The World’s Largest Ocean Liner
The Hamburg-American Steamship Company has placed an order with a firm in Belfast for the largest ocean liner that has yet been built. The White Star line has been taking the lead in large, comfortable, and elegantly equipped vessels, the largest of which, the Titanic, was launched a few weeks ago at Belfast, Ireland. The Titanic is a sister ship of the Olympic, which is just now receiving her finishing touches, and beginning her first voyage from Southampton across the Atlantic. The Mauretania and the Lusitania, each 762 feet long, built by the Cunard line a few years ago, have been the wonders of the age until the launching of the Olympic and the Titanic, the length of each being 882 feet. But the new vessel contracted for by the Hamburg-American line is to be 950 feet long. It will have eleven stories; it will carry 5,000 passengers; it will have engines of 80,000 horse-power, exactly twice as much as those of the new White Star liners; the decks or stories will be connected by three elevators; the first-class saloons on the upper deck will be 300 feet long; in addition to drawing-rooms, smoking-rooms, and a restaurant that will seat 700 at once, there will be a large winter garden, and an immense hall filled with plants, fountains, etc. On the promenade deck will be quiet summer-houses in Old English rustic style. A large marble swimming-bath, modeled after one found in the ruins of Pompeii, will run through two decks. This bath will have a marble promenade and massage rooms, Turkish bathrooms, electric light baths, etc.; while near-by will be a large gymnasium. It may be wondered how so many things can be arranged all in one vessel. But when it is considered that this ship is almost 1,000 feet long and eleven stories high, it will be seen that there is ample room for all that is proposed. The practical side of these great ships lies in the fact that they are so large and heavy that they plow through the waves rather than be tossed about by them, thus ridding the voyage of much of the unpleasant seasickness that is a necessary accompaniment of the smaller boats.