Readers letters
It is good to commemorate those who perished when White Star’s RMS Titanic foundered (PE May 2012, Archive and Review).
However it is wrong to say that Titanic was technically advanced. She and her sister ship the Olympic, built the year before the Titanic, were quite pedestrian and had three screws, two driven by reciprocating steam engines exhausting into a low pressure steam turbine driving the centre screw. The LP turbine was an afterthought to make better use of the steam. As a consequence of the centre screw, the rudder was made smaller. The Olympic and Titanic employed dated technology using poor quality steel that was brittle at low temperatures, and poor quality rivets.
Just ten years after Charles Parsons’ steam yacht Turbinia steamed at 35 knots between the lines of the British fleet at the ‘Spithead Review’ celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897; Cunard’s RMS Mauretania, was completed in 1907 (five years before the Titanic) by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd on the Tyne with Parsons’ steam turbines. She was technically advanced with four screws driven by two HP turbines and two LP turbines. It is the Mauretania that should be properly celebrated. She was the fastest ship across the North Atlantic from 1907 until 1929 achieving an average of more than 27 knots. Her sister ship the Lusitania, built on the Clyde, was not quite as fast.
Incidentally, all White Star Line ships had names ending in ‘ic’; all Cunard Line ships had names ending in ‘ia’.
White Star was owned by the US Company, International Mercantile Marine. Harland & Wolff built all White Star’s ships and the companies were closely connected financially. Both companies were in serious financial difficulty. Earlier than the sinking of Titanic, the wreck of White Star’s Atlantic in 1871 cost 546 lives. Cunard however, never lost a life except by enemy action. I may be wrong but my understanding is that Harland & Wolff did not build any ships for Cunard.
There is a strong hypothesis, which deserves further investigation, that the sinking of the Titanic was planned as an insurance scam and that it was the Olympic which had previously been in collision with the cruiser HMS Hawke, altered to look like the Titanic. The Olympic was patched up in Southampton and went slowly to Belfast, using one propeller only, for repairs which took one and a half months. The LP turbine could have used exhaust steam from the one reciprocating engine if the keel or shaft were not badly damaged. When the Titanic (or Olympic) sank, there was a mystery ship in the locality and lifeboats were reported in the water prior to lifeboats being lowered from the sinking ship.
Cunard’s Carpathia rescued 711 passengers and crew. Carpathia’s captain, Arthur Henry Rostron later became captain of the Mauretania, as did second officer James Bisset who was knighted and became Commodore of the Cunard Fleet.
Cunard’s RMS Mauretania should be properly celebrated as should Charles Parsons’ Turbinia. It is a shame that Parsons’ steam yacht Turbinia could not have been made seaworthy and positioned close to HMS Belfast (a Harland & Wolff ship!) for the present Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Brian Cowell, Hucclecote, Gloucestershire
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