Lusitania page 2

Lusitania page 2 by ric Gustafson


Captain William Thomas Turner had a lot to do to get his ship ready by Saturday May 1. As far as Cunard was concerned, he was the best at handling large ships. As Captain of the Aquitania, he fitted his ship into it's slip in just nineteen minutes. As Captain of the Mauretania, he held the record time for a round trip Atlantic trip in fourteen days.
The amount of coal needed for his large ship was staggering. It took 300 stokers, trimmers and firemen to shovel 1,000 tons of coal a day into 192 furnaces and 25 boilers. Each boiler was 22 feet in length and 18 feet wide.
The liner was built to be fast. The British government gave Cunard $ 2.4 million to build 2 huge ships. Those ships were the Lusitania and the Mauretania. Two conditions had to be met. First, the ships had to have a speed of at least 24.5 knots. The second was that the ships be equipped with naval artillery in case it was engaged in war. The naval guns were employed on the Mauretania but not the Lusitania. Turner's huge ship remained a passenger liner.


research help: ' Dead Wake' by Erik Larson


Peace and God's blessings. Love Ric