national pride to win. Eventually 25 Cunard ships would win the Blue Riband, some multiple times and often in successive years. Cunard was always known for its clockwork scheduling.

Samuel Cunard died in 1860, but his descendants continued to run the line in his fashion. Ships got bigger and faster, and Cunard was dedicated to having the biggest, and especially the fastest.

As American business interests began casting an eye over the British shipping lanes, Cunard (with its Tory roots) entered into an agreement with the Crown, allowing the Great British government to use its ships as auxiliaries in the event of national emergencies. It was a brilliant move, proven correct when Inman was taken over by Americans in 1893 and White Star was bought out by J.P. Morgan's International Mercantile Marine in 1902. Not only was Cunard protected from such Yankee encroachment, but as Royal Navy vessels they were now entitled to warship technology, some of it classified. The Royal Navy refit Cunard's fleet at government expense and paid for it to carry sensitive military cargoes, weapons and munitions. It became the de facto national carrier of the U.K. 

During the World Wars, Cunard's vessels acted as speedy patrol ships, hospital ships, and vast troopships .Winston Churchill was to say that the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth shortened World War II by a year.

 

(Top) RMS Queen Elizabeth was completed in 1938, and immediately put into service as a troopship. She did not begin civilian service until 1946. Queen Elizabeth was retired in 1967, and bought by a Hong Kong businessman. She caught fire in the harbor there and capsized in 1972

(Bottom) RMS Queen Mary likewise began life as a troopship, and like her running mate, Queen Elizabeth, retired in 1967. She was sold to the City of Long Beach, where she remains a floating attraction

 

Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE II) was launched in 1969. She was never given the RMS designation. During her tenure she became the last remaining Atlantic ocean liner. She was also used as a cruise ship and a troopship during the Falklands War before her retirement in 2008

RMS Queen Mary II (QM II) entered service in 2004, and now provides the only regularly-scheduled transatlantic liner service remaining, though in the North Atlantic winter she doubles as a cruise ship. She can carry over 2,600 passengers and over 1,200 crew

Cunard, like White Star, made its ships opulent, though never as opulent. White Star became the preferred carrier for (sniff) those gaudy and vulgar nouveau riche Colonials, while Cunard (Ah!) became the carrier for more sedate and cultured Britishers of means. And the Britishers seemed to be proven correct when the Titanic sank, its survivors plucked from the water by the Cunarder Carpathia.

Cunard continued on into the 20th Century, eventually absorbing White Star. It faced stiff competition from American and other European carriers, but what really decimated its business was the airplane, which cut transatlantic passage time from days to hours. Still, Cunard persevered, and in today's 21st Century, it is the only passenger steamship line to continue regularly-scheduled transatlantic crossings.