Prinzessin Victoria Luise was the World's first purpose-built cruise ship. She was built in Germany, and launched in 1900 for Hamburg America Line (HAPAG).
Her career lasted only five years. In 1906 her Master mistook one lighthouse for another, set the wrong course, and accidentally drove her onto a reef off Jamaica. He swiftly took his own life, leaving his officers to manage the safe rescue of the ship's passengers and crew. No other lives were lost.
Background
In 1886 Albert Ballin joined HAPAG as manager of its passenger department. Transatlantic passenger traffic was seasonal, as passengers preferred to avoid the weather of the North Atlantic in winter. This left some transatlantic liners under-employed in winter. In 1889 HAPAG's new flagship, Augusta Victoria, entered service. In January 1891 Ballin, despite criticism from his HAPAG fellow directors and from other steamship companies, sent Augusta Victoria on a 58-day "pleasure voyage" from Cuxhaven, Germany to the Mediterranean and Near East. The cruise included well-planned excursions ashore at ports of call en route. Ballin himself was a passenger. The voyage was a success, so similar ones were planned.[1]
Early cruises, called "excursions", were a success, but ocean liners were not ideal for the task. They had too few amenities aboard to occupy passengers on long voyages. They were multi-class ships, with large steerage accommodation unsuited to cruising. Divisions between first and second class divided and limited access to deck space. What deck space there was was mostly sheltered, designed to protect passengers from North Atlantic weather. And some of the ports that tourists might like to visit could not accommodate liners as big as Augusta Victoria. Ballin saw that a ship designed specifically for cruising would be more suitable, and also that she could spend all year cruising.[1]
Building
Scientific American cover for 9 February 1901 showing interior and exterior photographs of the ship
In 1899 HAPAG made Ballin its Managing Director. He soon ordered a cruise ship from Blohm+Voss in Hamburg. She was built as yard number 144, and launched on 29 June 1900 as Prinzessin Victoria Luise, named after Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia, the only daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II. She was completed on 19 December that year.
Prinzessin Victoria Luise was no bigger than an average ocean-going cargo ship of her era. Her registered length was 407.5ft (124.2m), her beam was 47.2ft (14.4m), and her depth was 27.0ft (8.2m). Her tonnages were 4,409GRT, 2,249NRT,[2] and 1,480DWT.[citation needed] But she was styled to look like a luxury private steam yacht, with a white hull and raked clipper bow and bowsprit, instead of the black hull and straight stem that was then fashionable for most steamships. Her lifeboats were varnished mahogany.[3] She had a likeness of her namesake as a figurehead.[4]
Inside one of Prinzessin Victoria Luise's passenger state rooms
Prinzessin Victoria Luise was a one-class ship. All of her 120 cabins were first class state rooms. Her public rooms included a ballroom, social hall, gymnasium, library, and smoking room. A luxurious art gallery surrounded her dining room. She even had a darkroom for amateur photographers. Ballin aimed to match the style and service of Europe's finest hotels.[1]
The ship had twin screws, each driven by a quadruple-expansion engine. The combined power of her twin engines was rated at 391 NHP[2] and gave her a speed of 16 knots (30km/h). She had two funnels, painted buff.[1] The after one may have been a dummy.
