The Difference Between Ocean Liners and Cruise Ships

verse 44 67 when to 0-0 at 1 0 runway 31 left at kilo hecto there's a common and persistent misconception among the public that all large passenger carrying ships are ocean liners and that all ocean liners or cruise ships admittedly there is some overlap but to misunderstand the difference between the two is to overlook a key reality of the human condition as recently as 50 years ago having an interest in maritime history myself this topic comes up much more frequently in my day-to-day life than it should and I have noticed that even the most informed people I know don't differentiate between ocean liners and the stereotypical hotel like in buffet fueled cruise ships I think it's said on the side of the Titanic even God can't sink it yeah yeah they weren't one of these people to be excited and they're going nowhere cruise ship just going nowhere well it was something to do back then yeah imagine living back then now I like Joe Rogan and his podcast is reliably entertaining and insightful but in this case his lacking knowledge hints out a common failure to connect the dots of even our recent history until the 1950s the only way for anyone to cross the oceans was by ship and this is where the fundamental difference lies ocean liners served the role of transporting passengers between continents reliably and on-time no matter the weather this isn't stark contrast with cruise ships which take passengers to pleasant destination on leisurely voyages it's often said that cruises begin and end in the same port well this is true most of the time some cruises do end in a different port than the origin as a result of their different functions ocean liners and cruise ships are generally speaking designed much differently an ocean liner needs to reliably travel between two or more points regardless of the weather and usually regardless of the season since most passengers are on board for the transportation rather than the joy of being at sea it helps rely neurs to be fast too in order to meet those requirements ocean liners tend to have deeper drafts longer boughs higher free boards and be made of stronger materials but it is difficult to compare the design of ocean liners and cruise ships while they do share a common history they are two separate points on the timeline with only a small overlap in between ultimately they were built in a different time for different purpose and with different technologies and so begins the story leading to the dawn of the ocean liner people have been crossing oceans regularly since the reunion of the old world and the new world but the origin of the ocean liner comes far later with the advent of the steam engine until then traveling across the Atlantic which remain arduous remarkably dangerous and most relevant to this topic unreliable so while sailing vessels had always carried passengers across bodies of water they could not do so on a regular scheduled service and thus were not truly ocean liners in 1840 the RMS Britannia was completed for the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company later called Cunard and was the first ocean liner and today sense of the term constructed of wood and powered by steam Britannia could more or less transport passengers across the Atlantic on a routine in timely manner but the newness of steam technology led a prudent and cautious public to perceive these new ships as unreliable which meant that steam powered liners would be fitted with auxiliary sails in their infancy in order to provide backup and additional efficiency despite the hesitation it wasn't long before the Atlantic was filled with steam ships running scheduled service between ports on either side of the ocean and Cunard ships umbria and Etta Duryea were the last auxiliary liners to be built in an increasingly connected world these ships became the only way to cross and so the money and incentive was available to build stronger and faster ships leading to an explosion of technological development in the industry the years between 1840 in 1920 saw the transition from auxilary to paddle wheel to propeller driven ships an increase in maximum size from 2,300 tons to 52,000 tons and a decrease in the total westbound Atlantic crossing time from 13 days twelve hours to four days eleven hours until this point travel across oceans was reserved for the select few who had the resources and the time to spend weeks or months in transit now travel across oceans was better and more accessible than ever linking the world in new ways traveling by ship had also risen from a grueling risk to a glamorous adventure the shift in perspective is proven by the fact that during this time an ocean liner might occasionally take a break from his transoceanic services paying passengers on pleasure cruises this temporary change in operations would be due to fluctuations in economic pressures shipping capacity and decisions made by the shipping companies at the same time there were even a small number of purpose-built cruise ships dating back to 1900 when the pros Essen Victoria Louise was launched even these ships though were built like ocean liners in most respects and the vast majority of passenger traffic was carried by the ocean liners world war ii led to the rapid development of aviation technology and not long after the war was over jet powered airliners were able to cross the Atlantic with passengers by the early 1960s construction of new ocean liners for the Atlantic run or other lines had all but come to a halt as the shipping lines began to struggle to fill their already existing ships they spent an increasing amount of time taking passengers on cruises while trans and intercontinental travel had shifted to the airlines in the early days of cruising the ships were old liners not built for the type of work they were now engaged in but the purpose of cruising at the time was the destination and the joy of being at sea besides the ocean liner style was what the public was used to in 1972 Carnival Cruise Line started with a 12 year old liner Empress of Canada similarly Norwegian Cruise Line got its feet off the ground with the purchase of the SS France which I had renovated and renamed Norway ships built to be ocean liners though were not ideal for cruising they're deep drafts limited access to ports with deep harbors they were designed with an emphasis on capacity rather than comfort and they were expensive to build and operate being engineered with strong materials to weather extreme conditions so when the shipping companies and Cruise Lines realized that cruise ships because they spend most of their time in fair weather did not need the technical capabilities of ocean liners the floodgates were opened for change in development between 1987 and 2018 the maximum cruise ship size has increased from 73,000 Crow's tons to 228,000 gross tons but it's the design of these ships not the size that marks their difference from their ocean liner predecessors today's cruise ships are famous for their boxy appearance and more recently their often uncanny resemblance to hotels all of this is because the objective of their construction has changed namely cruise lines need ships to offer the most and highest quality amenities to the maximum number of people at the lowest cost the newest cruise ships today I have short boughs low freeboard and towering super structures that seemed to just stop these design choices create a lot of space for these accommodations at the same time though it means that today's purpose-built cruise ships don't fare well in harsh weather while ocean liners once powered through some of the most extreme weather the ocean can deliver cruise ships handle weather differently cruise ships can avoid bad weather by canceling or changing ports of call or going around weather systems if necessary a cruise can bear a storm but it will usually do so uncomfortably slowly or both I don't mean to imply that cruise ships are not safe modern technologies and the sheer size of cruise ships keep them safe while they fulfill a very different mission than that of the ocean liners of yesteryear all this to say cruise ships were different from ocean liners of which there's only one remaining RMS Queen Mary 2 is still making runs across the Atlantic today and is the only major ship in the world carrying passengers between continents on a scheduled line and even Queen Mary 2 spent as much of the year cruising cruise ships do occasionally cross oceans though and often with passengers but these repositioning cruises are necessary inconvenience for cruise lines as ships move between different regions between the seasons and there's a reason why repositioning cruises are not available for booking all the time [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Great Big Move

Views: 597,413

Keywords: ocean liner, cruise ship, cruise, titanic, ship, liner, white star, white star line, maritime, history, transportation, lusitania, documentary, olympic, Cunard, royal Caribbean, carnival, cruises, caribbean, atlantic, qe2, queen elizabeth, Queen Mary 2, qm2, oasis of the seas

Id: w7mocEPIjjs

Length: 8min 22sec (502 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 23 2020