Ashbury College - Ashburian Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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THE ASHBURIAN [27] R.M.S. QUEEN MARY By W. A. GRANT RM.S. Queen Mary, pride of the British Mercantile Marine, completed her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on June 1st. This giant liner, the flagship of the Cunard-White Star line is undoubtedly the finest ship afloat even though she is not the largest. This great ship represents no wild departure from Britain ' s accepted shipbuilding standards in an effort to assert her supremacy on the high seas at a time of renewed competition ; the Queen Mary is not a freak, her design and construction is the answer to a demand, and her size is the result of a gradual increase in the size of vessels generally to meet an ever increasing tourist trade. Then too the Queen Mary has not been built, as have so many ships lately, with speed the main consideration, but rather with the idea that she might be, although a fast ship and a luxurious ship, above all a safe ship. Ten years were spent in drawing up blue prints for her design. Then came long and arduous experiments with perfect scale models in water-tanks to see how the ship would behave in water. Seventeen of these models were scrapped before the final design was decided upon. Full scale drawings were then made of the ship and the keel laid late in 1930. The company to whose care the building of the Queen Mary was entrusted was the veteran John Brown Company on the Clyde in Scotland. This company has long been famous for the long and distinguished list of great ships that have been constructed in its yards, a list including such names as the Empress of Britain and the magnificent but ill-fated Lusitania. Then came the crisis of 1931, when the national credit of Britain hung trembling in the balance, and work ceased on the ship. Thus she stood for two years, gaunt and rust stained, until national help was obtained in 1934 and Parliament voted a huge subsidy in order that the 534 might be completed. As the day of the launching approached, as preparations were made to receive the Royal visitors and the many distinguished guests, other men were engaged in the task of seeing that the ship would enter the water at the correct speed and be brought to a stop before her stern rammed the opposite bank. Actually, so accurate were the calculations that the ship stopped within a few feet of the estimated position. The ship, as is universally known, was launched by Queen Mary in the presence of the late King and the then Prince of Wales, the first time that a British ship has been launched by the consort of a reigning monarch. The date of the launching was Wednesday, the 26th of September. When she took the water the Queen Mary weighed 40,000 tons, over 30,000 less than the weight at which she now tips the scale having been completely fitted inside and out.

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[26] THE ASHBURIAN i Courtesy Cunard -White Star Line R.M.S. Queen Mary

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[28] THE ASHBURIAN R.M.S. Queen Mary in King George V Graving Dock. Southampton. Courtesy Cunard-Whtte Star Line