Fun or Interesting Factoids About Steamships
Fun and interesting facts and factoids about steamships, their opertaions and the crew and passengers gleamed from the documents and publications found in the Gjenvick-Gjønvik Archives.
From 1889:
ELECTRICAL devices to warn ocean steamships of the approach of icebergs are said to be impracticable, all naval officers' communications to the newspapers to the contrary notwithstanding.
" ICEBERGS at sea," of which so much has lately been said and written, are most satisfactorily and safest seen represented in an oil painting, engraving or photograph. In this way, they never affect the temperature, or pause nervous folk uneasiness.
THIS season has been a financially good one for the transatlantic captains and officers who rent their rooms to passengers not content with ordinary staterooms.
DUPLICATES of every meal--i. e. first and second tables, have been necessary by reason of the crowded ocean steamships all season. Only an imaginary distinction goes with "first table," for "those who come after" are just as well served, and, too, have more time to eat. Hurried gastronomy on shipboard is not to be recommended. Indeed, it is to be avoided.
THE color-blindness of seamen is now a matter of considerable discussion in England, and is to receive the attention of the Government. It is alleged that thousands of sailors and seamen cannot distinguish colors, and that disasters at sea are often due to color-blindness and optical illusions arising therefrom.
THERE is a comical story current of a Western man anxious to get to Europe in a hurry, who waited one week in New York for the "fastest steamship."
ALLEGATIONS are heard of the indifference to the wants and requirements of cabin passengers on some ocean steamships, and to the ill-advised independence of management " below decks."
CUSTOM HOUSE INSPECTRESSES are now more on the alert than ever to detect, in the crowd of returning tourists from Europe, the "lady " who seeks to evade the payment of her just duties by resorting to smuggling.
Source: Ocean: Magazine of Travel, Vol. III, No. 2, September 1889, Page 43-44
The Cunard-Anchor Liner Calabria, sailing from New York February 24, 1920 was the first passenger vessel to sail from New York for Fiume since the first months of the war in 1914, when the Cunard Steamship Company abandoned the service owing to the First World War.
In 1911, the average duration of the passage across the Atlantic was 5-9 days. The best time for crossing is in the summer.
