THE BLUE RIBAND or RIBBAND

HOMEPAGE INDEX PARRY THOMAS HENRY SEAGRAVE JOHN COBB M CAMPBELL D CAMPBELL CRAIG BREEDLOVE KEN WARBY RICHARD NOBLE DON VESCO

COMPETITION

The modern cruise passenger, who sees the ship as a major destination in itself, seldom thinks of speed as an interesting criteria for rating ships. However, this was not always so. For over a century and a half there was a prize - called the Blue Riband - for speed in the North Atlantic crossing.

After steam conquered that dangerous ocean, the fastest steamer was awarded a mythical "blue ribbon." The start may have been Liverpool or Queenstown, but the end was always New York's Sandy Hook, or later, Ambrose Lightship, a distance of 2,800 nautical miles.

Competition was fierce and the rewards were considerable. Although imaginary in itself, the Blue Riband offered immense tangible rewards. Many passengers wished to travel on the fastest ship. Contracts for mail carriage and special freight were considerable. National pride also entered the picture. During the 19th century, the size and speed of Atlantic liners grew steadily. Wooden hulls gave way to iron and steel, propellers replaced paddlewheels, and auxiliary sails disappeared.

Crossing time diminished. In 1838 the little Sirius steamed across at 8 knots in 18 days. However, by 1894, the Lucania speeded across at 22 knots in 6 days. Both ships and most of the early winners flew the British Union Jack. Apart from some American Collins liners, who surpassed the competition briefly in the 1850s, England's Cunard, White Star, and Guion lines dominated. At the turn of the century the Germans triumphed. Ships named Kaiser Wilhem der Grosse and Deutschland shattered the British monopoly.

International rivalry for supremacy on the North Atlantic reached its zenith in the early 1930s. British ships had reigned supreme from the 1850s to 1898, when Norddeutscher Lloyd's Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse became the first German ship to win the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing. She was followed by Hapag's Deutschland and NDL's Kronprinz Wilhelm; but Britain returned with the steam turbine powered sister ships Lusitania and Mauretania owned by Cunard, the first taking the record in 1907 and the Mauretania which held the record for two decades, until 1929. From that year until 1938, the Blue Riband would change hands eight more times between five ships from four different countries: Germany's Bremen and Europa (1929), Italy's Rex, made a crossing at 29 knots, France's Normandie took the prize at just under 30 knots in 1935, and in 1938 ultimately Britain's Queen Mary, claimed the prize with a speed of over 30 knots (Cunard White Star line).

On one more occasion the Blue Riband changed hands. The American ship United States, of United States Line, won the honor with a phenomenal 34-1/2 knot pace in 1952. By then, however, the era of jet air traffic had begun. The speed of Atlantic crossing by ship was no longer of compelling interest.

The Blue Riband was retired forever, and the era of modern cruising began, in which ambiance of the ship itself, exotic ports, exquisite cuisine, and shipboard activity, rather than speed, became the purpose of the cruise.

The Hales Trophy

HOW FAST

Unlike other people now planning new passenger ships, it is an integral part of this project to produce the fastest passenger ship of all time.

Just as the Queen Elizabeth 2,in 1969,was regarded by almost all as the last large passenger ship...now numerous larger ones up to twice the size are building...so the speed record is generally regarded as forever to be held by the SS United States, unless one counts small craft never designed for carrying passengers across oceans.

Technology has not stood still since the SS US set its formal record in 1952,nor is there any reason that it should be considered the monopoly of short-haul ferries. It is time the task of engineers was set to rewriting the record book.

THE HULL SPEED BARRIER

A factor known in ship design circles is the hull speed, which depends on the length of the ship. The longer a ship, the faster it can theoretically go. Designers refer to this as the speed/length ratio.

Length in feet		Hull speed (Knots)	       Actual speed (Knots)

477.7(Aries)		29.2		        45
882.7(Titanic) 		39.8		        22
963(Queen Elizabeth 2)       41.5		        28.5(peak service,32 claimed top)
990(SS US)		42.1		        35.59 and higher
1019(Queen Mary)	             42.7		        31.69
1029(Normandie) 	             42.9		        29.98
1100			44.4		        ?
1150			45.4		        ?
1200			46.4		        ?
1250			47.3		        ?
1300			48.3		        ?

As you can see it's not quite that simple. A ship with a poor design like Titanic can fall well short on hull speed. A ship like Aries, a new Italian mono-hull fast ferry, can exceed its hull speed through planing, like a speedboat, which is also how the Destriero,222 feet with a hull speed of 19.9 knots, managed to grab the Atlantic absolute speed record with a crossing at 53.09 knots. Hull speed is supposed to be for a "displacement mono-hull", hence a catamaran like Catalonia (whose 299' length would give it a hull speed of 23.1 knots, but which crossed the Atlantic at 38.77) or its identical sister Cat-Link V(39.9 knots point to point,41.284 with detour) or a hydrofoil or hovercraft does not come under this formula. Further, the formula is fudgy. The length for the Queen Mary above is its overall length, but hull speed applies strictly to its waterline length, somewhere between that and its 975' length between perpendiculars.

