Four-funnel liner

A four-funnel liner, also known as a four-stacker, is an ocean liner with four funnels.

Olympic (left) and Titanic (right)

In the early 20th century as shipping companies competed for passengers on the lucrative transatlantic route between Europe and America a series of increasingly large, luxurious and fast ocean liners were built requiring four funnels to service their expansive boiler rooms. An ocean liner with four funnels rapidly became symbolic of power, prestige and safety to the travelling public and shipping companies leveraged this trend extensively to market their best ships. The narrative that four-stackers were emblematic of safety was shattered with the loss of the Titanic, sunk on her maiden voyage in 1912. While the naval architecture of four-funnel liners started to give way to more efficient ship layouts in the 1910s the distinctive profile of the four-funnel ocean liner has firmly endured in the public consciousness well into the modern age, largely due to ongoing interest in the loss of the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania, which significantly altered the course of World War One.

Great Eastern was the first four-stacker, briefly operating as a four-funnel ocean liner in 1867. Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, launched in 1897, was the first ocean liner purpose built with four funnels and was the first of the golden era of ocean liners that became prominent in the 20th century.^[1] In all, 15 four-funnel liners were produced; Great Eastern in 1858, and the remainder between 1897 and 1922. Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, four more were sunk during the World Wars, and the other ten were all scrapped.^[2] The last four-funnelled liner ever built was Windsor Castle; however, two of her funnels were later removed making the Aquitania the last four-funnel liner in service and the only one to survive service during both World Wars.

Description

Engineering and marketing significance of four-funnel ocean liners

The primary purpose of funnels on steamships was to allow smoke, heat and excess steam to escape from the boiler rooms. As liners became larger, more boilers were used. The number of funnels became symbolic of speed and safety.^[1]

SS Great Eastern; a Victorian four-funnel ocean liner

The massive Great Eastern, launched on 31 January 1858 was history's only five-funnel ocean liner. The Great Eastern was later converted into a Transoceanic Telegraph Cable Laying Ship and had the second-aft-most of her five funnels removed in 1865 to make way for huge reels of telegraph cable.^[3] After successfully laying the first Transatlantic Telegraph Cable the Great Eastern was then chartered to a French Company 'La Société des Affréteurs du Great Eastern' to bring wealthy American passengers across the Atlantic to the 1867 Paris Exposition World's Fair. The company fully refitted the Great Eastern from cable laying back into her original ocean liner configuration but made these alterations around her now reduced four-funnel layout.^[4] Great Eastern was then deployed on a single round trip Atlantic crossing, which marked the first time in history that a four-funnel ocean liner operated in commercial service. Jules Verne was notably a passenger on the Great Easterns 1867 Westbound crossing and would later write the novel A Floating City based on his experience on this voyage. The Paris Exposition voyages were severely underbooked and were the final time the Great Eastern operated as an ocean liner before once again undergoing conversion back to cable laying.^[5] It would be another 30 years until building ocean liners as large as the Great Eastern, that required four funnels due to their high speed, would become commercially viable.

The German four-funnel ocean liners

Advertisement for NDL's "Four Flyers"

SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, launched on 4 May 1897 by the North German Lloyd Line (NDL) was the first purpose-built ocean liner to have four funnels. At 14,000 tonnes she was somewhat smaller than the Great Eastern but much more advanced due to the four decade gap between the two ships. Following the arrangement of her boiler rooms the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse had her four-funnels arranged in two distinct pairings with a wider space between the second and third funnels. The ships large funnels were painted a bright gold colour to match the NDLs company colours. By this period virtually all ocean liners used a paint scheme on their large funnels as floating branding for their shipping lines, having four funnels further accentuated this method of advertising.

The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was extremely successful. NDLs main rival in German shipping HAPAG would soon build an almost identical four-stacker the Deutschland in 1900. NDL would follow the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse with a further three sister ships, each getting successively larger in size; the SS Kronprinz Wilhelm in 1901, the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1902 and the SS Kronprinzessin Cecilie in 1906. The NDL quartet of ships would be collectively known as the Four-Flyers due to their high speed. With these five well matched four-stackers the Germans held a dominant position in premier north atlantic trade.

The British and French response

RMS Lusitania and Mauretania Cunard Advert Poster 1907

Britain was eager to respond to Germany's new four-stackers. The Cunard Line took a loan from the British Government to build two record holders, RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania, both of which had their maiden voyage in 1907. Lusitania and Mauretania were both laid out with four boiler rooms with one funnel to each room, they powered four Parsons Steam Turbine engines making the two ships by far the most powerful ships ever built up to that point. Mauretania was the fastest of all four-funnelled liners and held the transatlantic speed record for 20 years. At 35,000 tonnes this pair of liners represented a large leap in size from the previous generation of four-stackers, which were all in the 14,000-20,000 tonne range. Lusitania was the first four-stacker to feature equidistant spacing between her four funnels, all remaining four-funnel liners would continue to folllow this arrangement.

