I’ve always thought her funnels were disproportionally oversized to make her attractive.

Personally I think her funnels compliment the design. But they may have needed to be big as underneath them was the powerplant of the much bigger Forrestal class aircraft carrier.

Colin

Richard,

I have to concede that the United States’ funnels are oversize really but, as you say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and I rather like her that way! The ship was designed to make a statement in the post war world and she certainly did that. Her funnels probably did need to be that high though to carry the combustion products clear of the after decks which was a constant problem in the age of steam.

In my view, the best balanced superliner design was the old Queen Elizabeth which I felt came to near perfection with her sweeping lines, cascading after decks and beautifully placed and sized funnels. She looked good from all angles. Just as the Queen Mary was derived from the Aquitania, QE was a cleaned up modernised improvement on QM.

From the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, liner funnels were a vital advertisement for their parent companies in which both colour scheme and number were important. The unique Cunard orange/red was immediately recognisable. Up until the 1930s it was considered that the more funnels a ship had, the bigger, stronger and safer it was and four funnels was the best of the lot. Hence a lot of ships were given dummy funnels to support this impression and also to give a more balanced profile, Titanic among them. The first three ships of P&O’s Strath class of the early 30’s had three funnels but only the middle one was functional. at a distance you could see under the other two through the superstructure windows!

When it cones to size comparisons I always like to use displacement tonnage which represents the actual weight of the ship. GRT is a space measure as you know. It can be used as a rough comparison between ships of the same era but doesn’t work too well otherwise.

United States had a displacement of 46,000 tons and a GRT of 53,000

QE2 had a displacement of 49,000 tons and a GRT of 70,000

Over a greater time period the differences become much greater.

The Queen Mary had a displacement  of 80,000 tons and a GRT of 81,000

Queen Mary 2 has a displacement of 79,000 tons and a GRT of 150,000

So QM2 has a lower displacement than Queen Mary but is a much, much larger ship, the reason being that technological and design improvements have enabled marine engineers to work far more usable interior space into a given displacment. Much of the interior of Queen Mary below the waterline was taken up by boilers and machinery.  QM2’s power plant is far more compact and efficient and includes lightweight gas turbines placed in the funnel deckhouse.

The ratio for the latest cruise ships is even greater. Oasis of the Seas has a GRT of 226,000 but an estimated displacement of 100,000 tons. She doesn’t need to go as fast as QM2 so can have an even more relatively compact power plant. The combination of engineering advances and lightweight superstructure has had a massive effect on the amount of commercially usable space on today’s ships.

Photo is of Queen Elizabeth in the 1960s leaving Southampton taken by my Dad. He would have been amazed and envious at our crossing to New York on QM2 in 2011. Casting off in Southampton was an emotional moment for me.

Colin

Yes of course Richard, I just wanted to highlight the enormous advances in marine engineering since the traditional steamship era. Aesthetics has sadly gone in the opposite direction.

Colin