The Cunard Line on the Atlantic Quiz

Answer: The British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company

Canadian businessman (Sir) Samuel Cunard (1787-1865) prospered in timber, banking and of course merchant shipping. In 1839, he won the lucrative British government contract to carry mail via steamship between Liverpool and Halifax. Steam engineer Robert Napier was a key original investor.

Welcome, porthole-counters: Napier did very well from the Cunard connection. In the early steam era, a ship's engines were often more costly than the rest of the vessel - and Napier got the engine contracts.

Answer: Scotland

Cunard's partner Robert Napier built the engines in Scotland and subcontracted construction of the hulls to Scottish shipyards.

Power to porthole-counters: the Britannia class were similar to Isambard Brunel's sidewheeler Great Western, but the Cunarders had Napier's more efficient side-lever engines. Brunel's Great Britain (1845) featured a screw propeller - a technology Cunard did not adopt until the 1860s.

Answer: Queen Elizabeth 2

"QE2" debuted in 1969 with a white casing surrounding a thin black funnel pipe. In 1982, after service in the Falklands, her casing was repainted in the traditional colors.

Stacks for porthole-counters: the funnel paint used on early Cunarders was actually red. Heat from exhaust gasses faded the 19th century pigment to orange-red. This became Cunard's standard color.

Answer: Boston

From 1840 to 1847, Cunard's major route ran from Liverpool to Halifax to Boston. In 1844, the Cunarder Britannia became icebound in Boston Harbor. This may have played a role in moving the line's American center of operations to New York Harbor in 1847. Cunarders continued to call at Boston thereafter, but the line's "prestige" service focused on New York City.

Shiver me timbers, porthole-counters: over a thousand Bostonians volunteered to chop a path through the ice for Britannia. That's the thanks they got!

Answer: Paddle wheels

Persia and Scotia had sidewheels, single-expansion powerplants and Robert Napier's side-lever engines, all similar to the Britannia class of the 1840s. From 1872 to 1884, the speed record was held by the White Star, Inman and Guion lines - with ships featuring screw propulsion and compound engines. Cunard responded by buying the Guion Line's record-breaker SS Oregon in 1884.

Propellers for porthole-counters: Cunard began using smaller, slower propeller-driven ships in the 1860s for its immigrant trade. Saloon passengers had to wait.

Answer: Oregon

SS Oregon was struck by a sailing ship about 18 miles east of Long Island, New York. Her lifeboats had room for less than half of the souls on board. Fortunately, she remained afloat for eight hours. Ships in the busy waters saw her distress rockets and rescued all of her passengers and crew. Today, her wreck is a popular but hazardous scuba diving venue.

Avast, porthole-counters: the SS Malta, a much smaller ship, was wrecked in 1889 near Cornwall, but again all on board were rescued.

Answer: Steam turbine engines

The sisters were a competitive experiment. Carmania featured then-novel steam turbines; Caronia had more conventional quadruple-expansion steam reciprocating engines. The turbines proved more economical, prompting Cunard to use turbines in the much larger Lusitania class.

Dread not, porthole-counters: the Admiralty's decision to use turbines in HMS Dreadnought was probably not influenced by Carmania's performance. Carmania entered service well after Dreadnought's powerplant was designed, and about two months after Dreadnought was laid down.

Answer: A low-interest loan from Parliament

American capital financed many of Cunard's competitors, both German and British. Cunard appealed to national pride, and threatened to sell out to the Americans. Parliament advanced a £2.5 million loan (equal to over £240 million today), plus an annual subsidy of £150,000, to keep Cunard an independent British company. It worked - until 1998-1999, when Cunard was bought out by Carnival Corporation & plc.

Peace, porthole-counters: the British government also required that the Lusitania class be designed for quick conversion into "armed merchant cruisers," but they never served in that role.

Answer: Aquitania

In those days, three "prestige" liners were needed to offer weekly service east and west across the Atlantic. Cunard's "big three" ran together only briefly, in the spring of 1914. RMS Aquitania was slower but larger than the Lusitania sisters. She was also the most fortunate of the three, remaining in service until 1950.

