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| History | |
|---|---|
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Celtic Alliance |
| Name | MS Mauretania III |
| Registry | Cunard Line |
| Ordered | 14 May 1999 |
| Builder | Geoffrey Brown Shipyards, Stornoway, Na h-Eileanan Siar, Celtic Alliance |
| Laid down | 6 November 2000 |
| Completed | 21 March 2003 |
| Maiden voyage | 9 April 2003 |
| Launched | 4 July 2002 |
| Christened | 29 March 2003 |
| Acquired | 21 March 2003 |
| Service | 9 April 2003–present |
| Homeport | Liverpool, England, Celtic Alliance |
| Nickname(s) | "The Big Maury" |
| Status | In service |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Ocean liner |
| Tonnage | 31,938 GRT |
| Length | 790 ft (240.8 m) |
| Beam | 88 ft (26.8 m) |
| Depth | 33.5 ft (10.2 m) |
| Decks | 8 |
| Power | 9 × MAN B&W 9L58/64 (9 × 10,625 kW) |
| Propulsion | Diesel-electric
Two GEC propulsion motors (2 × 44 MW) Two five-bladed variable-pitch propellers |
| Capacity | 2,165 passengers total:
|
| Crew | 802 |
MS Mauretania III is a Celtic ship that serves as both an ocean liner and cruise ship. She is currently the flagship of the revived Cunard Line following the sinking of the MS Aquitania II in 2010.
Background[]
The Original Mauretania[]
In 1904, the original Cunard Line ordered the construction of two four funnel ocean liners. In keeping with the tradition of naming their ships after Roman provinces, the two new ships were named the Lusitania and the Mauretania. Designed by Leonard Peskett, the original Mauretania was constructed at Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyards.
Doomsday and the Revival of the Cunard Line[]
Robert Harrison Cunard is a Englishman who is a descendant of Baron Samuel Cunard, a Canadian-born British shipping magnate who founded the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company along with Robert Napier. The company would later be renamed the Cunard Line. Robert Cunard is a self-described history buff who was fascinated with his ancestor and his company.
He was on holiday in Dublin on 26 September 1983, when much of the known world was destroyed in the first and only nuclear war. In the aftermath, he voluntarily signed up for the Irish Naval Service and served on a makeshift hospital ship traveling between Dublin and Northeast England. He left the navy in 1989, and during the early years of the Celtic Alliance, he settled in Dublin and married Angelina Addington, a English refugee he cared for during his service in the navy.
In 1992, Cunard reestablished the Cunard Line, to help ensure travel and trade as air travel was rendered almost obsolete following Doomsday.
He was given the Queen Elizabeth 2, the last known surviving Cunard liner from the government of Northumbria as a gift for his services. The Queen Elizabeth 2 would serve as a cruise ship from Dublin to Reykjavík. The ship would later resume service as an ocean liner following the establishment of diplomatic ties with Canada in 1992.
Wanting to expand the Cunard fleet as well as honour the history of both the Ocean Liners and the Cunard Line, Robert Cunard ordered the construction of three ship replicas. Each vessel would be a replica of three notable Cunard Liners from the Edwardian era, the RMS Aquitania, the RMS Mauretania, and the RMS Olympic (originally from the White Star Line but became a Cunarder following the merge of Cunard and White Star).
During 1995, Robert Cunard and a group of researchers were able to find surviving blueprints and photographs which satisified his desire to rebuild these three ships; the MS Aquitania II, MS Mauretania III and the MS Olympic II.
Career[]
Much like her sister ships, the Mauretania III helped carry North American born passengers who were stranded in Europe following Doomsday back to the former United States and Canada. The ship was greeted by a celebration when she docked in Gaspé for the first time, she was visited by Prime Minister Georges Farrah, who nicknamed her the "Pride of the Atlantic".
She was unable to join her sister ship in sailing to the coast of New York City upon the twentieth anniversary of Doomsday in 2003, but she sailed to Australia instead in a memorial service for the devastation of the nuclear war. Former American president George H.W. Bush was on board the bow when he addresses millions before him. The ship blew her whistles upon the exact time when nuclear missiles touched down in Australia.
CNHS Mauretania during the Saguenay War
During the War of the Alboran Sea, the Mauretania was ordered by the Celtic government to serve as a troopship to carry troops to the Mediterranean Sea. She returned to passenger service following the war, but the navy would recommission her during the Saguenay War, this time as a hospital ship.
When she returned to passenger service in the autumn of 2010, her sister ship, MS Aquitania III, was crippled by an explosion and sunk in the North Sea, two hundred miles off the coast of Scotland. The captain of the Mauretania, Kevin Oprey, attempted to sail to the Aquitania's rescue. However, with rumors of True British Army pirates sailing the North Sea, the Celtic government ordered all passenger ships to return to port.