Belgenland (a/k/a White Star’s Belgic IV) was built by Harland & Wolff, Belfast. Although she was launched in January 1914, she was not completed when World War I began later that year and work was halted. She was eventually completed in 1917, but as a troop transport and freighter rather than the passenger liner she was designed to be. Moreover, she entered service as Belgic since Red Star had suspended operations when its European base, Antwerp, was overrun in 1915.
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RMS Republic was a steam-powered ocean liner built in 1903 by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, and lost at sea in a collision with SS Florida six years later while sailing for the White Star Line. A CQD distress call was issued on the new Marconi radio device, the first recorded, resulting in the saving of around 1200 lives. At the time, she was one of the largest and most luxurious liners afloat, though she was designed more for safety and sturdiness rather than beauty.
The wreck of the Republic was found by Captain Martin Bayerle in 1981. She lies upright approximately 50 miles (80 km) south of Nantucket Island.
Man on board the SS Mariposa in Sydney Harbour; circa 1930’s
SS Mariposa was a luxury ocean liner launched in 1931; one of four ships in the Matson Lines “White Fleet” which included SS Monterey, SS Malolo and SS Lurline. It was later renamed the SS Homeric.
Postcard of Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company Himalaya (2) as a troopship
Himalaya (2) was requisitioned in 1916, and converted into a seaplane carrier. She was returned to P & O in 1919, and used as troopship until scrapped in 1922
Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company; official postcard of Himalaya (2)
Himalaya (2) was requisitioned in 1916, and converted into a seaplane carrier. She was returned to P & O in 1919, and used as troopship until scrapped in 1922
blackandwhiteandwtf: The Steerage by Alfred Stieglitz, 1907
SS Victorian
Armed merchant cruiser (hired), 10,635 grt, built 1904
Returned to civilian service January, 1920
built in 1904 by Workman, Clark & Co, Ltd. for the Allan Line of Liverpool. Details were - length overall 540ft x beam 60.4ft, one funnel, two masts, triple screw (first N. Atlantic liner with triple screws and first with turbine engines) and a speed of 18 knots.
Accommodation for 346-1st, 344-2nd and 1,000-3rd class passengers. Launched on 25th Aug. 1904, she sailed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage to St John NB on 23rd March 1905. On 27th April 1905 she commenced her first Liverpool - Quebec - Montreal voyage and continued UK - Canada sailings until 1914 when she was converted to an armed merchant cruiser.
Served with the 9th and later the 10th Cruiser Squadrons and after the war, was refitted by Cammel Laird and returned to Canadian Pacific Ocean Services who had taken over the Allan Line and resumed the Liverpool - Quebec - Montreal service on 23rd April 1920.
Refitted to carry 418-cabin, and 566-3rd class passengers in October 1920 and commenced her last Liverpool - Quebec - Montreal voyage on 2nd Sept. 1921. In October 1921 she was chartered to the British government and carried out a trooping voyage from Southampton to Bombay and on her return was re-engined to oil fuel.
On 3rd Aug. 1922 she transferred to the Glasgow - Quebec - Montreal route and on 11th Dec. 1922 was renamed MARLOCH. Commenced her first Glasgow - St John NB voyage on 20th Dec. 1922 and on 2nd Feb. 1926 transferred to the Antwerp - St John NB service.
She collided with and sank the British steamer WHIMBREL off Flushing on 2nd Feb. 1926 and was towed to Southampton. Repaired, she returned to the Antwerp - Southampton - St John, NB service on 4th March 1926 and sailed on her final Antwerp - Quebec - Montreal crossing on 17th Aug. 1928.
Laid up at Southend until 1929 when she was sold to T.W.Ward & Co and arrived at Milford Haven on 17th April, being subsequently broken up at Pembroke Dock.
Her paneling, which was inlaid with mother-of-pearl was transferred to the board room of Ward’s Sheffield office, where it can still be seen.
-from The Ships List
RMS (later s.s.) Oronsay was a passenger liner of 27,632 grt built by Vickers Armstrong’s Barrow Yard and delivered to her owners, Orient Steam Navigation in 1951.