Trios for porthole-counters: The White Star Line's plan for RMS Olympic, Titanic and Britannic (originally "Gigantic") failed. Titanic sank in 1912 on her maiden voyage. Britannic was fitted as a hospital ship and was lost in World War I. Only Olympic ever completed a civilian voyage.

Hamburg-Amerika's even larger Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck also never ran together. Bismarck was unfinished in 1914, and all three were confiscated after the war.

Answer: Berengaria

At over 52,000 gross tons, Imperator and her sisters Vaterland and Bismarck were the largest ships in the world until 1935. All three were seized as war prizes. Imperator sailed for Cunard (later, Cunard White Star) as RMS Berengaria until 1938. Bismarck became the White Star liner Majestic. Vaterland became SS Leviathan of the United States Lines.

What's in a name, porthole-counters: RMS Berengaria was named for Berengaria of Navarre, Queen of England and wife of Richard I. She - not RMS Queen Mary - was Cunard's first major "Queen" liner.

Answer: Merge with the White Star Line

The merged company was called "Cunard - White Star Line, Ltd." but Cunard's shareholders received nearly two-thirds of the corporate stock. The White Star Line was dissolved in 1949, although the last White Star ship, RMS Britannic, continued in service until 1960.

Cash out, porthole-counters: Parliament's loans also covered the cost of a running mate, RMS Queen Elizabeth. By the late 1930s, increased speed enabled a "prestige" transatlantic service using only two big ships instead of three.

Answer: 81,000 GRT

Queen Mary and the French liner Normandie vied to be the largest ship in the world and the fastest passenger liner. When they were first completed, Normandie was about 79,000 GRT; Queen Mary about 81,000. Normandie was later fitted with a deckhouse aft, increasing her GRT to about 83,000 - the largest ship but not quite the fastest liner. When she entered civilian service after World War II, RMS Queen Elizabeth was about 200 GRT larger than Normandie had been.

Want to be a porthole-counter?: Gross register tonnage is a measure of internal volume, not weight. One GRT = 100 cubic feet. There are different methods of computing GRT: only the hull or hull plus superstructure. The numbers here include superstructure volume - like Normandie's superfluous deckhouse.

Answer: 2,000,000

The incomplete Queen Elizabeth secretly steamed from Clydebank, Scotland to New York in March 1940 - her maiden voyage. She left New York for Singapore in November, where she was converted into a troop transport. During the war, she steamed some 500,000 miles and transported about 750,000 troops.

In a December 1942 transatlantic voyage, Queen Mary carried just over 16,000 American troops to Britain, believed to be the largest number of people ever transported in a single ship.

Be brave, porthole-counters: On that 1942 voyage, Queen Mary was struck by a rogue wave and nearly capsized - but she didn't. The incident inspired the book and movie, "The Poseidon Adventure," filmed in part on board Queen Mary.

Answer: RMS (Royal Mail Ship)

Queen Elizabeth 2 was named for Cunard's Queen Elizabeth, not for the monarch Queen Elizabeth II - although her Majesty launched and named the ship in 1967.

She (the ship, not her Majesty) was originally equipped with steam turbines, making her an "SS." In 1986-87, these were replaced by diesel electric engines, making her a "motor ship" or "motor vessel." She was not designated to carry mail, and so was never a Royal Mail Ship.

Take heart, porthole-counters: Tradition triumphed in 2004, when Queen Mary 2 was officially honored with the prefix "RMS" - though she doesn't carry mail.

Answer: Saint-Nazaire, France

Harland & Wolff of Belfast bid for the contract, but construction costs in France were significantly lower. Queen Mary 2 was built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, the same firm that built her namesake's great rival Normandie in the 1930s. Cunard's smaller Queen Victoria (2007) and Queen Elizabeth (2010) were both built by Fincantieri Monfalcone, a shipyard in Trieste, Italy.

At last, porthole-counters: Cunarders' names traditionally end in "-ia" making "Queen Victoria" an obvious choice - but Cunard waited until 2007 to use the name.