Majestic prepares to leave the builders

MAJESTIC:
White Star’s largest liner

Cover for Majestic bookA hardback book covering the design, construction and service of White Star Line’s express liner Majestic.

Built by Blohm & Voss for Hamburg America, Bismarck was to have been the third of Albert Ballin’s planned trio of super liners, designed to dominate the North Atlantic .

Although launched, sadly the tragic outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 interrupted her completion, and throughout the war she lay at her builders, only half-built.

Reparations then to White Star Line as Majestic

Following the Armistice, the still-incomplete liner was ceded to White Star as reparations, and was completed by the builders. Once finished, she was renamed Majestic, and finally entered the prestigious trans-Atlantic service to New York, although she never competed for the Blue Riband.

Popular for a number of years, she generally enjoyed good passenger numbers. However, the quotas imposed on immigrants by the US authorities, coupled with Prohibition and the Great Depression, impacted on her success. Her grand interiors and immense size were redolent of an era that had passed.

With the merger of Cunard and White Star in 1934, the combined fleet was rapidly culled to effect the necessary economies to enable the new company to survive, and in 1936 it was announced that she was to be scrapped.

Conversion to HMS Caledonia

At the last minute she was sold to the British Admiralty and extensively converted into a training establishment for young seamen and artificers, as HMS Caledonia. Moored at Rosyth, she caught fire soon after the declaration of World War II and was gutted.

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206 pages plus three A3 throw-out deck plans. £42.00 plus shipping




 

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recording the history of famous liners in beautiful hardback books