Arransian Ocean Liners

Despite their strong maritime tradition, the Arransians never had great transoceanic liners to compete with those of Brunswick, Mayenne and to some extent Colmar. If travelling to Acadia, it was always quicker to take the train across Brunswick and sail from the West Coast. However, Arransia did maintain its own service to Acadia which lasted as long as the Brunswickian one, and also had a regular passenger service to the Terrapin Islands.

Whitsun Island was served by slowish cargo ships with a few passenger places, which in fact continued to carry passengers until the opening of the international airport in 1989.

During the 20th century, the service to Acadia operated from Skerne, where a 1500-foot floating landing stage – now removed – was constructed. This was run by the Anderson Line, who in 1928 and 1929 put into service the largest Arransian liners ever built¹, the 32,000 ton Queen of the Ocean and Queen of Arransia. Operating together with the older, 19,000 ton Kirkbride Castle, built in 1910, these ships were able to provide a weekly service. However, during the recession first the Kirkbride Castle and then the Queen of the Ocean were put into reserve, leaving for a period of about 18 months in 1931-32 only a three-weekly service. In fact this led to the bankruptcy of the shipping line, and it was only saved by the government taking a majority stake.

The Queen of Arransia in pre-war days.

The Queens were impressive, albeit rather stiff-looking, three-funnelled ships capable of maintaining 25 knots, thus greatly improving on the previous best times. They had lavish if very traditional interiors with a wealth of ornate wood panelling. Slowly, the service was restored and by 1940 all three ships were working in harness again. Plans were produced for a 42,000-ton, 28-knot superliner to replace the Kirkbride Castle, but this was never laid down and indeed the business did not seem to justify it. In fact it was a source of regret to Arransian shipbuilders in the late 1930s that they had the capability to build a ship to match the giant Brunswickian and Mayonnaise record-breakers of the day, but such a vessel would not have been commercially viable in Arransian service ². The Kirkbride Castle was an elegant and much-loved two-stacker of slightly old-fashioned appearance even in 1910, with quadruple expansion engines giving a theoretical maximum speed of 21 knots. At the time of her construction she had been the biggest and fastest Arransian liner to date.

The Kirkbride Castle photographed leaving Skerne in 1912.

During the war, the Queen of Arransia was seized by the Acadians and used intensively as a troopship. In very run-down condition, and with her interiors largely ripped out, the Arransians declined to have her back in 1949 and she was scrapped. The elderly Kirkbride Castle was interned in a neutral port and returned briefly to service in 1950-52, although by this time she was a very old and unappealing ship, and her engines were now unable to exceed about 16 knots. The Queen of the Ocean remained in Arransian hands and was used intermittently as a troopship between Arransia and Mayenne, where her speed was an advantage, allowing her to make an entire crossing under cover of darkness. In 1949 she was laid up in the Skelwick Firth where air attack was very difficult, and survived the war with little damage. She made her first passenger voyage after the war to Acadia in October 1949, and somewhat to the surprise of her captain was cheered into the harbour at Carnaby.

The restored service proved surprisingly popular in 1949 and 1950, and it was clear that a new ship would be needed, resulting in the Queen of the West, built at Caird’s at Elswick, launched by Queen Alice in April 1951, and entering service in November of that year. The first of the handful of major liners built in post-war Arransia, she was a sleek, modern-looking, single-funnelled ship of 21,000 tons, capable of 27.5 knots. In fact she proved to be the fastest ever Arransian liner. Her interiors were much more modern-looking and less ornate than those of the older ships, but no expense was spared, and to some extent she was regarded as a demonstrator for post-war Arransian shipbuilding.

The old Kirkbride Castle had to stay in service until September 1952, as the Queen of the Ocean was taken in hand for a thorough refit which included removing one of her funnels and fitting a more sharply raked bow, although her interiors were merely spruced up and little attempt was made to give them a more modern look. From September 1952, the two Queens commenced a service of two sailings every three weeks which rapidly gained load factors of over 75% and even attracted some custom from Brunswick. The Queen of the West in particular, although by no means the biggest of liners, seemed to have a particular knack for riding out storms smoothly.

Not surprisingly, the construction of another ship to restore the weekly service came on to the agenda, and the Lady of Acadia duly slid down Cairds’ slipway in November 1955 and entered service in June of the following year. It was felt to be politically inadvisable to name her Queen of Acadia. She was generally similar to the Queen of the West, but bigger at 25,000 tons, with a slightly higher maximum speed, and with more richly decorated but arguably less tasteful interiors.

The Lady rapidly gained the speed record for the crossing, but for some reason she always seemed to be a slightly unlucky ship, and suffered more than her fair share of engine breakdowns, minor fires and food poisoning outbreaks. Nevertheless, the boom period of the late 1950s was an Indian summer for the Anderson Line service. The writing was on the wall, however, and in 1960 Drummond Brothers acquired their first Curtiss C420-C airliners, capable of flying non-stop from Danby to Carnaby in nine hours. The six-day ship service suddenly seemed very uncompetitive.

The service began to be run down, with the ships increasingly used for cruising in the winter, and from about 1964 only two being used even at the height of summer. To the annoyance of the crew of the Lady, in 1963 the engine room staff of the Queen of the West, which was supposedly a good half-knot slower, made a supreme effort and beat their speed record by seventeen minutes, which the Lady was never able to recapture. The ageing but much-loved Queen of the Ocean went to the breakers’ in 1968, and by the early 70s the two remaining ships were doing more cruising than scheduled services. The end came in the depression of 1974, with the unreliable Lady being sold prematurely to the breakers, and the Queen of the West being laid up for over a year in the Embo Firth.

However, she was resold to an Acadian firm which renamed her the Carnival and carried out a substantial but not too thoroughgoing refit to convert her to a dedicated cruise ship. Significantly, she was not re-engined, although her turbines were derated to about 18 knots, and her stylish early 50s panelling was mostly covered up rather than removed. Over the years some changes were made to extend her accommodation and provide an open-air swimming pool, but she retained her classic profile.

For two decades she continued in service as a popular and respected cruise ship, mainly sailing between Acadia, the Terrapin Islands and the surrounding countries. By the mid-1990s, however, she was clearly showing her age, and scrapping was considered. However, she was transferred to another Acadian company who decided that she remained structurally sound and still had some life in her. Her name reverted to the Queen of the West and she received another refit to restore much of her traditional character. She is now unashamedly marketed to the over-50s age group as a “classic cruise liner bringing back the atmosphere of a bygone era”, and is extremely popular with Arransian pensioners.

She returned to Arransia in 2001 to participate in the naval review marking the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Ugglesby Head, and paid nostalgic visits to Elswick where she was built, and to Skerne from where she operated for over 20 years. She continues to fulfil a leisurely round of sub-tropical cruises, with her old turbines still showing impressive reliability, and is now an almost unique survivor of a past era of sea travel.

Her owners (now part controlled by Arransian investors) have ensured she is maintained very carefully and it looks likely she will be able to continue in service for at least another ten years to hopefully outlive the famous aircraft carrier HMS Queen Margaret.

¹ in the period from 1990 onwards, Cairds’ and indeed McLaughlin & Reid too have built a few cruise liners that were bigger than the Queens, most notably the elegant and distinctly retro 55,000-ton Princess of 2002, which is widely regarded as the finest cruise liner in the world.

² An impressive scale model of the 75,000-ton, 34-knot Queen Alice can be seen in the Maritime Museum at Skerne, but unfortunately she never progressed beyond the drawing board

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