Ocean liner
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:Queen-mary2sm.jpgAn Ocean Liner is a large passenger ship, typically a motorized vessel that undertakes longer voyages on the open sea primarily for the purpose of transporting people from one place to another. The ocean liner is characterized as a large oceangoing vessel supplemented with heavier steel work than a cruise ship and various stabilizer mechanisms designed to ease transoceanic voyages. Very large liners are known as superliners.
The name liner is derived from the term Ship of the line. A liner was a major warship capable of taking its place in the Royal Navy's tactical line of battle of the Age of Sail.
Ocean liners were the primary mode of intercontinental travel for over a century, from the mid-19th century to the 1960s, when they were finally supplanted by airliners.
In the "Golden Age" of ocean liners in the early part of the 20th century, many offered extremely luxurious travel for a wealthy few, although even the more luxurious ships carried large numbers of poorer passengers in cramped quarters on the lower decks. Older ships were often given over to carrying immigrants at low prices.
The most notorious liner was the Titanic, infamous for sinking on her maiden voyage from Britain to the United States in 1912. The Lusitania was lost in 1915 to a German U-Boat during World War I while on passage from the USA to Britain. The worst disaster was the loss of the Lancastria in 1940 off Saint-Nazaire, France to German bombing with the loss of over 3,000 lives. The Cunard Line's Mauretania of 1907 was widely considered the finest of all the liners of its generation, and in decades following many had a similar devotion to the SS Normandie.
After the collapse of the passenger-ship business in the 1960s, many ocean liners continued in use as cruise ships; as of 2003, a small number are still in service. A few more, such as RMS Queen Mary, are still afloat but permanently docked and used for other purposes; in the case of the Queen Mary's it is used as a museum ship. Notable liners still in service include the colossal Cunard Line Queen Mary 2, complementing the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 which made it maiden voyage in 1969 and was the world's sole operational ocean liner for a number of years in the 1970s.
See also
External links
- / 20th Centuy Ships
- The Great Ocean Liners
- Monsters of the Sea: The Great Ocean Liners of Time
- Martin Cox and Peter Knego's "Maritime Matters"
- The Last Ocean Liners 1950s-1960s
- Kevin Tam's "Ships of State:The Great Atlantic Liners"
- CruiseJournals.com - Ocean Liner Forums & Community Pagesde:Linienschiff (Handelsmarine)