After she was fitted out, Wilhelm II inspected the ship. He was said to be displeased that she was slightly longer than his imperial yacht Hohenzollern.[1] HAPAG registeredPrinzessin Victoria Luise at Hamburg. Her code letters were RLVT.[2]
Career
Prinzessin Victoria Luise's menu for 1 March 1901
On 5 January 1901 Prinzessin Victoria Luise left Hamburg on her maiden voyage. She called at Boulogne and Plymouth, and reached Hoboken, New Jersey on 17 January. Af first, her cruises were sometimes called "tours".[4] On 26 January she left New York on her first tour, which was to Port-au-Prince; Santo Domingo; San Juan; St Thomas, in what were then the Danish West Indies; Saint-Pierre; Port of Spain; La Guaira: Puerto Cabello; Curaçao; Kingston; Santiago de Cuba; Cienfuegos; and Havana.[5] She arrived back in Hoboken on 2 March.[6] On 9 March she left Hoboken on a her second tour,[7] which was to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.[4] On 18 June she attended a Norddeutscher Regatta Vereinregatta on the Elbe at Cuxhaven, where she hosted a dinner at which Wilhelm II gave a speech in which he praised Ballin as "a bold adventurer to make peaceful conquests, whose fruits our grandchildren will reap". The Kaiser also presented a portrait of himself to Ballin, bearing the dedication "to the farseeing and tireless pathbreaker for our German commerce and export".[8]
In February and March 1902 Prince Henry of Prussia visited the USA. On 11 March, as he left Hoboken aboard Deutschland to return home, the Hudson County Choristers sang to him from the deck of Prinzessin Victoria Luise.[9]Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were due to be crowned in Westminster on 26 June 1902. HAPAG arranged for Prinzessin Victoria Luise to leave New York on 10 June to take passengers to England for the coronation, calling at Le Havre and Hamburg as well as London.[10] However, Edward fell ill, and the coronation was postponed until 9 August.
On deck aboard Prinzessin Victoria Luise
In February and March 1903 Prinzessin Victoria Luise made a cruise that visited Bermuda as well as the Caribbean.[11] That summer, HAPAG scheduled her to sail to North Cape and Spitzbergen (now Svalbard) in Norway, and to the Baltic, leaving Hamburg on 6 June, 8 July and 28 July.[12] In September 1903 HAPAG announced that she would make a four-and-a-half month cruise almost the whole way around the World, including a fortnight in Japan. She would start on 13 September 1904, sail eastbound, and end at San Francisco on 26 January 1905.[13] On 12 April 1904 the ship left Hoboken on a cruise to the Mediterranean.[14]
An official HAPAG postcard for passengers
In January 1904, in port in La Guaira, Prinzessin Victoria Luise hosted a reception at which HAPAG company officials entertained President Castro of Venezuela.[15] That May HAPAG revised her round-the-World tour plan. She would start from Hamburg on 25 September, and passengers from the USA could join her via the company's scheduled transatlantic services from New York. Ports of call were to include Lisbon, Gibraltar, Genoa, Piraeus, Istanbul, Jaffa, and Port Said, whence she would pass through the Suez Canal. She would then continue via Bombay (now Mumbai) and Calcutta. Passengers were offered the option to leave the ship at Bombay, make an 18-day overland tour of India, and rejoin her at Calcutta. She was to continue via Singapore, Manila, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama. Her intended arrival in San Francisco was brought forward to 17 January 1905. She was to leave San Francisco on 24 January to make her return voyage.[16] The ship would carry a band of musicians to entertain her 200 passengers.[17]
In June 1906 HAPAG announced that it would transfer Prinzessin Victoria Luise to its Atlas Service between Hoboken and the Caribbean, along with the Prinz-class cargo linersPrinz Eitel Friedrich, Prinz Waldemar, Prinz August Wilhelm, and Prinz Joachim. Prinzessin Victoria Luise's route would be between Hoboken and Jamaica. The Prinz-class ships would work the route between Hoboken and Colón via Kingston.[18]
Loss
Prinzessin Victoria Luise's wreck on the coast of Jamaica
On 12 December 1906 Prinzessin Victoria Luise left Hoboken for Port Antonio and Kingston. Her Master, Captain H Brunswig, was 38 years old, and had been her commander for more than two years.[19]
On the night of 16 December, Brunswig tried to take the ship into Kingston, but he mistook Plumb Point Lighthouse for Port Royal Lighthouse.[1] A recent volcanic eruption had changed the topography of the seabed, so that in places, actual depths differed from what was marked on the ship's nautical charts. Heading north at 14 knots (26km/h) the ship grounded at about 21:30 hrs[20] on an uncharted reef at position 17°55′40″N76°51′10″W / 17.92778°N 76.85278°W / 17.92778; -76.85278. Her engines were run full astern, but failed to free her.[citation needed]
