How Queen Mary was built - the epic true story (1/2)| Oceanliner Designs

the epic career of the rms queen mary perhaps history's mightiest ocean liner is a well-known subject for decades she has hosted dignitaries starlets carried gis pows and war brides safely and starred in countless films and television shows thanks for remarkable foresight she is preserved today inspiring and captivating the hearts of countless people it's weird to think though that her completion at one point was not a given and that in the depths of economic depression her fate hung in the balance this is the epic tale of the construction of the rms queen mary and how she almost didn't make it to launch day in 1926 the directors of the keynote steamship line met to discuss plans for the direction of their world-renowned company cunard found itself in charge of a somewhat rag-tag fleet of liners the lion itself having suffered casualties in the first world war the regular transatlantic schedule was predominantly maintained by three giant aging liners mauritania aquitania and berengaria all three of these chips had a unique personality and attracted different clientele the mauritania drew a younger chica crowd a cunard promotional pamphlet stated that her passengers looked more like vanity fair fashion illustrations and in the wake of prohibition she was renowned for her famous booze cruisers off-season aquitania attracted a more austere passenger the old money a country family sort of atmosphere formal and more attuned to the social hierarchy of the day berengaria by contrast attracted the flashy and the ostentatious it was said that the berengaria sailing is tempestuous with the exploding of flashlights the pursuit of reporters everything about the berengaria is on the grand the opulent scale brilliant cunard promotional copywriting aside the fact became clear that by the late 1920s cunard's great trio was aging and endangering the line of becoming completely outclassed mauritania by that point was 20 years old and probably due for retirement by contrast the german line nor deutsche lloyd were constructing a whole new generation of liner the radical ss bremen and europa while the italian line was planning the conte de savoya and rex it was clear that now more than ever size and speed in passenger ships at sea were of the utmost importance and cunard could not be left behind if the company was to remain a major player on the atlantic the strategy that cunard would take was seth it would call for a pair of sister ships the largest and fastest ever seen and they would not just be so for posterity sir percy bates the company's chairman explained that the speed is dictated by the time necessary to complete the journey at all seasons of the year and in both directions the size is dictated by the necessity to make money by providing sufficient saleable passenger accommodation to pay for the speed in the opinion of its technical advisors so far from attempting to construct steamers simply to compete with others in speed and size the cunard company is projecting a pair of steamers which though they will be very large and fast are in fact the smallest and slowest which can fulfill properly all the essential economic conditions essentially sir percy was proposing that the future largest and fastest ships in the world would also be the smallest and slowest practicable the introduction of the two monstrous and speedy liners would facilitate a planned reduction in the company's fleet size a simple cost-cutting move in response to the existing and aging fleet but also the reduction in immigrant numbers to the united states by 1931 the cunard big three were attracting only 48 000 people compared to the passengers carried by bremen and europa 82 000 in 1928 and 88 000 in 1930. the cunard big three might finally be retired out with the old and in with the new the pair of new superliners were so closely tied to cunard's proposed regular timetable that in the earliest days of planning a schedule was worked out tracking the average speeds required on west and eastbound crossings it was proved that the pair would need to be blue ribbon winning ships maintaining an average speed between 27 and 29 knots the schedule would require 2 000 paying customers to maintain the cost of such speeds while still turning a decent profit this would require an immense bulk some 80 000 gross tons and over a thousand feet in length if cunard didn't have the reputation for being the foremost british shipping line the plan would sound ludicrous but fortunately a long-standing relationship with the scottish john brown shipbuilding company on the clyde could see the dream become a reality john brown had built many of cunard's ships including lusitania and aquitanium and were no strangers to vessels of great size having relatively recently constructed massive warships like the battle cruisers hood and repulse they were the natural choice for the job [Music] the stock market crash of 1929 brought immense difficulties to cunard's great plan for the pair of sisters not only was the natural reduction in national and societal wealth having an impact on passenger numbers but no british insurer could be found to cover the vast expenses required this prevented a contract from even being signed between john brown and cunard until the issue could be solved by 1930 the proposed superliners had become public knowledge and cunard approached the british government to ask for assistance in insuring the ships the times newspaper took a fairly dim view on this in september 1930 when it asked is it wise that parliament should be asked to lend a hand to a project planned on so colossal scale that private enterprise could not find the means to carry it through the real question is whether so large and so elaborate of masterpieces really needed to convey passengers across the atlantic the possibilities of the vessels being an economic failure have to be faced despite this sentiment the request was actually met with approval and in december that year the cunard insurance act was passed by parliament this meant that a private insurer could cover up to the usual amount of say 2.7 million pounds required for construction while the british government would assume the balance of the risk for the roughly one and a half million pounds that was remaining so percy bates was a master political player and was able to solve seemingly insurmountable problems with cunning and maneuvering southern railway owned the southampton docks that the proposed sister ships would have to use and the company refused to spend the approximate two million pounds required in building a new dry dock just for the two new superlighters since the insurance scheme had not yet been completed and the contract signed bates pressured the government by intoning that the agreement which was by now critical to national prestige couldn't be signed without a dry dock lined up for use the move worked with mounting pressure from the government southern railways general manager sir herbert walker caved and agreed to spend a fortune on creating a brand new dry dock over a thousand feet long 135 feet wide and almost 50 feet deep this would go on to become the famous king george fifth graving dock so it was that just before christmas in 1930 the first rivet was driven into the keel of the as yet unnamed liner known only