The Etruria was sold in 1909 to the shipbreakers for £16,750, and with her there ended another chapter in the history of the navigation of the North Atlantic. She was a “flyer” only a few years before being disposed of, her record passage from Queenstown to New York being 5 days 20 hours 55 minutes, and her eastward passage 6 days 37 minutes. She was built to outstrip the Oregon, a vessel built for the Guion Line in 1883 by John Elder and Co., and known from her speed of 18 knots as “the greyhound of the Atlantic.” The same builders were ordered by the Cunard Company to eclipse her, and constructed two steamers, the Etruria and Umbria, which for many years were the fastest ships afloat. Before they left the builders’ hands, however, the Oregon was acquired by the Cunard Company. The two Cunarders had the largest compound engines in existence. These boats were 500 feet between perpendiculars, 57 feet 3 inches beam, and 40 feet moulded depth. They were each of 8127 tons gross, and had engines of 14,500 indicated horse-power, giving them an average speed of 19 knots. It was stated of them at one of the meetings of the Cunard Company that “no ships ever gave their owners less uneasiness than these two, and no ships have done such an extraordinary amount of good work. They are monuments that cannot lie to the skill of the design and the faithfulness of the labour that went to their accomplishment.”
The “Mauretania” (Cunard, 1907).
The “Campania” (Cunard, 1892).
The Cunard express steamer Mauretania, sister ship to the Lusitania, launched at Clydebank, was constructed on the Tyne by Messrs. Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson, Ltd., who were already represented in the Cunard fleet by the Ultonia, Ivernia, and Carpathia. A description of the Mauretania given by the builders and the Cunard Company states that the flat keel-plate is five feet wide and three and three-quarter inches thick, and forms a portion of the bottom of the ship. Associated with this flat keel is a vertical keel, five feet high and one inch thick, and to this vertebra are attached, directly or indirectly, the frames and beams which make up the skeleton. The double bottom is divided by this vertical keel and the transverse frames into compartments in which water-ballast may be taken. The tops of these tanks are carried well round the turn of the bilge, so that should the bilge keels be torn away and the hull pierced, the entering water would be confined between the inner and outer bottoms. As a further precaution towards securing insubmersibility, the lower deck is made completely water-tight. Below it are the orlop and lower orlop decks, and above are the main, upper, shelter, promenade, upper promenade, and boat decks—nine decks in all. Automatically closing water-tight doors are fitted in the bulkheads, and can be closed from the navigating bridge in a few seconds. The Mauretania has 175 water-tight compartments, so that it is claimed for her that she is as unsinkable as a ship can be.
“The steel plates which cover the ribs or framing of the vessel or are used for the decks, bulkheads, and casings, or in other ways, number 26,000, the largest being about 48 feet in length, and weighing from four to five tons. To secure these plates to each other and the structural framework of the ship, over 4,000,000 rivets have been used, aggregating in weight about 500 tons. The largest rivets are used in the keel-plate, and these are eight inches in length and weigh 2³⁄₄ lb. The main frames and beams placed end to end would extend thirty miles; the rudder, which has two sets of steering gear, both of which are below the water-line, weighs 65 tons, and the diameter of the rudder stock is 26 inches. The castings for the stem, stern-post, shaft bracket and rudder together weigh 280 tons. Her ground gear is, with that manufactured for her sister ship, the Lusitania, the strongest yet made. The three anchors each weigh ten tons, while the 1800 feet of cable is composed of 24-inch links, the iron in which is 3³⁄₄ inches in diameter and the weight of each link about 1¹⁄₂ cwts. This mighty harness has been vigorously tested, sample links and shackles emerging successfully from a test strain of 370 tons.
“The principal measurements of the Mauretania are:
| Length | 790 | feet. |
| Breadth | 88 | „ |
| Depth (moulded) | 60 | „ |
| Gross tonnage | 32,500 | tons. |
| Displacement tonnage | 45,000 | „ |
| Load draught | 37 ft. 6 | ins. |
| Height of funnels | 155 | feet. |
| Diameter of funnels | 24 | „ |
| Height of masts | 216 | „ |
“Figures, however, convey but a bare idea of the great size. A favourite standard of comparison in shipping is the leviathan of Brunel, the Great Eastern, the mammoth steamer, which, born before its time, yet solved in her construction many of the most difficult problems with which the modern builders of big ships have to grapple; yet the Mauretania quite dwarfs the gigantic Great Eastern, as the following figures show: