During her fitting out, all of her luxuries and neccesities were added. Her three massive funnels, each one progressivly smaller heading aft were large enough to drive three tanks abreast, her whistles were 6 feet tall and weighed one ton. The lower bass 'A' tone could be heard for 10 miles around. She was so big, her stern stuck out of the fitting out basin she was in by 100 feet. The name on her bow was 55 feet long, each letter was 2.5 feet high. Finally at 9:45 am, four blasts of her whistle let everyone around know that Tuesday the 24th of March, 1936 was the day Queen Mary was ready to set sail.
When Queen Mary left her birth place, a national holiday was declared, and many people lined the river banks to watch her go through. In Southampton, the German ship Breman whistled to her signalling best wishes. She was put into dry dock once again where new propellers were added, paint re-applied and all other work completed. On April 8th, she was towed out into the water again and was moored beside Aquitania at Ocean Dock. On April 15th, she left for Arran where her speed trials were held. Queen Mary was clocked at an amazing 32.84 knots, although it would be much greater in real life were the Queen not steaming diagonally.
On May 12th, the flags of John Brown were lowered, and the Cunard White Star flags unfolded into the breeze as she was handed to her owners. She returned to Southampton on the 15th to prepare for her maiden voyage. She was open to the public on May 21st, 22nd and 23rd, and on the 25th, Queen Mary herself visited the liner, accompanied by King Edward, the Duke and Duchess of York, their daughters Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose as well and the Duke and Duchess of Kent and the Duchess of Gloucester. Later that night, the Queen went home and wrote in her diary "Toured the new Queen Mary today; now as bad as I expected."
On the 27th of May at 4:30pm, she left on her maiden voyage. It was hoped to be a record breaking one, however sadly, fog closed in and speed was reduced for half of one day, and she failed to beat Normandie's crossing of 29.68 knots, although it was apparent that the Queen was superior in speed becuase of the sea trials and the fact that in one last desperate attempt at the Blue Ribbon, she made 33 knots after the fog had cleared. Her average speed was 29.13 knots for the crossing, but it did not dampen the spirits of those aboard. When she arrived in New York, thousands lined the Hudson River as a welcome to America.
As the 1930's drew to a close, Cunard's plans had all come to fruition. Queen Mary had met and passed all expectations and amazingly, she was actually making a profit for her company, which was very rare due to large ships and their upkeeps. However, growing Nazism in Europe worried many, and on September 2nd, the captain of Queen Mary received a full war alert from the admiralty. She arrived on the 4th after zigzagging the rest of her way to New York and was tied up next to Normandie. Her future was not as bright as some had hoped though, as she was a British ship, she would have to answer the call to arms. |