Another British Shipping Company the White Star Line ordered a trio of massive ocean liners to rival Cunard, RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic. Olympics maiden voyage was in 1911, Titanics in 1912 and Britannics was intended to be in 1915 although this was interrupted by World War One. White Star Line opted not to compete with Cunard over speed due to the excessive amount of coal their turbine driven ships required. White Star instead focused on luxury and economies of scale with sheer size. At 45,000 tonnes this trio represented a 30% jump in size over the Lusitania Class ships. With a lower top speed the Olympic Class only required three sets of funnels to manage the boiler exhausts but due to the prestige garnered by four-funnel ships White Star opted to fit the three Olympic-class ships with a dummy fourth funnel to rival the two Cunard ships and give an impression of power.^[6] The dummy funnel helped balance the exterior appearance of the ship and was used to ventilate the ships kitchens and engineering spaces. Cunard realizing the need for three large ships themselves to operate an efficient weekly transatlantic service ordered a third ship to compliment the Lusitania and Mauretania. The RMS Aquitania had her maiden voyage in 1914, Cunard opted for a ship comparable in size to the Olympic Class and slightly slower the Lusitania and Mauretania but she shared their power plant layout and had four functional funnels connected to boiler rooms.

In 1912 the French Line debuted the SS France on the North Atlantic, the only four-stacker not built in Britain or Germany. At 24,000 tonnes she was smaller than her British rivals but became an extremely popular ship excelling in her interior luxury and the quality of her fine dining.

Four-funnel ocean liners on the South Africa Route

The Union Castle Line ordered two four-stackers for their Southampton to Cape Town route. These were the RMS Arundel Castle and the RMS Windsor Castle. They were the last four-stacker ocean liners ever built, originally planned before World War One the conflict delayed Arundel Castle's maiden voyage until 1919 and Windsor Castle in 1922. At 17,000 - 19,000 tonnes these two ships were significantly smaller than the other British four-stackers but were notable in being the only four-stackers not assigned to the North Atlantic as their primary route.

The end of four-funnel ocean liners

The trend of competing shipping lines building ever greater four-funnel liners encompassed a very short time span ranging from the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse in 1897 to the RMS Windsor Castle in 1922.^[7]

The SS Great Eastern was scrapped in 1889 nearly a decade before any other four-funnel ocean liners were built.

The next four-funnel liner to go was the Titanic when she sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg.^[8] During the First World War, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was armed with naval artillery guns and was sunk in battle with the British cruiser HMS Highflyer in 1914. The Lusitania was torpedoed on 7 May 1915 while still operating as an ocean liner. The Britannic sank after striking a mine in 1916 while operating as a Hospital Ship.^[9] Neither Titanic nor Britannic ever accomplished their primary purpose of carrying fare-paying passengers across an ocean. The four surviving German four-stackers were all ceded to the United States as war reparations. The Deutschland was refitted into an emigrant ship in 1920 and had two of her four funnels removed in the process. The last four-funnel liners built, the sister ships Arundel Castle and Windsor Castle, entered service in 1921. By 1922, only 10 of the 15 four-funnel liners remained. In 1923, the ex-Kronprinz Wilhelm was sold for scrap, followed by the ex-Deutschland in 1925.^[10]

Olympic (left) and Mauretania (right) laid up in Southampton prior to their scrapping

By the start of the Great Depression, only 8 four-funnel liners remained. In 1935, the Mauretania, Olympic and France were sold for scrap after 28, 24, and 23 years of service respectively. In 1937, the Arundel Castle and Windsor Castle were refurbished by having two of their four funnels removed and their bows replaced by more raked bows,^[11] leaving the Kaiser Wilhelm II, Kronprinzessin Cecilie and Aquitania as the three remaining four-funnel liners.^[12] In 1940, the ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II and ex-Kronprinzessin Cecilie were sold for scrap. The former four-stacker Windsor Castle was sunk in 1943 by a German aerial torpedo. Arundel Castle was scrapped in 1959. The Aquitania, now the last four-funnel liner afloat, served in the Second World War and thereafter enjoyed a quiet postwar career, until finally she was scrapped in 1950. With this, the era of the four-funnel liner came to an end.^[13]

The early 20th century ideology of four funnels representing size and power rapidly diminished soon after the First World War. Soon, the remaining four-funnel liners seemed old. Subsequent flagships starting in 1913 including the SS Imperator, SS Normandie, and RMS Queen Mary all featured three funnels to conserve deck space. Later, as shipbuilding became more efficient, RMS Queen Elizabeth, Mauretania, Bremen, Nieuw Amsterdam, and America further reduced the number of funnels down to two.

