THE MAURETANIA, grand old lady of the seas, will have to substitute lavender or gray, or some other shade more suitable to her advanced years, for her jaunty blue pennant. For the Mauretania is well out of her ‘teens. As her captain pointed out, she has smoked a good bit in her day and is a trifle short-winded. Yet she need not mind taking it easy now while the Bremen, reigning belle of the moment, streaks past her; she has her memories.

Moreover, there’s life in the old girl yet. Thoroughly overhauled before her last westward trip, she set out to see how much of the eight hours’ difference between her own and the Bremen’s record she could slice off. She was constantly beset with bad weather, whereas weather conditions for the Bremen had been perfect. Speed had to be reduced for several hours while a surgical operation was performed on board. Nevertheless, she finished nearly five hours ahead of her own previous record and but four hours behind that of the Bremen—this with the same boilers and turbine engines with which she steamed from Liverpool to New York on her maiden voyage twenty-two years ago in 1907.

It is admittedly doubtful that, even with ideal weather, the ex-queen could go the pace of her new rival. Her maximum average, it is thought, would be 27.4 knots an hour, while the Bremen averaged 27.83 on her westward trip and probably will better that as her machinery is broken in. Then, too, there will be a fresh crop of slim, high-stepping young things to compete with, as the ship-building programs of the various countries are carried forward.

The Mauretania may rest content. Let these young whippersnappers wait until they are her age; then, if they are able to beat their own records as substantially as she has beaten hers, they will indeed have something to boast about.

From 1929 Magazine Article