New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-05-08
That Was in 1907, Before
Era of Submarine
Warfare.
SET PACE WHICH
GERMANS FOLLOWED
Lusitania Was FavOrite OF port
Her Speed Put Deutsch'
land Out of Service.

.
sent TO the bottom Of the Atlantic by
n torpcdo from a German submarine,
steamship man not connected with the
service Of tho Allies remarked: at IS
the irony Of fate. Poor old Kaempf!
wonder what ne thinks Of It"
Those who understood remembered
that II was the trim vessel now under
/ The sea that wrestcd the Atlantic speed
honors from Germany and drove the
master of the Hamburg Amerlcan liner
/ Deutschland into retirement.
The lost Cunarder, IL Is said, was IN
directly responsible for the creation OF
J such monsters as the Vaterland and
/ the ImperatOr. built at enormous cost
to enable Germany to get foothold
on the passenger traffic out OF Ne"
/ York.
! The Lusitania was an experiment.
remarkably successful experiment The
/ Cunard Line, backed by government
subvention, in 1907 put an unknown
quantity into the water which amazed
! the world with her phenomenal speed.
| She was more than a flyer; she was a
money maker.
Operated at great cost, she demon
! strated to the shipping world that trav-
| ellers willing to pay fancy prices for
/ high class service wanted speed. High
rates did not handicap the Lusitania's
/ business.
Fastest Ship in the World"
From her maiden excursion. she was
| booked to capacity, and her success was
assured at that time. Every one want
/ ed to travel on the fastest steamship in
+ the world, and several months lat r,
when the Mauritania was unleashed,
/ the pair were the most'popular steam
ships on the Atlantic. Both were tur-
| bine driven vessels, which accounted
I for their marvellous speed. Germany
watched them carefully, but the secrets
! of the engine room were guarded
against Teutonic espionage, and to-day,
with the Lusitania gone, the Maure-
/ tania is the speed mistress of the
seas.
! Until the advent Of the Lusitania the
! Hamburg American liner Deutschland,
now named the Victoria Luise, had the
transatlantic record westbound of D
DAYS II hours and "a minutes, made
. in September, 1908. Captain Karl
/ Kaempff. commodore Of the fleet, had
driven his charge until this, her best
/ time, was attained
| But soon after the Lusitania came
/ into service and had her turbines tuned
TO perfection the German vessels rec
ord faded into oblivion, the Cunarder
coming over in days II hours and
~ minutes. So keen was the rivalry
on the part of the German ship owners
that the Hamburg-American Line issued
a statement questioning the veraclty
/ of the official time given out by Cap
tain Watts. who was then the Lusi-
tanias master.
/ Attracted Great Attention.
! No vessel, exception not being made
/ for the lateF and bigger ones, ever got
the attention and publicity that was
bestowed upon the Lusitanla. She was
forever trying to clip off a minute or
/ two from her previous record, and the
public seemed to be as much interested
| as the ship owners themselves. Her
departures and arrivals were social af-
fairs. and her midnight bookings often
/ kept the customs officials working for
twenty-four consecutive hours.
/ Although she has been outclassed in
/ tonnage and special features of in
terror arrangement, the Lusitania, up
TO the time of the European war, was
an exceedingly popular vessel, and
when the Admiralty called heavily upon
the Cunari fleet for transports she
alone remained in the service of the
company.
She was what might be called the
first of the real big ones to come here,
and this impression fingered in the
minds of this generation. Hats and
/ collars and various sorts of attire were
named after her, and she was used i'll
picture and in song on the stage.
Captain Pritchard, who once COM
manded her, declared that ships had
personalities like human beings, and
this was true of the Lusitania. She
was regarded as a friend of the port,
and her trips here were for many years
an event.
The old expression thousands line
the beach" was resurrected when the
Lusitania first peeped into this port in
September, 1907. The waterfront was
covered with people and every avail
able space in Office windows used for
observation. The new queen of the
seas came up slowly, blowing her whis-
tie necessarily in response to salutes.
The city itself was as profusely deco
rated with bunting as the ship.
Thought Her Unsuitable.
The Lusitania was a vessel of 81 $50
tons, with displacement on the load
/ line of $4,000 tons. She was 100 feet
long, with a beam of 80 feet and a
depth when fully loaded of 3712 feet.
Her hull below the draft line was
divided into 175 watertight compart-
ments, which her builders, John Brown
& Co., Limited, of Glasgow, declared
would make her unsuitable. At the
time of the loss of the Titanic the
CLnard Line officials declared that
under similar conditions of collision
wiz an iceberg the two CUnarders
Lusitania and Mauritania would have
kept afoat.
BY pneumatic control from the
bridge all these watertight compart-
ments could be closed within a minute,
and il is believed that these compart-
ments were closed when the vessel was
torpeGoed. Unlike the later leviathans,
the Lusitania's coal bunkers were next
the skin. This arrangement, it is be-
| lieved, was a handicap rather than a
help. With her coal junk,rs opened
from without, the food from the sea
would give her a list and make impos-
sible the launching of lifeboats from
the high side. The Lu3itania did not
have Wellin quadrant davits support
ing the lifeboats on her boat deck and
without them her small boats could not
be lowered II she had any considerable
list.
The Lusitania was perhaps the most
serviceable vessel ever launched. For
nearly eight years she has been run
ming back and forth between New York
and Liverpool at top speed, often MAX
ing port on Thursdays when the
weather permitted. With her sister
ship, the Mauritania, she has main
tanned a remarkably fine express SER