List of four-funnel ocean liners

Picture	Liner[a]	Owner	Hull Launched	Maiden Voyage	Fate
	SS Great Eastern[2]	Great Eastern Steamship Company	1858, January 31	1859, August 30	Scrapped 1889
	SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse[b][2]	North German Lloyd Line	1897, May 4	1897, September 19	Sank in battle as an Auxiliary Cruiser, 26 August 1914
	SS Deutschland[c][2]	Hamburg-Amerika Line	1900, January 10	1900, July 5	Scrapped 1925
	SS Kronprinz Wilhelm[b][2]	North German Lloyd Line	1901, March 30	1901, September 17	Scrapped 1923
	SS Kaiser Wilhelm II[b][2]	North German Lloyd Line	1902, August 12	1903, April 14	Scrapped 1940
	SS Kronprinzessin Cecilie[b][2]	North German Lloyd Line	1906, December 1	1907, August 6	Scrapped 1940
	RMS Lusitania[2]	Cunard Line	1906, June 7	1907, September 7	Sank after being torpedeod, 7 May 1915
	RMS Mauretania[2]	Cunard Line	1906, September 20	1907, November 16	Scrapped 1935
	RMS Olympic[d][2]	White Star Line	1910, October 20	1911, June 14	Scrapped 1935
	RMS Titanic[d][2]	White Star Line	1911, May 31	1912, April 10	Sank after hitting an iceberg, 15 April 1912
	SS France[2]	Compagnie Générale Transatlantique	1910, September 10	1912, April 20	Scrapped 1935
	RMS Aquitania[2]	Cunard Line	1913, April 21	1914, May 30	Scrapped 1950
	HMHS Britannic[d][2]	White Star Line	1914, February 26	1915, December 23	Sank after striking a mine, 21 November 1916
	RMS Arundel Castle[c][2]	Union-Castle Line	1919, September 11	1921, April 22	Scrapped 1959
	RMS Windsor Castle[c][2]	Union-Castle Line	1921, March 9	1922, April 21	Sank after being torpedeod, 23 March 1943

Notes:

1. SS denotes 'Steamship', RMS denotes 'Royal Mail Ship', HMHS denotes 'His/Her Majesty's Hospital Ship'
2. The group Kaiser-class^[1] four funnel liners owned by North German Lloyd Lines were called the Four Flyers.^[14]
3. Originally constructed with four funnels, two were removed during later modernisation.
4. The aft funnel on each of the White Star Olympic-class liners were dummies.^[15]

Proposed four-funnel ocean liners

A 1:48 scale builders model of the proposed 1890 four-funnel ocean liner Oregon for the Guion Line. Currently on display at the Riverside Museum, Glasgow.

Oregon was a proposed four-stacker ocean liner planned by the Guion Line in 1890 but was never built. A 1:48 scale model of the ship is on display in the Riverside Museum, Glasgow.

The United States never operated any four-funnelled ocean liners in commercial service. However, in the late 1910s, William Francis Gibbs began to draft designs for new 1,000-foot liners that could reach a speed of 30 knots. Among the proposals was a pair of four-funnelled ships designed in 1919. The funnel and boiler arrangement would have been similar to the German four stackers, with the four funnels grouped in pairs with a wider gap between the second and third funnels. Possible names for the liners were the SS Boston and the SS Independence. The ships never made it past the design phase.^[16]

In the late 1920s Britain's White Star Line placed an order to the shipbuilder Harland and Wolff for Oceanic, which would have been the third ship in White Star's history to bear that name. The exact intended design of Oceanic III is unknown, although company concept renderings show it to be a three-funnelled 1,000-foot (300 m) liner. However, early plans from Harland and Wolff's archives show a design from 1927 for a four-funnelled liner almost identical to the Olympic-class, except with a more-modern cruiser stern.^[17] Construction of Oceanic III halted in mid-1929, before the onset of the Great Depression led to its cancellation.^[18]

Other four-funnel ships

The Ulster Paddle-Steamer launched at Birkenhead. Illustrated London News 1860

City of Dublin Steam Packet Company was a shipping company operating between Britain and Ireland delivering mail and passengers. Between 1860 and 1861 they introduced four advanced four funnel paddle steamers; the RMS Ulster, RMS Connaught, RMS Munster and RMS Leinster. These ships were not ocean liners, at only 1,700 tonnes, they were too small to be competitive crossing the Atlantic. They primarily operated in the Irish Sea. SS Ben-my-Chree (1875) was another Paddle-Steamer operating from the Isle of Man that was refitted from a two-stacker into a four-stacker in 1884.

Four piper is a broad term used for four-funnel destroyers in the United States Navy.

Seeandbee in August 1919.

SS Seeandbee was a four-funnel Paddle-Steamer operating from 1913 in the Great Lakes. After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 she was acquired by the United States Navy and converted into a Training Aircraft Carrier the USS Wolverine.

Fictional four-funnel ocean liners

Titan

The Titan was a four-stacker ocean liner that sinks on its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg in the novella The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility. The book is remarkable due to its numerous similarities with the Titanic disaster, which occurred 14 years after the book's publication in 1898.^[19]

SS Virginian

The film The Legend of 1900 is set onboard a four-stacker, the SS Virginian, with the story ranging decades from the golden age of ocean liners in 1900 to the ships eventual obsolescence.^[20]

Kerberos and Prometheus

These two ships are four-stacker ocean liners in 1899 (TV series). While carrying passengers across the Atlantic the Kerberos discovers her lost sister ship, the Prometheus, floating derelict.^[21]