Ocean Liners

 

An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (e.g., for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships).
Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes called liners. The category does not include ferries or other vessels engaged in short-sea trading, nor dedicated cruise ships where the voyage itself, and not transportation, is the prime purpose of the trip. Nor does it include tramp steamers, even those equipped to handle limited numbers of passengers. Some shipping companies refer to themselves as "lines" and their container ships, which often operate over set routes according to established schedules, as "liners".
Ocean liners are usually strongly built with a high freeboard to withstand rough seas and adverse conditions encountered in the open ocean. Additionally, they are often designed with thicker hull plating than is found on cruise ships, and have large capacities for fuel, food and other consumables on long voyages.
The first ocean liners were built in the mid-19th century. Technological innovations such as the steam engine and steel hull allowed larger and faster liners to be built, giving rise to a competition between world powers of the time, especially between the United Kingdom and Germany. Once the dominant form of travel between continents, ocean liners were rendered largely obsolete by the emergence of long-distance aircraft after World War II. Advances in automobile and railway technology also played a role. As of 2015, RMS Queen Mary 2 is the only ship still in service as an ocean liner, the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 having retired a few years prior. Of the many ships constructed over the decades, only nine ocean liners made before 1967 survive.

Origins

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution and the inter-continental trade rendered the development of secure links between continents imperative. Being at the top among the colonial powers, the United Kingdom needed stable maritime routes to connect different parts of its empire: the Far East, India, Australia, etc. The birth of the concept of international water and the lack of any claim to it simplified navigation. In 1818, the Black Ball Line, with a fleet of sailing ships, offered the first regular passenger service with emphasis on passenger comfort, from England to the United States.
In 1807, Robert Fulton succeeded in applying steam engines to ships. He built the first ship that was powered by this technology, the Clermont, which succeeded in traveling between New York City and Albany, New York in thirty hours before entering into regular service between the two cities. Soon after, other vessels were built using this innovation. In 1816, the Élise became the first steamship to cross the English Channel. Another important advance came in 1819. SS Savannah became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. She left the city of the same name and arrived in Liverpool, England in 27 days. However, most of the distance was covered by sailing; the steam power was not used for more than 72 hours during the travel. The public enthusiasm for the new technology was not high, and none of the thirty-two people who had booked a seat on board boarded the ship for that historic voyage. Although the Savannah had proven that a steamship was capable of crossing the ocean, the public was not yet prepared to trust such means of travel on the open sea, and, in 1820, the steam engine was removed from the ship.
Work on this technology continued and a new step was taken in 1833. The Royal Edward managed to cross the Atlantic by using steam power on three-quarter of the course. The sail was used only when the wall of the boilers was cleaned. However, there were still many skeptics, and in 1836, scientific writer Dionysius Lardner declared that:

As the project of making the voyage directly from New York to Liverpool, it was perfectly chimerical, and they might as well talk of making the voyage from New York to the moon.

The last step toward long-distance travel using steam power was taken in 1837 when SS Sirius left Liverpool on April 4 and arrived in New York eighteen days later on April 22 after a turbulent crossing. Too little coal was prepared for the crossing, and the crew had to burn cabin furniture in order to complete the voyage. The journey took place at a speed of 8.03 knots. The voyage was made possible by the use of a condenser, which fed the boilers with fresh water, avoiding having to periodically shut down the boilers in order to remove the salt. The feat was short-lived. The next day, SS Great Western, designed by railway engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, arrived in New York. She left Liverpool on April 8 and overtook the Sirius′s record with an average speed of 8.66 knots. The race of speed was commenced, and, with it, the tradition of the Blue Riband.
With the Great Western, Isambard Kingdom Brunel laid the foundations for new shipbuilding techniques. He realised that the carrying capacity of a ship increases as the cube of its dimensions, whilst the water resistance only increases as the square of its dimensions. This means that large ships are more fuel-efficient, something very important for long voyages across the Atlantic. Constructing large ships was therefore more profitable. Moreover, migration to the Americas increased enormously. These movements of population were a financial windfall for the shipping companies, some of the largest of which were founded during this time. Examples are the P&O of the United Kingdom in 1822 and the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique of France in 1855.