Captain Brunswig sent a boat ashore to report the accident, and then retired to his cabin and shot himself. The passengers, unaware of his suicide, stayed aboard overnight. The next morning the Third Officer, Bruno Zache, commanded one of the ship's boats and took it to Plum Point. A continuous line of boats was formed from the ship to the shore, along which the crew passed each passenger from boat to boat to disembark them.[20] Various hotels in Kingston then accommodated the passengers.[19]
The German cruiserSMSBremen and French training ship Duguay-Trouin came to assist Prinzessin Victoria Luise.[19]Bremen tried to tow her off the rocks, but without success.[21] On 18 December the Merritt & Chapmansalvage tugRescue left Norfolk, Virginia to try to rescue the ship.[22] However, within days the sea, aided by a storm, had turned the ship broadside to the shore, she was listing sharply to port, and the water inside her hull was 16 feet (5m) deep on that side. Her engines had been displaced, and her frame and keel plates were damaged.[citation needed] On 19 December she was declared a total loss. Some of her fittings were salvaged, and the HAPAG ship Sarnia took them to Hoboken, along with most of her crew.[20] HAPAG transferred the liner Kronprinzessin Cecilie to replace Prinzessin Victoria Luise on its Hoboken – Jamaica route.[23]
Among seafarers there was swift criticism of Brunswig's suicide. In a shipwreck, the Master's duty is to remain in command, ensure the safety of his passengers and crew, and try to save his ship.[22] Afterward his duty is to testify to any inquiry into the shipwreck that his employers or the relevant government may convene. Brunswig did none of these things.[24]
On 24 May 1907 an admiralty court in Hamburg posthumously found Captain Brunswig to have been negligent, not only by mistaking one lighthouse for another, but also for maintaining full speed at the time.[25] Also that year a submarine earthquake sank the wreck of the ship.[26] In 1910 Deutschland was refitted as a cruise ship and renamed Victoria Luise (without the "Prinzessin") to succeed her.
Related Research Articles
Albert Ballin was a German shipping magnate. He was the general director of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) or Hamburg-America Line, which for a time was the world's largest shipping company. Being the inventor of the concept of the cruise ship, he is known as the father of modern cruise ship travel. Albert Ballin was a risk-taker who was willing to challenge his colleagues, foreign competitors, and domestic politics in order to build a successful shipping company. He focused on British rivals and was determined to expand HAPAG's global reach, he also worked closely with the Kaiser and supported expansion of the German navy.
Hapag-Lloyd AG is a German international shipping and container transportation company, the 5th biggest in the world. It was formed in 1970 through a merger of Hamburg-American Line (HAPAG) and Norddeutscher Lloyd.
The Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG), known in English as the Hamburg America Line, was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, in 1847. Among those involved in its development were prominent citizens such as Albert Ballin, Adolph Godeffroy, Ferdinand Laeisz, Carl Woermann, August Bolten, and others, and its main financial backers were Berenberg Bank and H. J. Merck & Co. It soon developed into the largest German, and at times the world's largest, shipping company, serving the market created by German immigration to the United States and later, immigration from Eastern Europe. On 1 September 1970, after 123 years of independent existence, HAPAG merged with the Bremen-based North German Lloyd to form Hapag-Lloyd AG.
Norddeutscher Lloyd was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was instrumental in the economic development of Bremen and Bremerhaven. On 1 September 1970, the company merged with Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) to form Hapag-Lloyd AG.
SS Deutschland was a passenger liner built in Stettin and launched on 10 January 1900 for the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) of Germany. She was officially the second ocean liner to have four funnels on the transatlantic route, the first being Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse of 1897.
USS Patricia was a transatlantic liner that was launched in Germany in 1899 and spent most of her career with Hamburg America Line (HAPAG). She was the last to be built of a class of four HAPAG sister ships that came from shipyards in the United Kingdom and Germany between 1896 and 1899.
SS Fürst Bismarck was a Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) ocean liner. She was launched in Scotland in 1905. In 1914 she was renamed Friedrichsruh. In 1919 the United Kingdom seized her as World War I reparations. In 1921 Messageries Maritimes acquired her and renamed her Amboise. She was scrapped in Italy in 1935.
