Last of a Queen

Last week the fastest British ship in service was sold to the knackers for -L-80,000 to be broken up for scrap. Because she was the world's biggest, longest, fastest liner at her launching in 1907, because for nearly a quarter-century she flew the Blue Ribbon speed pennant of the North Atlantic, the passing of R. M. S. Mauretania marked for many an ocean-going oldster the end of an era.

If the event saddened many, it surprised few. As she aged, the Mauretania grew more & more expensive to operate. Two years ago her owners painted her famed old hull white, sent her on West Indies cruises. Last autumn she was tied up at Southampton with a skeleton crew aboard. In January the crew was dismissed, the four big stacks covered over, the 70,000-h.p. turbines shut down.

Long, slim, graceful, swift, the Mauretania--like her sister ship Lnsitania--was famed for the way she sliced through waves at 25 knots, maintained such a consistent speed that her transatlantic time rarely varied by more than five minutes. A "bad roller" in heavy seas, she was unpopular with many a weak-stomached traveler. Yet in her day she probably carried more bigwigs than any other two ships together.

Speed Queen of the Atlantic for 22 years, the Manrctania was finally dethroned in 1929 by the Bremen on her maiden trip. Few weeks later the old Cunarder amazed the world by steaming from New York to Plymouth in 4 days. 17 hr., 49 min., breaking her own eastbound record but not the Bremen's. The effort strained the Mauretania's 30,000 tons to the limit. She never tried it again.

Next week the grand old lady will sail under her own steam for the last time, to Rosyth, Scotland, and the shipbreakers' yards. One record she still held, to the last. In July 1933, between Havana and New York, she maintained a speed of 32 knots for one hour straight. Not even the Normandie and Queen Mary are likely to better that.

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