Within displacement mono-hulls design is still a major factor. Although the Normandie was slower with a higher hull speed than the Queen Mary, the Queen Mary had 25% more power needed to produce its superior speed. Its hull was actually a slower, fatter, deeper-displacing design. The SS United States, with a lower hull speed but more power(240,000 HP) than either, reportedly *used* less power than either(150,000 vs. 160,000 for Normandie and 200,000 for Queen Mary) to break their records. On its trials it officially did 38.23 knots, but unofficially is understood, at full power, to have reached 43 knots with a theoretical top of 44 (officially it was 41.75). In other words, it exceeded its supposed hull speed.

Hull speed is not a strictly limiting factor, but is usually a practical limiting one. Power offers less and less of a return per unit added when you reach hull speed. Various factors in the shape of the hull optimize performance, including high length-to-beam ratios, planing tendencies, and more.

Given the opportunity to apply new technology to the design of the hull, a new engine technology that makes higher power easier to obtain than ever before, and the will to build a new vessel of heroic size, records can be shattered.

WHAT SPEED IS POSSIBLE

In optimizing a hull design while maintaining compatibility with existing or obtainable harbors and facilities and the ocean-liner paradigm, one must stick to the slender mono-hull, with a high length-to-beam ratio. Catamarans and planing hulls are a price too high, a sale of the soul of the concept. The ships of these types that break speed records are not designed for a liner's tasks.

From the table above, one can tell that a ship of the size under consideration would have a hull speed of roughly 45 to 47 knots. To do a better job of performing relative to hull speed than the SS United States is a reasonable design goal.

41.3 knots is the current minimum goal for a routine service speed, in order to provide Blue Riband level service as a norm. However, this is only a starting point. A record barely set is a record prone to being re-broken.

The speed attainable would of course influence the schedule. A logical service goal is weekly round trips, with excess speed over the minimum needed for this enabling additional stops.

The shortest navigable distance between New York and Southampton is about 3169 nautical miles, so allowing for non-ideal routes in practice a *pier-to-pier* average speed of 40 knots would yield a crossing time of 80 hours and allow 4 hours turnaround...a little bit more than the QE2's record, but uncomfortably less than its scheduled interval (over 9 hours). (A Gigantic turnaround would differ from a QE2 turnaround in needing to handle more passengers, but fewer provisions per passenger). Of course, the crossing could not all take place at a set high speed...if one assumes 10% must take place at an average of 20 knots,42 knots on the remaining 90% would give an average of 39.8 knots,43 knots on 90% would give an average of 40.7 knots, 44 knots on 90% would give an average of 41.6 knots, and 45 knots on 90% would give an average of 42.5 knots for the whole voyage.

44 knots on the high-speed 90% of the crossing and 20 knots on the rest, then, would enable a crossing time of 3 days 5 hours to be scheduled, with 7-hour turnarounds, and 45 knots on the high-speed portion would cut the crossing by over an hour more. This range would be within hull speed, and within the engineering capability of the ship, though not very easy to sustain. To go higher would be desirable if it could be made reliable, but effectiveness at the margin would bear serious scrutiny.

Averaging 42.5 knots en route would cut a New York-Cape Town or Cape Town-Melbourne crossing to six and a half to seven days, and Melbourne-Vancouver to seven and a half...recall that the QE2 takes fourteen weeks or more for a world cruise, and even though we are talking about a ship that would have to go around Cape Horn, you can see that this could be cut in half if desired and multiple scenic stops still added. (Like the QE2,there would likely be one world cruise a year, but ocean-crossing would be more predominant...see itineraries).

WHAT ABOUT COMFORT

It's not enough, of course, to just be able to power through the water in record time. Passengers must also be kept comfortable, not let feel they are riding on a skipping stone! Stabilizers have been devised to aid seakeeping in recent decades, the SS United States pioneered them...but they exact a penalty in speed, more important to a speed-conscious liner than to the modern cruise ship. So the technology of the stabilizers for the new liner will have to be advanced as the hull design...to produce the highest *stabilized* speed in history when the sea conditions warrant.ould have to be released before the boats could be swung clear of the ship. When the Lusitania was sinking many of the chains were not released and thus preventing the boats from being launched successfully. Many boats went down with the ship.

7C's - Blue Ribband the Sea Quest for Speed Across the Atlantic

Yesterday's greyhounds are lovingly remembered in this parade of evocative steel thoroughbreds, history's favorites that set the pace. Famous companies include Inman, Cunard, Collins and White Star's sail and paddle steamers, sail and propeller steamers and pure steamships, the first German challenge; Cunard and Britain's response; Bremen, Europa and Rex; Normandie, the first Queen and finally, Gibb's Triumph. A publication for an exhibition of the same title by the Ocean Liner Museum. Text by John Maxtone-Graham 74 pages. Numerous illustrations from private collections. Softback.

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