The steam engine also allowed ships to provide regular service without the use of sail. This aspect particularly appealed to the postal companies, which leased the services of ships to serve clients separated by the ocean. In 1839, Samuel Cunard founded the Cunard Line and became the first to dedicate the activity of his shipping company to the transport of mails, thus ensuring regular services on a given schedule. The company's vessels operated the routes between the United Kingdom and the United States. Over time, the paddle wheel, impractical on the high seas, was abandoned in favour of the propeller. In 1840, Cunard Line’s RMS Britannia began its first regular passenger and cargo service by a steamship, sailing from Liverpool to Boston.
As the size of ship increased, the wooden hull became fragile. Beginning with the use of an iron hull in 1845, and then steel hulls, solved this problem. The first ship to be both iron-hulled and equipped with a screw propeller was SS Great Britain, a creation of Brunel. However, her career was disastrous and short. She was run aground and stranded at Dundrum Bay in 1846. In 1884, she was retired to the Falkland Islands where she was used as a warehouse, quarantine ship, and coal hulk until she was scuttled in 1937. The American company Collins Line took a different approach. It equipped its ships with cold rooms, heating system, and various other innovations but the operation was expensive. The sinking of two of its ships was a major blow to the company which was dissolved in 1858.
In 1858, Brunel built his third and last giant, SS Great Eastern. The ship was, for 43 years, the largest passenger ship ever built. She had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers. However, her career was marked by a series of failures and incidents, one of which was an explosion on board during her maiden voyage.

Many ships owned by German companies like Hamburg America Line and Norddeutscher Lloyd were sailing from major German ports, such as Hamburg and Bremen, to the United States during this time. The year 1858 was marked by a major accident: the sinking of SS Austria. The ship, built in Greenock and sailing between Hamburg and New York twice a month, suffered an accidental fire off the coast of Newfoundland and sank with the loss of all but 89 of the 542 passengers.
In the British market, Cunard Line and White Star Line (the latter after being bought by Thomas Ismay in 1868), competed strongly against each other in the late 1860s. The struggle was symbolised by the attainment of the Blue Riband, which the two companies achieved several times around the end of the century. The luxury and technology of ships were also evolving. Auxiliary sails became obsolete and disappeared completely at the end of the century. Possible military use of passenger ships was envisaged and, in 1889, RMS Teutonic became the first auxiliary cruiser in history. In the time of war, ships could easily be equipped with cannons and used in cases of conflict. The Teutonic succeeded in impressing Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, who wanted to see his country endowed with a modern fleet.
In 1870, the White Star Line’s RMS Oceanic set a new standard for ocean travel by having its first-class cabins amidships, with the added amenity of large portholes, electricity and running water.The size of ocean liners increased from 1880 to meet the needs of immigration to the United States and Australia.
RMS Umbria and her sister ship RMS Etruria were the last two Cunard liners of the period to be fitted with auxiliary sails. Both ships were built by John Elder & Co. of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1884. They were record breakers by the standards of the time, and were the largest liners then in service, plying the Liverpool to New York route.
SS Ophir was a 6814-ton steamship owned by the Orient Steamship Co., and was fitted with refrigeration equipment. She plied the Suez Canal route from England to Australia during the 1890s, up until the years leading to World War I when she was converted to an armed merchant cruiser.
In 1897, Norddeutscher Lloyd launched SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. She was followed three years later by three sister ships. The ship was both luxurious and fast, managing to steal the Blue Riband from the British. She was also the first of the fourteen ocean liners with four funnels that have emerged in maritime history. The ship needed only two funnels, but more funnels gave passengers a feeling of safety and power. In 1900, the Hamburg America Line competed with its own four-funnel liner, SS Deutschland. She quickly obtained the Blue Riband for her company. This race for speed, however, was a detriment to passengers' comfort and generated strong vibration, which made her owner lose any interest in her after she lost the Blue Riband to another ship of Norddeutscher Lloyd. She was only used for ten years for transatlantic crossing before being converted into a cruise ship. Until 1907 the Blue Riband remained in the hands of the Germans.