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RMS Lusitania

The RMS Lusitania was a british ocean liner that entered passenger service with the Cunard Line on 1907 and continued on the line's heavily traveled passenger service between Liverpool, England and New York. During the First World War, as Germany waged submarine warfare against Britain, the ship was identified and torpedoed by a german U-boat on 7 May 1915, being sank in 18 minutes. The vessel went down 11 miles (18 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, killing 1198 of the 1959 people aboard, leaving 761 survivors. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany, contributed to the United States entry into World War I and became an iconic symbol in military recruiting campaigns of why the war was being fought.

The RMS Lusitania was constructed as part of the competition between the Cunard Line and other shipping lines, principally from Germany, for the transatlantic passenger trade. Whichever company had the fastest and most luxurious ships had a commercial advantage. The Lusitania and her sister Mauretania together provided a regular express service between Britain and the United States, until the intervention of the First World War. Both ships held the Blue Riband speed record for a transatlantic crossing, at different times in their careers. Mauretania was generally the slightly faster of the two, and continued to hold the record until 1929. The use of a propulsion based on Parsons turbines accounted for their 22 years retention of the speed record.

The RMS Lusitania had a total length of 240 meters, a beam of 26.5 meters and a draft of 10.2 meters, reaching the displacement around 44000 tonnes. The number of decks was nine and there was capacity for 2198 passengers, a crew of 850 and 7000 tonnes of coal. The propulsion system included 25 boilers, four direct-acting steam turbines and four propellers. Maximum power was around 76000 hp and top speed reached 26.7 knots.

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