If you're here looking for me to write about which characters I want to end up together, you're in the wrong place. This is about large watercraft.
I do have a favorite ship. She's the Lusitania from 1907, and she was one of the greyhounds of the Atlantic. I wish to one day be asked about my favorite ship in a chat about the other kind of shipping, so I can say "Lusitania". She briefly held the blue riband. That's an unofficial accolade for the fastest passenger ship crossing over the Atlantic. After Lusitania, her sister ship Mauretania held it for 2 decades, from 1909 to 1929. The greyhound sisters were owned by the Cunard Line.
Their rival, the White Star Line gave up on getting the blue riband. Building techniques were advancing fast, and competing in speed was expensive. So they aimed for luxury instead, with the reasoning that even if they got the blue riband someone else would just claim it shortly after that. I find it a bit amusing that they made this decision shortly before the Mauretania held it for 2 decades. The White Star line did have a very successful luxury ship in the Olympic. In modern day fame, her sister Titanic is better known. There was a third sister, the Britannic. When the Titanic sank, the Britannic was still being built and was essentially redesigned. Then the war started, and she served as a hospital ship until hitting a mine in 1916.
It's these 2 lines that got me into shipping. My knowledge about early 1900s shipping was "Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912", and then I came across a video about the failed engineering of the Titan submersible and watched it. Then I had a video called "Titanic's hero: RMS Carpathia" in my recommendations. I had never heard about the Carpathia, and I clicked on the video and was treated to a retelling of the radio operator on the Carpathia receiving an SOS call from the Titanic and the Carpathia's mad dash through the ice field to pick up survivors.
I have been drawn to stories about rescue efforts for a long time. And after watching this, the wheels started turning in my head. If I seek out knowledge about shipwrecks, then I will also find out about the rescue efforts.
And that began my personal mission to click on every video about a shipwreck that I could find.
With that came knowledge about ships. That was an unforeseen side effect that I grew to like.
The Captain of the Carpathia went on to captain the Mauretania through the 1920s.
The first time I got the sense that I wanted to be on a ship was with the Lusitania. She had so triumphant sea trials and her interiors were beautiful. She was built to cut through waves instead of go over them. This increased her speed, but came with the sideeffect that she would sometimes drop suddenly. Her sister shared this effect. In January 1910 while traveling to the west, she was suddenly hit by a rogue wave. This is a wave that is at least twice as tall as the surrounding waves. She went through it, with water spilling up and in before coming out on the other side. Luckily it was during nighttime, so the exterior was mostly empty and everyone survived. As I was learning this and cheering, I also knew what was coming. I had clicked on a documentary about a shipwreck. On May 7 1915, she was hit by a torpedo close to the Irish coast and sank. The rescue efforts consisted of local fishing boats, as the military people were worried that the u-boat was still in the area. She was known to carry civilian passengers by the u-boat crew.
I drew this picture of her on the anniversary of her sinking in 2026. It's a peace-time era drawing. No camouflage colors, and her funnels are bright red instead of the black they were later painted in. The Cunard line used that red for all their ships. 4 funnels means that she was a big Edwardian era ship. Despite current appearances, the Titanic did not stand out with her 4 funnels.
