''Augusta Victoria'', later ''Auguste Victoria'', placed in service in 1889 and named for Empress
Augusta Victoria, wife of German
Emperor Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empi ...
, was the name ship of the Augusta Victoria series and the first of a new generation of luxury
Hamburg America Line
The Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Aktien-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 citi ...
ocean liner
An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships).
Ca ...
s. 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
The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a ...
, which renamed her ''Kuban''.
Engineering
The ship had eight double ended main coal fired boilers and an auxiliary boiler. The main boilers provided steam for the two inverted three cylinder triple expansion engines each driving a steel four bladed diameter propeller with pitch. Maximum power was about 25.000 ihp. Coal bunker capacity was 2,260 tons and consumption about 220 tons per day.
History
Hamburg America Line
Albert Ballin
Albert Ballin (15 August 1857 – 9 November 1918) 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 s ...
commissioned ''Augusta Victoria'' and her sister ship ''
Columbia'' in 1887, soon after joining the Hamburg America Line as head of passenger service.
''Augusta Victoria'', the first to be put in service, was originally to have been called ''Normannia'' but was renamed for the Empress after Wilhelm II became Emperor.
In the 1890s the line added the larger ''
Normannia'' and to the series.
''Augusta Victoria'' was the first
continental Europe
Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
an liner with
twin screws,
[According to Huldermann, 1922, p. 196, she was to have been built at a British yard, like ''Columbia'', but the then Crown Prince Wilhelm insisted the job be given to a German yard. According to Straub, p. 45, it was a "not even publicly expressed wish".] which made her both faster and more reliable.
[ (The two previous twin-screw liners were the British-built '']City of New York
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
'' and '' City of Paris'' of the Inman Line
The Inman Line was one of the three largest 19th-century British passenger shipping companies on the North Atlantic, along with the White Star Line and Cunard Line. Founded in 1850, it was absorbed in 1893 into American Line. The firm's formal ...
.) In May 1889, her maiden voyage to New York broke a record, taking only seven days.[According to Huldermann and to Cecil, pp. 22–23, she captured the ]Blue Riband
The Blue Riband () is an unofficial accolade given to the passenger liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean in regular service with the record highest average speed. The term was borrowed from horse racing and was not widely used until after 1910. T ...
; according to Gerhardt, p. 33, won this distinction for Hamburg America for the first and only time in 1900. In November 1889, Nellie Bly
Elizabeth Cochran Seaman (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran; May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist, industrialist, inventor, and charity worker who was widely known for her record-breaki ...
sailed to Southampton on the ''Augusta Victoria'' on the first leg of her 72-day race around the world.
She was also the first luxury liner at Hamburg America, introducing the concept of the "floating hotel";[ she had "a rococo stairhall, illuminated by a milky way of pear-shaped prisms and naked light bulbs clutched by gilded cherubs, a reception court choked by palm trees and a dark and gothic smoking room." Ballin had her interior design work done by ]Johann Poppe
Johann Georg Poppe (12 September 1837 – 18 August 1915), often called Johannes Poppe by English-speaking writers, was a prominent architect in Bremen during the German Gründerzeit and an influential interior designer of ocean liners for the N ...
, the designer at Hamburg America's rival line, North German Lloyd
Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; North German 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 t ...
, whose ships already had a reputation for elegance. She was immediately successful, but she and her sister ship were an economic drain on the line because they required more coal than slower ships and could not carry much freight or many steerage passengers and were therefore profitable only in the summer season, and it was risky to operate them at all from Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
in very bad weather, when the Elbe
The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...
was packed with ice.
Off-season pleasure cruises were therefore started in 1891,[ and ''Augusta Victoria''s cruise in the Mediterranean and the Near East from 22 January to 22 March 1891, with 241 passengers including the Ballins themselves, is often stated to have been the first ever cruise.][For example by Kludas and Bischoff; Gerhardt p. 36; Haller, giving 174 as the number of passengers.] Christian Wilhelm Allers
Christian Wilhelm Allers (6 August 1857 – 19 October 1915) was a German painter and printmaker.
Biography
Allers, the son of a merchant, was born in Hamburg. He first worked as a lithographer, and in 1877 he moved to Karlsruhe where he ...
published an illustrated account of it as ''Backschisch'' (Baksheesh
''Baksheesh'' or ' (from fa, بخشش ) is tipping, charitable giving, and certain forms of political corruption and bribery in the Middle East and South Asia.
Etymology and usage
''Baksheesh'' comes from the Persian word (), which originat ...
). Some people claim the British Orient Line
The Orient Steam Navigation Company, also known as the Orient Line, was a British shipping company with roots going back to the late 18th century. From the early 20th century onwards, an association began with P&O which became 51% shareholde ...
was the first to offer cruises since the late 1880s. However, those ships were principally for the transportation of passenger, goods and mail between two or more ports, such as between England and Australia, with leisure travel being an adjunct.
In 1897, the ship underwent a comprehensive rebuilding at Harland & Wolff
Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the Wh ...
in Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
arriving in the graving dock 19 December 1896. She was lengthened by , her tonnage increased, and her speed increased by half a knot, and the middle of her three masts was removed.[ The new section was to be inserted between the second and third boiler compartments with an additional boiler inserted to total nine. Part of the original forward boiler compartment would be converted to staterooms. Her name was also changed to ''Auguste Victoria'' to correct an original inaccuracy; the Empress spelt her name with an ''e''.][
]
Imperial Russian Navy
While ''Augusta Victoria'' was under construction, the Emperor persuaded both Hamburg America and its rival Norddeutscher Lloyd
Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; North German 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 th ...
to make their future liners convertible to auxiliary cruiser
An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in lo ...
s in time of war. Like all German fast liners built from then until 1914, she therefore had reinforced decks which could support gun platforms. In 1904 she and the other three ships in the series were sold to the Russian Navy; she was renamed ''Kuban'' and became a cruiser,[ but was assigned to be a scout ship. She sailed in the Far East with Admiral ]Zinovy Rozhestvensky
Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky (russian: Зиновий Петрович Рожественский, tr. ; – January 14, 1909) was an admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy. He was in command of the Second Pacific Squadron in the Battle of Tsu ...
's fleet in the Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
, but did not see action. She was broken up at Stettin
Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin language, Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital city, capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the Po ...
in 1907.[
]
Notes
References
Sources
* (Reissued as
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External links
S/S Augusta Victoria, Hamburg America Line
at Norway-Heritage
Elevation and upper deck plans
lower deck plans and sections
at Wunderwaffe.narod.ru
''Auguste Victoria'' after 1897 rebuilding
at Wunderwaffe.narod.ru
at cwallers.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Augusta Victoria
Ocean liners
Ships of the Hamburg America Line
1888 ships
Ships built in Stettin