THE LUSITANIA: BUILT FOR “SAFETY”
The irony of the situation lies in the fact that from the ghastly experience of great marine disasters the Lusitania was evolved as a vessel that was “safe.” No such calamity as the attack of a torpedo was foreseen by the builders of the giant ship, and yet, even after the outbreak of the European war, and when upon the eve of her last voyage the warning came that an attempt would be made to torpedo the Lusitania, her owners confidently assured the world that the ship was safe because her great speed would enable her to outstrip any submarine ever built.
Limitation of language makes adequate word description of this mammoth Cunarder impossible. The following figures show its immense dimensions: Length, 790 feet; breadth, 88 feet; depth, to boat deck, 80 feet; draught, fully loaded, 37 feet, 6 inches; displacement on load line, 45,000 tons; height to top of funnels, 155 feet; height to mastheads, 216 feet. The hull below draught line was divided into 175 water-tight compartments, which made it—so the owners claimed—“unsinkable.” With complete safety device equipment, including wireless telegraph, Mundy-Gray improved method of submarine signaling, and with officers and crew all trained and reliable men, the Lusitania was acclaimed as being unexcelled from a standpoint of safety, as in all other respects.
Size, however, was its least remarkable feature. The ship was propelled by four screws rotated by turbine engines of 68,000 horse-power, capable of developing a sea speed of more than twenty-five knots per hour regardless of weather conditions, and of maintaining without driving a schedule with the regularity of a railroad train, and thus establishing its right to the title of “the fastest ocean greyhound.”