Lusitania
On 4 February 1902, the White Star Line, chief British rival of Cunard, was bought by the International Mercantile Marine Group, or IMM. This venture, financed by American business tycoon John Pierpont Morgan, moved the ownership of the company out of the United Kingdom. In order to remain competitive and out of the IMM’s sphere of influence, several Cunard executives went to the British Admiralty for financial assistance. This assistance, in the form of a loan worth £2,600,000, would be used to acquire two new express steamers for the North Atlantic run. They would be the largest and fastest in the world, stealing back the coveted Blue Riband which had been lost to the Germans in 1897. In times of war, they would be capable of requisition as armed merchant cruisers, fitted with 12 x 6” (152.4mm) deck guns to raid enemy shipping. In those days, a gun of that caliber was still very powerful - the British battleship Dreadnought, at the time still being designed, had 10 x 12” (304.8mm) guns. This requirement would shape the design of the new liners perhaps more than any other.
As a result of their potential to act as cruisers, all of the new ships’ machinery would have to be sited below the waterline. There were also significant adjustments made to the ship’s hull form, most notably the redesign of her stern to remove unnecessary “deadwood” to allow for greater maneuverability. The initial design, 705 feet in length and with just three funnels, but otherwise similar externally to Lusitania, was later amended. The increase in length allowed for better hydrodynamic qualities, directly contributing to her higher speed. Another key contributing factor to her speed was the adoption of turbines, although that decision was made much later in the process, after construction on Lusitania was well underway. These incomplete sets of drawings were the plans presented to the various British shipyards for them to tender a bid for the construction of one of the liners. Their unprecedented size, as well as the capacities of the yards at the time, made both the Admiralty and Cunard keen to have a separate yard build each ship. The winning firms, John Brown & Company and Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, would participate in the later stages of design, which would continue well into the construction of each ship. They would also be able to make slight modifications to the general arrangement as suited their individual shipbuilding styles.
As the ideal dimensions for a 25 knot liner were mathematically derived, they took into account the estimated force needed to move each design. For a greyhound of the Atlantic, her machinery had to be reliable. There would be no chance, once complete, for her to receive new machinery entirely, therefore the system chosen had to be right the first time around. The Admiralty, after seeing the performance of Charles Parsons’ steam launch Turbinia at Queen Victoria’s Jubilee naval review in 1897, had elected to use turbines in their new battleship, Dreadnought. However, this endorsement was far from convincing Cunard’s board of directors, a group of traditionalists who would prefer to let others test and refine any new technology before they included it on their ships. It was calculated, but not yet proven, that turbines would be capable of achieving the required speed for the new liners in regular passenger service. Therefore, Cunard took the reciprocating engine-driven liner they already had on order at Clydebank (John Brown yard number 362, later Caronia) and ordered a turbine-powered sister in tandem with the new speed queen. Hull 366 would become Carmania and her debut in 1905 eventually proved without a shadow of a doubt that turbines were capable of the speed, power, and reliability which was mandatory for ships offering North Atlantic passenger service.
While Cunard was still building their floating turbine testbed, they shifted their focus to refining the hull form of the new liners. Regardless of the machinery chosen, this could be completed, and then contracts issued and construction started. Not wanting to even wait for the model testing facility at the Clydebank yard to be completed, the Admiralty (reluctantly) permitted use of their facility at Haslar for the test program. The Tyneside yard, having won the contract for the second ship, would also participate in these tests. Tests were conducted on scale models of ships measuring 725 and 760 feet long and 80 feet wide, and then 760 feet long and 78 feet wide. Finding the first not hydrodynamically suitable, at 32900t and with a block coefficient of 0.631, and the next two unstable, the decision was made to increase the beam to 88 feet while maintaining the 760 foot length. This was acceptable and within the regulatory limits and Cunard’s comfort standards, so it was agreed that these would be the dimensions for the finished ship. Later, John Brown & Company replicated the same tests at the Denny yard in Dumbarton, Scotland, and yet again (third times the charm) at their own model test facility once complete. Initial plans had her promenade and boat decks extending 0.51m / 1.67ft from the side. While this was not done for Lusitania, a similar overhang was added to Mauretania, and served as a key distinguishing feature between the two.
These liners would have four funnels, not paired like their German competitors, but more evenly spaced. Although the spacing of her funnels appears to be perfectly equal, in fact there were slight variations in distance between them. The distance between funnels 1 and 2 was a few feet less than that between funnels 2 and 3, and funnels 3 and 4 were a few inches closer than 1 and 2. However, these are somewhat counteracted by her sheer, and the fact that they are relatively minor considering the size of the ship and her funnels. In any case, it is an interesting and oft-overlooked aside.
