Cunard's Fleet: Larger in 2024 than in 1958?!

[Aoumd]

Apologies if this has already been discussed and I just not seen the thread, but I perused the historic and present Cunard Fleet List on Wikipedia recently and realized something that really surprised me.

 

Apparently the Cunard Line fleet of today is larger than it was in 1958 (the year that jet service first started across the Atlantic).

 

That is, when you measure by gross registered tonnage instead of number of ships...

 

Cunard Line in 1958			Cunard Line in 2024
Total Tonnage	429,572		Total Tonnage	443,165
Queen Elizabeth	83,673		Queen Mary 2	149,215
Queen Mary	81,237		Queen Anne	113,000
Mauretania	35,738		Queen Elizabeth	90,901
Caronia	34,183		Queen Victoria	90,049
Britannic	27,666
Ivernia	21,800
Carinthia	21,800
Sylvania	21,800
Saxonia	21,637
Parthia	13,350
Media	13,350
Asia	8,723
Assyria	8,663
Andria	7,228
Alsatia	7,226
Vardulia	7,176
Brescia	3,834
Lycia	3,543
Phrygia	3,534
Pavia	3,411

[Jim_P]

True, but a lot of those were cargo ships. It would be interesting to compare Cunard's passenger capacity then to now. I think 1958 would be in front, though Queen Anne with her 3000 capacity may have tipped the scale. 

[WantedOnVoyage]

I believe the all-time record for a Cunarder (or British liner) in general in total number of passengers carried on the North Atlantic was R.M.S AQUITANIA which landed 3,110 in three classes at New York in January 1921. So maybe QUEEN ANNE will have the somewhat dubious distinction of averaging more passengers per voyage than anyother Cunarder. Not with me among them, either! 

 

As for the relative size and merits of the respective fleets of 1958 and 2024, I'd take R.M.S. QUEEN ELIZABETH (1940) over the entire Cunard fleet of today, thanks very much. 

[Aoumd]

26 minutes ago, WantedOnVoyage said:

I believe the all-time record for a Cunarder (or British liner) in general in total number of passengers carried on the North Atlantic was R.M.S AQUITANIA which landed 3,110 in three classes at New York in January 1921. So maybe QUEEN ANNE will have the somewhat dubious distinction of averaging more passengers per voyage than anyother Cunarder. Not with me among them, either! 

 

As for the relative size and merits of the respective fleets of 1958 and 2024, I'd take R.M.S. QUEEN ELIZABETH (1940) over the entire Cunard fleet of today, thanks very much. 

In peacetime, of course...otherwise Queen Mary is still the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world with its 16,683 souls during WWII.  Sure wish the original Queen Elizabeth were still around today, even if as a museum...

[MelbTone]

As a three year old (not that I remember it) I did a TA crossing on Media in 1957. Half passenger, half cargo, and apparently very highly rated by her regulars.

[stephen@stoneyard.co.uk]

5 hours ago, Aoumd said:

In peacetime, of course...otherwise Queen Mary is still the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world with its 16,683 souls during WWII.  Sure wish the original Queen Elizabeth were still around today, even if as a museum...

 

Of course Queen Mary during the war.  I wonder how long before Royal Carruibean exceed that on Gigantic of the Seas.  Was Queen Mary in liner service with Cunard during the war.  I wonder if she was classified as a US or UK Navy ship.  I doubt she was operated according to Board of Trade regulations for lifeboats with that many people. 

 

I have a book Queen Elizibeth at War.  A fascinationg book with many illustration that were done on the ship which i think was very much against the rules.  If only Queen Elizibeth was still around.  A museum in the UK would be ideal for me.

[Jim_P]

She was a UK navy ship (HMT Queen Mary).

[exlondoner]

1 hour ago, Jim_P said:

She was a UK navy ship (HMT Queen Mary).

And yet the RN sued Cunard for the Curacoa incident.

[WantedOnVoyage]

Merchant ships taken up for transport duty retained their Merchant Navy crew and officers. They were "hired" or chartered by the Ministry of War Transport.  So an H.M.T. QUEEN MARY still had her original Cunard captain, flew the Blue or Red Ensign, etc.  And yes, Cunard still carried commercial passengers from September 1939-end 1940 and also aboard the transports but official ones aboard the latter. 

[NE John]

Wasn’t QE2 also used by the RN in the Falklands campaign?

[exlondoner]

3 minutes ago, NE John said:

Wasn’t QE2 also used by the RN in the Falklands campaign?

Indeed. A process known pleasingly as STUFT.

[Clewgarnet]

6 minutes ago, WantedOnVoyage said:

Merchant ships taken up for transport duty retained their Merchant Navy crew and officers. They were "hired" or chartered by the Ministry of War Transport.  So an H.M.T. QUEEN MARY still had her original Cunard captain, flew the Blue or Red Ensign, etc.  And yes, Cunard still carried commercial passengers from September 1939-end 1940 and also aboard the transports but official ones aboard the latter. 

Still had her original Cunard chef, as well, when he wasn't on Elizabeth. And he got the MBE for it.

 

And, yes, QE2 was used in the Falklands. Two of my uncles (from the other side of the family) were on board as passengers.

[exlondoner]

4 minutes ago, Clewgarnet said:

Still had her original Cunard chef, as well, when he wasn't on Elizabeth. And he got the MBE for it.

 

And, yes, QE2 was used in the Falklands. Two of my uncles (from the other side of the family) were on board as passengers.

I don’t think she got any nearer than South Georgia though. Canberra might have been expendable, but the ship bearing (approximately) the Sovereign’s name and number could not be risked.

[foodsvcmgr]

I visited QE as a kid in 1969 during her brief retirement in Port Everglades.

Convinced me to begin a lifetime of cruising ever since.

