Then and now
Crossing the Atlantic by ship
As I look out at the churning dark blue ocean dotted with streaks of white, I think of the millions of souls who travelled this journey before me. The poor immigrants leaving families and everything behind to eke out a living in the New World; the impoverished composer Dvořak, travelling from Prague in 1891 to take up his highly paid role as director of the new National Conservatory of Music in New York; Alma Mahler, travelling in 1908 with her husband Gustav as he came from Vienna to lead the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and then again later in 1940 after she had escaped occupied France by the skin of her teeth by walking over the Pyrenees. What, I wonder, went through their minds as they looked out over that same churning blue ocean? Excitement, apprehension… worries about loved ones. But boredom mainly, I suspect.
Quite unlike us pampered souls on the Queen Mary 2. This journey is like attending a conference. There are so many things to see and do every day that far from being bored, we have been frustrated at clashes between interesting events and irritated at the lack of time to eat the delicious food on offer as we rush from the last morning talk in the planetarium to the first afternoon workshop in the ballroom. I suspect that apart from spending a week at sea and changing the clocks an hour every day, there is little else that is the same today as in the eras before flights to America were commonplace.
Take the ship, for example. The kind of liner that Dvořak travelled on would have been only one fourteenth the size of the Queen Mary 2, yet she could take two thirds as many passengers as our 2,600. As well as being much more cramped, I bet those coal-fired liners didn’t glide silently through the water as we do either. Engine noise is barely perceptible, and despite a Force 10 gale last night, we slept comfortably through it all. Today in Force 7, the ship heaves gently from time to time, accompanied by the distant thump of a wave. There’s more vertical motion at the ship’s fore, caused by the seven metre high swell, but overall her stability is incredible. It’s light years away from the lurching, juddering cross-Channel ferries I took as a child. And they had gyroscopes to stabilise them! God knows what pre-war liners must have been like.
We’re very lucky, as the proud designer of the Queen Mary 2, Stephen Payne, is on board giving talks about her and maritime history. He points out that the ship is totally different from other modern cruise ships, as she was designed for this journey, not calm coastal cruising. Everything is different, from the slim shape of the hull and deeper draught to the positioning of the main restaurant, low down on Deck 2 at the fulcrum of the ship’s movement – to make dining comfortable even in a storm, as we witnessed last night.
The Queen Mary 2 was only built because of an uptick in QE2 bookings following the film Titanic. (As Henry pointed out, by contrast losing a 747 didn’t do Malaysian Airlines much good!) They chose the name because of the legendary status of the RMS Queen Mary.
I hadn’t realised what a groundbreaking ship the original Queen Mary was. Winston Churchill wrote an interesting piece about her1, in which he explains why:
For the first time in the history of Atlantic travel it was found possible, owing to the amazing developments in naval architecture and marine engineering, for two vessels of sufficient size and speed to maintain a regular weekly service between Southampton, Cherbourg and New York. This had hitherto been maintained by three ships. If it could be achieved by two, it was evident that large economies in the cost of the services could be secured, which could be distributed between the shareholders in the Company and the travelling public. The speed of the Queen Mary, and her contemplated sister ship, is not designed for mere record-breaking. It is dictated by the time necessary for her to perform the journey regularly at all seasons of the year, so as to give the number of hours required in port on both sides of the ocean. Size has been dictated by the necessity for providing sufficient passenger accommodation to make a two-ship service pay.
The Queen Mary secured the coveted Blue Riband for fastest Atlantic crossing in 1936 averaging a speed of 30.14 knots. By contrast, we are travelling at a leisurely 20 knots, and the ship’s absolutely maximum speed is only 29.63 knots. Today, saving fuel and giving passengers time to spend even more money on the many expensive extras is what counts.
Even though crossing from Southampton to New York in the 21st century has little in common with the discomforts of yesteryear, Cunard sets a lot of store by the image of a golden era of travel, and then encouraging today’s passengers to emulate it. Take formal evening attire for dining. The history of this is well explained by one of the many informative panels on the walls of the ship:
Although dress on the early Cunarders was strictly practical, by 1878 in ‘Ocean Notes for Ladies’ Kate LeDoux was advising passengers to dress smartly as well as sensibly in case they were washed overboard. Being well dressed would elicit greater respect from the person finding the body.
The tradition of formal dressing for dinner started on the Mauritania and Lusitania. By the 1920s dressing ‘to be seen’ was de rigueur especially for homeward bound Americans: ‘many otherwise excellent ladies try to wear each Parisian frock at least once to cheat customs’.
So, to continue this tradition, the Queen Mary 2 requires smart attire after six in most of the communal areas, and black tie or similar twice a week. It all seems rather pointless to me; I haven’t spotted any American ladies wearing new Parisian frocks. Perhaps I should be less cavalier about the possibility of being washed overboard.
Alma Mahler was a well-known society hostess, so I can imagine her enjoying the charade of formal dinners all the way across the Atlantic. But I can’t see either Dvořak or Gustav Mahler choosing the Queen Mary 2 today. And as for those poor immigrants looking for a new life, I am sure they would have done anything to swap a week or more in steerage for 7 hours on an aeroplane.
However, even with the silly shenanigans it’s exciting to be on board. It’s awesome to think that I am being transported across the vast Atlantic ocean in a colossal triumph of engineering, and that in six days’ time I will reach the New World. In truth, I can’t quite believe that we really WILL be arriving in New York. I’m sure I will feel a bit of culture shock when we do get there.
Who knows, but maybe these are thoughts that also went through the minds of the millions who travelled this journey before me.