The first of these liners, to be built at John Brown’s Clydebank yard, was given the yard number ‘367’ in their orderbook. This was to be used to refer to the ship throughout her construction, as Cunard had not yet decided on a name. Even when they did, it was considered bad luck to call a ship by her name before she was christened. For the Clydebank shipbuilders, yard number 367 was to have The line wanted the two ships to have unique interiors, and selected a different architect to complete the designs and review their integration into the ships. Their ship was slated to be completed before the other endeavor, and data collected on her trials would improve her sister. This cooperation aside, it was seen by many as a competition between Clydebank and Tyneside, the two premier British shipbuilding centers.
Having been laid down in August 1904, hull 367 rose slowly over her surroundings, a mix of industrial areas linked to the shipbuilding process, and the rolling fields and pastures that fed the shipyard workers and their families. In under two years, she was ready for launch, and that happened in the early summer of 1906. She weighed over 20000t on her launch day, the highest figure yet for any ship launching. Following her launch, she was towed to the outfitting dock to be furnished. The interiors were a gorgeous mix of homely chambers and large, impressive spaces. There were some minor issues, though, which were not made public. The glazed skylights over the first class lounge and smoking room caused these spaces to be bathed in a green-gray light, which some researchers have likened to existence in a fish tank.
The loan from the Admiralty was withdrawn incrementally every month, to pay off the expenses the shipyard had noted for that month. The excessive cost of the new liner, and her immense size compared to all previous ships, meant that the shipyard had won the contract to build her using a price quotation which was rapidly proving to be well below the actual cost of construction. There was also a different form of contract used than was usual for ships at the time. Most ships were built on a fixed-price contract, where the owner would pay a certain percentage up front, and the remainder in periodic installments, aligned to set months or construction milestones, or upon delivery. Lusitania, to the contrary, used the contract which is typical for close partnerships, like that which existed in those days between Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line. This ‘cost-plus’ contract stated that the owners would pay whatever it cost to build the ship they specified, and add onto it a predetermined percentage to guarantee a profit for the yard. The contract price quoted initially also crucially did not take into account the lavish interior appointments, which ended up being a significant additional expense. With a cost-plus contract, as with any other shipbuilding arrangement, there is an opportunity for the owners to decline delivery of the ship for mechanical or technical fault, or failure to meet the stipulated criteria. However, there was no way out for the owners to not have to pay more than the initial bid by the shipyard - Cunard would have to pay whatever the shipyard needed to build the new liner. By the time of her completion in late summer 1907, Lusitania had cost approximately £1,650,000, which was significantly in excess of the contract value of £1,300,000. The shipyard granted, mercifully, a waiver of £30,000, leaving a final cost of £1,625,463.
As built, Lusitania was 239.94m / 787.20 feet long, adding 0.67m / 2.20 feet ahead of her forward perpendicular, and 7.62m / 25.00 feet aft of her rudder post. On her first sea trials, which departed the yard on 29 July 1907, excessive vibrations were felt aft, and many spaces there were deemed uninhabitable. Additionally, the poor conditions only deteriorated as the trials progressed, and the liner was unable to complete the mandatory turning tests laid out in the Admiralty specifications. This first round of tests concluded on 2 August, and she was returned to the yard for final outfitting. Much stiffening was added aft in a valiant effort to reduce the severe vibrational forces in that part of the ship, which mostly affected the second class spaces in the immediate vicinity. Despite these alterations, she had been structurally sound as initially complete, and there was no danger of the liner ‘shaking herself apart,’ as some claim. On 26 August, she departed the yard for Liverpool, and on the way she completed the turning tests satisfactorily. The removal of the deadwood aft allowed her to turn much better and within a smaller radius than many ships of significantly less length and mass, which was very impressive considering the unprecedented scale of her construction. This break from standard shipbuilding practice applied more stresses to the rest of the stern, especially at frame 28, but this could be rectified by the use of wooden grounding blocks.
Lusitania was sent to John Brown & Co. for turbine maintenance, which began on 15 October 1907. It involved, in part, the full replacement of the turbine blades for the unit powering her port inboard shaft. By early December, the work had been completed, and she sailed on 13 December. The repair work cost £7,330, and they hoped to get many more years out of the newly fixed turbines, but that was not to be. Following just one voyage to New York and back, her further schedule was wiped clean and she was returned for further, more extensive, work to be done. The eight months of canceled sailings was estimated to have lost the company £500,000 in lost revenue. The aforementioned turbine, connected to the port inboard shaft, stopped working on 30 December and did not resume working by the crossing’s conclusion the following day. The blades of that turbine and both starboard turbines needed replacing, as on 30 December her officers had put the machinery through an emergency stopping maneuver.
The liner was transferred from the Prince’s Landing Stage, where passengers embarked and disembarked from liners at Liverpool, and into the Canada Dock. This dry dock, one of the largest in the world, accepted the crippled liner for repairs, for which Cunard contracted Parsons, manufacturer of the turbines aboard Lusitania, and Cammell Laird, a prominent British shipbuilding firm. In addition to £7,639 of work on her turbines, the line spent about £45,000 on her interiors and furnishings, for a total in excess of £50,000. By the end of August 1913, she returned to her regular Atlantic schedule, with no further issues of this magnitude for the remainder of her career.