Her delivery had been delayed by some 8 weeks due to a fire on board whilst she was fitting out. She was employed on the Company’s service from the UK to Australia.
Following the merger of Orient Line and the P&O, she was absorbed into the P&O fleet in 1960 and changed her livery to the all-white hull in 1964, the first of the ex-Orient Liners to do so.
In 1972, the ship was converted to one-class accommodation, with the vessel being increasingly based in Australia for cruising purposes but in 1975 was sold for scrapping in Taiwan and sailed from Southampton for the final time for Australia on August 4th 1975 and after one final cruise from Sydney in September 1975, arrived at Kaohsiung in October for breaking up.
This photograph is from a postcard and shows the vessel alongside at the port of Kobe.
Oceanic was perhaps the most distinguished name White Star assigned to any of its ships. Not only was Oceanic the formal name of the company that ran the White Star Line (Oceanic Steam Navigation Co., Ltd.), but the first Oceanic was one of the greatest White Star liners. She was the first ship built for White Star after Thomas Ismay bought the White Star name, and her innovative design set new standards for ocean travel.
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has attacked James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Titanic for its factual inaccuracies.
He says that his own four-part TV mini series about the 1912 disaster will ‘set the record straight’.
In an interview with the Radio Times, the 62-year-old said the 1997 Hollywood film unfairly vilified the ship’s first officer, William Murdoch, as a coward.
In the film, Murdoch – played by actor Ewan Stewart – is seen shooting terrified passengers before taking his own life.
But Lord Fellowes said: ‘That was very unfair how Murdoch was depicted. He wasn’t cowardly. He fired the pistol to stop a potential riot…
The liner The Kenya Castle being launched at Harland and Wolff’s shipyard in Belfast, 1951
Launch of the RMS Titanic, before fitting out
13 May 1911, at Harland & Wolff ship yard, Queen’s Island
Japanese postcard - steamship Nagasaki Maru
World War II: 13 May, 1942 — The ocean liner struck a mine and sank in the Pacific Ocean off Nagasaki with the loss of 39 people. Her captain later committed hari-kiri.
In last week’s Maritime Monday, we took a look at the glitzy glamorous side of travel by ship… Decadent, luxurious steam liners that swept late-Victorian and Jazz Age high society to the far-flung and exotic corners of the world.
Ships that competed for claims to be the fastest, most sumptuous, or most technologically advanced vessels of their times, the Depression-era equivalent of first class passage aboard the Space Shuttle. Cruising in international waters allowed folks to tipple outside the reach of America’s prudish Prohibition laws. And then there was the gambling…
Between the Titanic and the Lusitania, transatlantic travel was fraught with very real danger and intrigue. While the gents and debs clinked champagne glasses on the upper decks, thousands of European immigrants were crammed like cattle in the lower decks, where things like sanitary conditions and safety regulations weren’t always priority one. Irish, Italian, and Eastern European hopefuls came flooding across the ocean in numbers and density not seen since the Middle Passage.
Then Ellis Island shuttered its doors, wars made sea travel dicey, and the advent of the jet liner spelled the end for transatlantic crossings. The Glory Days were over. Or were they? Steerage passengers had gone the way of the passenger pigeon, and Cold War One-Percenters didn’t have 10 days to waste on a silly old boat.
The world was moving faster than ever before, and it was Ambush-Makeover time for the big ships. Open ocean metropolises were retrofitted for short-haul, near shore cruising, and it was time for the post-war middle class to take like lemmings to the sea. But it would never be the same…
“If exclusive places are open to everyone then they are no longer exclusive”
The great unwashed from below decks have moved uptown, and are now cabin maids and wine stewards. They circulate freely, albeit invisibly, amongst the pensioners and suburbanites that scrimped for years so they could pretend to be Queen for a week.
It’s much, much uglier now. What was once a class-ride from Point A to Point B has devolved into a revolting soiree of conspicuous consumption and class-pretense where love sick geeks can role play for a fortnight on a multitude of themed-cruises, and overweight tourist-class nuclear families can participate in a non-stop frenzy of contrived and banal amusements. All fueled by fondue fountains, energy drinks, and flags of convenience.
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