as 534 the first of the proposed pair and by the end of the month the entire keel had been laid original designs for the ship drew heavily from aquitania featuring a counter stern and split superstructure towers aft but 22 scale models had been tested during design each over 200 inches long 8 000 trials and simulated wave tanks had refined the hull shape the ship would feature a flared bow and cruiser stern the journal marine engine builder stated that when traveling at speed into a headsee the vessel will ride well and the water will be effectively and naturally thrown clear and thus prevented from breaking on board work carried on into 1931 but now the reality of global economic depression was beginning to sink in and cunard originally flushed with cash in a healthy market was met with a stark reality there was not enough revenue left to finish the job on hull 534 british transatlantic earnings had fallen over halfway from nine million to four million pounds and cunard's directors were left with only one tragic course of action a fortnight before christmas 1931 just one year since construction had begun the john brown yards whistle blew and 3 500 workers were sent home for good construction was halted the ship her frames already plated with steel loomed over clydebank like a like a ghostly figure an ever-present reminder of the global downturn in fortunes without jobs and work many families in clydebank were faced with poverty and a steady decline in living conditions into 1932 children were being sent to school with half a slice of bread to eat all day malnourishment became a terrifying reality cunard's problems continued to melt nor deutsche lloyd's bremen and europa were playing the atlantic almost unencumbered while again it was left to mauritania aquitania and berengaria to shoulder the burden of regular passenger service although passenger numbers were dwindling cunard's profits plummeted in 1932 wide sweeping salary reductions were announced even for directors this problem was not just localized to cunard the entire british passenger ship industry was suffering white star lines equivalent to the cunard big three were olympic homeric and majestic an arguably even more ragtag trio of ocean liners whose origins were mostly pre-war white star had planned and begun to lay down the hull for their own superliner the massive motor vessel oceanic but the project too was halted and never completed by contrast italian lions kante did savoya and rex were now also playing the atlantic alongside the likes of bremen and europa earning considerable profits britain's dominance of the sea so long a source of national pride was now dangerously at risk [Music] in october 1932 neville chamberlain the future prime minister of britain invited the scottish industrialist lord weir to review and consider the state of british shipbuilding and passengership services the outlook was grim we are established that foreign governments were subsidizing the construction and operation of their country's liners to a considerable extent he recommended that money should be lent to cunard for the completion of 534 but there was an infamous catch chamberlain himself wrote in a 1932 diary entry that my own aim has always been to use the 534 as a lever for bringing about a merger between the cunard and the white star lines thus establishing a strong british firm in the north atlantic trade the proposed loan over nine million pounds at very low interest would see the two legendary lines merge together to create a united front on the trans-atlantic passenger battleground it must be said that this was a bit of a risky move because it removed a crucial element from the mix healthy competition the natural state that had existed between cunard and white star for decades and had seen each line improving the standards and sizes of their ships in turn in a seemingly never-ending game of one-upsmanship the matter went to parliament who had to approve the monumental loan to a private corporation at a time when many britons were starving scottish politician david kirkwood's eloquent arguments helped sway those opposed in lengthy and impassioned appeals to reason he cited the many corners of britain from which hull 534's components had come the huge stem castings from darlington the turbines from rugby the high pressure tubes from walls all the 100 000 pieces of cutlery from sheffield the propellers from millwall in london he ended by saying that from 9 000 to 10 000 men will be employed right away from all over the country within a week in clydebank alone anything from 1 000 to 1 500 men will be started this brilliantly turned the narrative from one of outrage and shock at a mammoth loan being given out to unrestrained capitalists to being a matter of job creation and national pride conservative politician sir joseph noll chipped in with his own take when he said that i will remember a little over a year ago coming back from new york in the mauritania i do not think i've ever felt so depressed at the position which this country seemed to be occupying as upon a sunday morning in a fairly still sea with a mist the mauritania was running almost parallel with the ill de france went away in the mist appeared the bremen which in an hour had overtaken both ships the old mauritania still the fastest of the british ships on the north atlantic run was over 25 years old incredibly the bill passed on march 27 1934 nearly three years since construction had started on the ship in the first place and almost 10 years since plans for her had begun to be drawn up all over clydebank letters were sent recalling men to work after years of inactivity over 1 000 men marched back to work again being guided by pipers and over them loomed the vast hulk of hull 534 rusted and inhabited only by colonies of seabirds and ravens soon she would be the site of extraordinary technological achievement the height of luxury at sea she would not be hull 534 forever but the queen mary the story of queen mary's construction is as fittingly epic as that of the rest of her career and her first three years of life were turbulent as could possibly be with the clyde bank yard back at work construction was back on track but there was still the monumental task ahead of turning this giant steel cocoon into the world's fastest and largest luxury liner and it wouldn't all be smooth sailing in part two we'll look at the construction and launch of the ship her trials and some of the problems encountered by those charged with sailing the world's biggest ship for the first time just wanted to take a moment to extend a huge welcome to all of my new subscribers and crew members this video has been brought to you by my awesome new patrons and members of the ocean liner designs crew navigating officer jacob purser the ship nerd debt crew evelyn and camille and victorling crew tom welcome aboard thank you so much for supporting the channel and what i do if you enjoyed the video please like and subscribe this does a lot to help the channel get noticed and to grow the crew as always thank you so much for watching stay safe stay happy and i'll see you again next time you

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

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Id: ms97MEc8mho

Length: 16min 13sec (973 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 08 2021