Caronia Due Here Next Week on Maiden Voyage
Design of Two-Class Cunarder
Expected to Change Pattern of Ocean Travel
From New York Times - 02 January 1949
Report by: George Horne
Travel men and travellers are awaiting with interest the arrival here next week of the new British liner Caronia, the
largest post-war liner, for many believe that she presages a new trend in surface travel. With many big-liner
innovations, she was designed particularly for the cruise trade out of New York.
The liner has had successful trial runs and is due to leave England on Tuesday on her maiden voyage, arriving here on the 10th. After an introduction to the Atlantic lanes that she will follow part of the year, she will enter the late winter cruise business. On the Atlantic during the regular travel season the Caronia will be a two-class vessel, offering first class and cabin class accommodations, omitting what would be either tourist or third class.
No other vessel near her size - she ranks with the Mauretania and the Nieuw Amsterdam - offers the first and cabin class combination, although there are other two-class vessels. The newly rebuilt Britannic, for instance, has first class and tourist.
The competitors of the Cunard White Star Line, operator of both these ships, believe that future construction will experiment with variations of the traditional three class system, but they frankly concede that for the time being only Cunard, with its overwhelming amount of tonnage in the Atlantic services, can afford to limit a ship in this fashion, entirely eliminating one class of travel. The line has a sufficient variety of vessels to attract all classes of travel.
Dominant Position
A combination of foresight and courage has placed the British company in a dominating position to which no real competitive threat can be discerned, even by travel men who look ahead in terms of years! The identity of a ship class determines what its accommodations will cost in regular Atlantic travel.
Many travellers, applying for a space, expect the lower of two categories of accommodations to cost the same whatever its designation - tourist, cabin or third. But practices under the old transatlantic passenger agreement between the lines determine otherwise. The two-class ship narrows the gulf between the richer and poorer travellers, and a number of modern marine architects and designers believe the trend ultimately will bring to the Atlantic the one class, or classless ship as the popular surface carrier.
In the case of the Caronia, the dual classification adds to the liner's value as a cruise vehicle. In large ships the third-class quarters are usually wasted during periods of cruising, and the average ship's transocean capacity and passenger list is considerably larger than to the passenger list on the same vessel out for a cruise.
Proponents of the two-class ship believe that by doing away with one complete set of public rooms, more space will be available for passenger cabins and that revenue will be increased. The necessity for greater revenue per ship bears particularly on operators since the War, for modern labour contracts and national manning regulations require greater and more comfortable crew spaces.
One radical departure from the traditional Cunard norm will make the Caronia one of the most distinctive ships seen in New York harbour. Her hull is painted a light green hue. The Empress and Duchess ships of the Canadian Pacific wore the light colours in the old days before the war, and were always readily recognised, just as today, the white-hulled ships of the United Fruit Line bear the most distinctive identification marks of any American-flag vessels.
Other innovations in the luxurious liner, the largest built in many years for any trade, include a lido deck and outdoor swimming pool. North Atlantic liners have never before offered them, although the big Italian superliners found them ideal in Mediterranean service. The Caronia has a single rakish stack, the first liner of her size to do away with extra space-taking funnels.
Special Launches
Supplementing the usual rows of motorised lifeboats, the ship carries six large Diesel launches especially designed to handle cruise passengers for ship-to-shore trips, thus doing away with the customary dependence on shore tenders in southern ports.
The new vessel features extra large cabins, wide decks and airy public rooms for cruising in warm climates and luxurious dining and lounge facilities. Her public rooms will be air-conditioned. Most of the cabins are on the outside. The wide use of fluorescent lighting and extensive employment of coloured plastics, metals, wood, glass and leather in the decorations makes the Caronia one of the brightest ships in the trade. One of the prize rooms is the Verandah Café overlooking the lido deck and pool. It has outdoor tables and a dance floor.
The ship is registered at around 34,000 gross tons. She is 714 feet long, with a beam of ninety-one feet. To keep the ship's interior cool while in the tropics, and warm while bucking North Atlantic winter storms, the interior of the hull was insulated by spraying on an asbestos coating.
Three Years Building
The ship has been three years building. Her first keel plates were laid at Clydebank in February, 1946, and she was launched in October 1947. The Caronia is scheduled to make her first departure from New York on 15 January and will sail from Southampton 29 January to New York via Cherbourg, calling at Bermuda en route.
On 12 February she will leave New York on the first of four cruises to the West Indies. These will keep her busy for two months, and not until 22 April will she sail from New York for Southampton and a heavy spring and summer schedule of Atlantic crossings.