RMS Mauretania

RMS Mauretania ("Maury") was an ocean liner built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson at Wallsend, Tyne and Wear for the British Cunard Line, and launched on 20 September 1906. At the time, she was the largest and fastest ship in the world. Mauretania became a favourite among her passengers.             The ship's name was taken from Mauretania, an ancient Roman province on the northwest African coast, not related to the modern Mauritania. In 1903, Cunard Line and the British government reached an agreement to build two superliners, the Lusitania and Mauretania, with a guaranteed service speed of no less than 24 knots, the British government were to loan £2,600,000 for the construction of Mauretania and Lusitania at an interest rate of 2.75% to be paid back over twenty years with a stipulation that the ships could be converted to Armed Merchant Cruisers if needed; also to fund these ships further the admiralty arranged for Cunard to be paid an additional £150,000 per year to their mail subsidy. The Mauretania was designed by Cunard naval architect Leonard Peskett with Swan Hunter working from the plans for an ocean greyhound with a stipulated service speed of twenty-four knots in moderate weather for her mail subsidy contract. RMS Mauretania had of ton 31000, length 240, beam 26 and passengers capacity 2165 passengers total. In 1906, Mauretania was launched by the Duchess of Roxburghe. At the time of her launch, she was the largest moving structure yet built. Mauretania left Liverpool on her maiden voyage on 16 November 1907 under the command of her first captain, John Pritchard and later that month captured the record for the fastest eastbound crossing of the Atlantic with an average speed of 23.69 knots (43.87 km/h). In September 1909, the Mauretania captured the Blue Riband for the fastest westbound crossing a record that was to stand for more than two decades. Cunard withdrew Mauretania from service following a final eastward crossing from New York to Southampton in September 1934. The voyage was made at an average speed of 24 knots, equalling the original contractual stipulation for her mail subsidy. She was then laid up at Southampton alongside the former White Star Line flagship Olympic, her twenty-eight years of service at a close.
In May 1935 her furnishings and fittings were put up for auction and of the 1st of July that year she departed Southampton for the last time to T.W Wards shipbreakers at Rosyth. One of her former captains, the retired commodore Sir Arthur Rostron, captain of the RMS Carpathia during the Titanic rescue, came to see her on her final departure from Southampton. Rostron refused to go aboard Mauretania before her final journey, stating that he preferred to remember the ship as when he commanded her.
En route to Rosyth Mauretania stopped at her birthplace the Tyne for half an hour, where she drew crowds of sightseers and was boarded by the Lord Mayor of Newcastle. The mayor bid her farewell from the people of Newcastle, and her last captain, A.T. Brown, then resumed his course for Rosyth. With masts cut down to fit, the ship passed under the Forth Bridge and was delivered to the breakers.
The demise of the beloved Mauretania was protested by many of her loyal passengers, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt who wrote a private letter arguing against the scrapping. Mauretania is one of most famous ocean liner of Cunard.