SS Abessinia was a cargo steamship of the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG). She was built in North East England in 1900, and wrecked in North East England in 1921. In her early years she sailed from Hamburg to and from China, Australia, and the East Coast of the United States. From 1907 to 1912 she sailed from Hamburg to and from the West Coast of the United States and the British Columbia Coast. In 1913 she survived a storm in the North Atlantic that swept away her rudder and disabled her propulsion. She spent the First World War in Chile. Her remains are now a wreck diving site in the Farne Islands.
SS Ypiranga was a cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1908 for the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG). In 1919 the United Kingdom seized her for World War I reparations. In 1921 Anchor Line acquired her and renamed her Assyria. In 1929 the Companhia Colonial de Navegação (CCN) bought her and renamed her Colonial. In 1950 she was sold for scrap, but she sank off the coast of Scotland while being towed to a scrapyard.
USS Moccasin (ID-1322) was a cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1903 as Prinz Joachim. The US seized her in 1917. In 1918–19 she was renamed Moccasin and briefly served in the United States Navy. In 1920 she was returned to US merchant service and renamed Porto Rico. She was scrapped in 1933 or 1934.
USS General W. C. Gorgas (ID-1365) was a cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1902 as Prinz Sigismund for the Hamburg America Line. In 1917 the USA seized her and renamed her General W. C. Gorgas. In 1945 she was transferred to the Soviet Union, which renamed her Mikhail Lomonosov. She was scrapped in March 1958.
SS Pisa was a cargo and passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1896. She was in German ownership until 1917, when the United States seized her and renamed her Ascutney.
Kronprinzessin Cecilie was a Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) ocean liner. She was launched in Schleswig-Holstein in 1905. Her scheduled route was between Hamburg and Mexico.
Augusta Victoria, later Auguste Victoria, placed in service in 1889 and named for Empress Augusta Victoria, wife of German Emperor Wilhelm II, was the name ship of the Augusta Victoria series and the first of a new generation of luxury Hamburg America Line ocean liners. She was the first liner built in continental Europe with twin propellers and when first placed in service, the fastest liner in the Atlantic trade. In 1897, the ship was rebuilt and lengthened and in 1904 she was sold to the Imperial Russian Navy, which renamed her Kuban.
SS Prinz Adalbert was a twin-screw cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1902 for Hamburg America Line (HAPAG). In 1914 the United Kingdom Admiralty seized her and renamed her Prince. In 1916 she was renamed Princetown. On 1917 she was transferred to the Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique and renamed Alesia. Later in 1917 a U-boat sank her.
SS Otsego was a cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1901 as Prinz Eitel Friedrich. The USA seized her in 1917 and renamed her Otsego. In 1919 she served in the United States Navy as USS Otsego (ID-1628). She spent the 1920s and 30s in merchant service as Otsego. In 1941 she became the United States Army ship USAT Otsego. In 1945 she was transferred to the Soviet Union, which renamed her Ural. In 1947 she may have been renamed Dolinsk. She was either hulked or scrapped in 1955.
SS Prinz Waldemar was a steam cargo liner built in 1902 by the Reiherstieg Schiffswerfte & Maschinenfabrik of Hamburg for Hamburg America Line (HAPAG). She was named after Prince Waldemar of Prussia. The ship was primarily employed as a passenger and cargo carrier between Hamburg and South America during her career.
SS Veendam was a Dutch-owned transatlantic liner, launched in Scotland in 1922 and scrapped in the United States in 1953. She was part of the first generation of turbine-powered steamships in the Holland America Line fleet. Veendam and her sister ship Volendam were NASM's largest turbine steamships until the flagship Statendam was completed in 1929.
SS Prinz Oskar was a twin-screw cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1902 for Hamburg America Line (HAPAG). She served various transatlantic routes between Europe and the Americas until the First World War began.
SS Prinz August Wilhelm was a Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1902 and scuttled in Colombia in 1918. Her original route was between Hamburg and Mexico. From 1906 she served routes between New York and the Caribbean.
Haws, Duncan (1980). The Ships of the Hamburg America, Adler and Carr Lines. Merchant Fleets in Profile. Vol.4. Cambridge: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN0-85059-397-2.
"Tourist Ship Prinzessin Luise a Wreck". The American Marine Engineer. 2 (January, 1907). New York, Chicago: National Marine Engineer's Beneficial Association. 1908. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Germany
