A Prescient Former Chairman
During the Caronia's design stages the original plan had been to have a sister-ship to the RMS Mauretania able to cover at busy periods and when either of the 2 Cunard Queens was in overhaul. Since Caronia's introduction, it seems that the Cunard Board were determined to prove their former Chairman wrong.
Had he still been alive, Sir Percy Bates would have had none of their nonsense! He'd predicted that as travel by air got more established, so demand for sea travel would diminish. Was he right, or wrong?
As part of his vision, he'd had to fight just to get the ship fitted with what we now call “en-suite” facilities. The Board only viewed this as higher build costs with lower passenger capacity and revenue.
Here we are in August 1954, at the height of the holiday season. Previously it would have been a job just to obtain a transatlantic berth on any Cunard ship. Where is the Caronia? Yes, she's dutifully crossing the Atlantic, but with fewer and fewer passengers, down to less than a third of the ship's capacity on occasions!
Did this August voyage pattern stop as a result? Not quite. It wasn't until 1961 that the Summer Mediterranean Cruise was introduced, though by the late 1950s one crossing to New York and back had been cut out. Even so, by 1960 almost half of the month was spent parked at Berth 46 in the Old Docks, Southampton.
This was, in part, to do with the delicate balance of meeting annual leave obligations, now mandated and keeping a select crew. It was further complicated by quirks of rules to do with employing crew through the British Shipping Federation.
Consider that today no ship spends more than a few hours on their turnarounds, let alone 2 weeks! This mostly due to keeping down running costs. It's quite incredible that the most luxurious ship back then spent so much time in port at the height of one holiday season after another.
It wasn't just the current board who were not sold on Percy Bates’ prescience. When, years later, the announcement came that Caronia was to be withdrawn, the then Chairman made disparaging remarks over her build purpose that were astonishing!
Yet, the design, building and use of QE2, launched in September 1967, was almost exactly an extension of Caronia's basic principles.
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