[NE John]

14 minutes ago, foodsvcmgr said:

I visited QE as a kid in 1969 during her brief retirement in Port Everglades.

Convinced me to begin a lifetime of cruising ever since.

One of the best ship prows ever. 

[Clewgarnet]

Such a beautiful ship. Truly heartbreaking that she was lost to pure greed.

[Winifred 22]

2 hours ago, NE John said:

Wasn’t QE2 also used by the RN in the Falklands campaign?

She was and I watched her sail away from Southampton. 

[Bloodaxe]

In the 1950s my family used to take our Summer holiday at Southsea near to  Portsmouth and Southampton.on the Solent.

I remember watching all the great liners of the day sailing bye on the way to and from Southampton.

We also did a boat trip around Southampton docks and our small board passed under the bow of the Queen Mary, we were told how a destroyer was accidentally cut in half during the war

About 50 years later I visited Queen Mary at Long Beach before joining a cruise to Alaska, great memories of great Ships.

 

 

 

Edited July 24 by Bloodaxe

[Aoumd]

7 hours ago, stephen@stoneyard.co.uk said:

 

Of course Queen Mary during the war.  I wonder how long before Royal Carruibean exceed that on Gigantic of the Seas.  Was Queen Mary in liner service with Cunard during the war.  I wonder if she was classified as a US or UK Navy ship.  I doubt she was operated according to Board of Trade regulations for lifeboats with that many people. 

 

I have a book Queen Elizibeth at War.  A fascinationg book with many illustration that were done on the ship which i think was very much against the rules.  If only Queen Elizibeth was still around.  A museum in the UK would be ideal for me.

You are giving me very weird images in my head of the RCCL Oasis and Icon Classes, as well as the new 8,000-passenger/230,000-ton trio ordered by Carnival yesterday, in wartime gray carrying troops 😀. If passenger vessels-turned-troopships were still a thing, can you imagine the implications of where Panama or the Bahamas were to align in a war?

The new Carnival ships on order could easily surpass Queen Mary’s record with minimal additional bunks if all 8,000 berths were hot-bunked, plus crew…

Edited July 24 by Aoumd

[ExArkie]

13 hours ago, Aoumd said:

In peacetime, of course...otherwise Queen Mary is still the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world with its 16,683 souls during WWII.  Sure wish the original Queen Elizabeth were still around today, even if as a museum...

I was contemplating that number of soldiers on Queen Mary earlier today because of a reference to it I ran across. If one were to assume the average weight of each person and their accompanying gear was around 180 lbs (82 kg), the additional weight would be 3 million pounds (1.4 million kg) or an additional 1,500 tons. Wonder if it made a difference it made in her draft?

[57eric]

20 hours ago, Jim_P said:

True, but a lot of those were cargo ships. It would be interesting to compare Cunard's passenger capacity then to now. I think 1958 would be in front, though Queen Anne with her 3000 capacity may have tipped the scale. 

Who's up to the comparison task?  Come on, CCers!  You can't all be as lazy as me.

[chengkp75]

On 7/23/2024 at 4:20 PM, Aoumd said:

That is, when you measure by gross registered tonnage instead of number of ships...

 

Just a note.  While the Cunard ships in 1958 were registered by "Gross Registered Tonnage", that term has been made obsolete in the 1980's by the IMO, and ships now use "Gross Tonnage".  GRT was an actual measure of the ship's internal volume, while GT takes that volume measurement and applies a non-linear factor to it, to calculate a unitless index of the ship's size.  So, comparing GRT to GT, while accurate to an extent, is not an exact comparison.  The factor applied to calculate GT from volume increases logarithmically with volume, meaning that larger ships have a GT that is further from the actual volume than smaller ships, further skewing the comparison.

Edited July 25 by chengkp75

[exlondoner]

12 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Just a note.  While the Cunard ships in 1958 were registered by "Gross Registered Tonnage", that term has been made obsolete in the 1980's by the IMO, and ships now use "Gross Tonnage".  GRT was an actual measure of the ship's internal volume, while GT takes that volume measurement and applies a non-linear factor to it, to calculate a unitless index of the ship's size.  So, comparing GRT to GT, while accurate to an extent, is not an exact comparison.  The factor applied to calculate GT from volume increases logarithmically with volume, meaning that larger ships have a GT that is further from the actual volume than smaller ships, further skewing the comparison.

If it can be put in terms which I can understand, which may be unlikely, why??? If the reason is incomprehensible to laypersons and morons, feel free to say.

Edited July 25 by exlondoner

[Jim_P]

I was on the QM2 a year or two ago during its world voyage. I heard the story from some other  passengers that during the Asian leg of the voyage prior to Australia she was being shadowed by two Chinese warships.  Cunard contacted the Admiralty about the situation who gave Cunard the directions to outrun them and show that if needed Britain had access to a very large and very fast troop carrier.  

I don't know the full veracity of the story, but it was the story doing the rounds on board, and it was at the same time that the QM2 met up with the HMS Spey in the Gulf of Thailand. Makes me wonder if there was a little more to that meeting than a publicity photo op.

Edited July 25 by Jim_P

[chengkp75]

29 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

If it can be put in terms which I can understand, which may be unlikely, why??? If the reason is incomprehensible to laypersons and morons, feel free to say.

I don't know why there is the "K" factor involved in calculating GT, but prior to the introduction of Gross Tonnage and Net Tonnage in 1982, there were several methods of calculating tonnage for vessels, used variously around the world, and the IMO's decision to go to GT and NT was to make it all uniform.  A lot of it dates to the change from sail to steam, as steamships had to have more space that could not carry cargo, so using the total volume of the ship was not fair (also why Net Tonnage came into being, being the volume of cargo carrying space only).