A legend in her own lifetime

She was a Southampton ship that became a legend in her own lifetime and her place in maritime history is assured for all time.

No other liner captured the affection of the public in quite the same way as the first Mauretania.

She was perhaps the first ocean greyhound and held the coveted North Atlantic speed trophy, Blue Riband for 22 years and when she finally sailed from Southampton in 1935 to the scrapyard, thousands flocked to the waterfront for a sad farewell.

A second Cunarder to bear the famous name came into service in the late 1930s and sailed right up to 1965 but it was never to achieve the fame of the first Mauretania.

Now the career details of the first ship has been recalled in the book, RMS Mauretania, The Ship and her Record by Gerald Aylmer with additional material by Janette McCutcheon.

The 31,950 ton Mauretania was built at the Tyne shipyard of Swan Hunter, while her sister ship Lusitania came from John Brown on the Clyde. Both made their maiden voyages from Liverpool in 1907.

At that time they were the world's biggest ships and the true express liners on the North Atlantic, enabling Great Britain to keep at the top on this route, just as the Queen liners did four decades later.

They were handsome ships, half as big again as any other vessel operating or contemplated by rival lines, and their turbine machinery represented a 75 per cent increase in power.

In their early days Mauretania and Lusitania were coal burners, each carrying 7,000 tons of fuel and using 850 tons a day at full speed. On the measured mile Mauretania had steamed at 26.04 knots and Lusitania at 25.4 knots. In service Lusitania captured the speed record on her second voyage, but Mauretania soon proved herself the faster ship. This was particularly the case after engine modifications and the fitting of newly-designed propellers in the winter of 1908 to 1909.

But the service was soon interrupted by the First World War, in which Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat when she was homeward bound across the North Atlantic. Nearly 1,200 passengers and crew lost their lives.

Mauretania, too big to be used as an armed merchant cruiser, was laid up for a time but in 1915 she made voyages to the Dardanelles, first as a transport and then as a hospital ship.

Southampton became the liner's home port in 1920, when she resumed commercial sailings to New York but the war had taken its toll and the vessel's speed was down to 20 knots. Concerned over this disappointing performance Cunard sent the liner to the Tyne in 1921 for a major refit, which included a conversion for burning oil fuel instead of coal.

Back in service once more the liner averaged 25.5 knots over 27 consecutive voyages. Even after loosing the Blue Riband to Bremen she made some of the fastest runs of her career, returning home from New York at more that 27 knots. This was only about a knot lower that the service speed of the Queen liners when they began operating commercially together after the Second World War.

Mauretania completed her career as a white-painted cruise ship.

Some cabin furniture from the liner went into the former Cunard office at Bristol and one of her whistles was mounted over a factory in Rugby and was used as an air raid warning siren during the Second World War.

RMS Mauretania, The Ship and her Record is by Gerald Aylmer with additional text by Janette McCutcheon, published by Tempus at £11.99.