Funnels

[Daniel Odysseus]

The Lusitania had funnels painted in "Cunard Red" if I'm not mistaking, at the beginning of her career. My friend loaned me her "Art of Ken Marschall" book, which is really good.

Anyway, I looked at the picutres of the Lusitania, and I noticed that right before she left on her final voyage, the Lusitania had her smokestacks painted a charcoal gray. This is strange since she was still in Cunard service.

I talked to the friend who loaned me the book (she knows a good deal about the Lusitania) and the only possible explanation to the change in color is that possibly Cunard was trying to camoflauge the ship (the red funnels stand out a lot). Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks,
-D.O.

 

[Zack Schwarz]

Hello,
Eric Sauder wrote a very interesting article discussing this. It can be found on http://lusitania.marconigraph.com/.

Zack

[Moderator's Note: Link updated 10 November 2005. MAB]

 

[Bill Sauder]

Dan:

Everybody says "Cunard Red" but the color was (and is) in fact orange.

Eric is off on vacation right now but thanks to Zack for mentioning the article.

Bill Sauder

 

[Daniel Odysseus]

Thank you; the article proved very helpful. Also, does anyone know of any good Lusitania webpages?

 

[Nigel Bryant]

Dear Daniel,

Here are some useful ones:

PBS Online - Lost Liners - Lusitania

Home Page

Lusitania

TGOL - Lusitania

A detailed career description of the Cunard liner Lusitania from 1907.

web.archive.org

RMS Lusitania - LostLiners.com

All of these sites show great photographs of the Luistania and the writeups are first-class.

All the best,

Nigel

 

[Daniel Odysseus]

thanks; the sites really helped; all of them.

 

[Lindsay Hymas]

I just had a question about the funnels. Were they like the Titanic, being that one was faulty? Or were they all working?

Lindsay

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Each of the Lusitania's funnels was directly over a Boiler Room. With Titanic each of the forward 3 funnels serviced 2 Boiler Rooms, with the after [4th or dummy] funnel serving as an uptake from the Galley.

 

[John Zoppina]

Yes, all 4 of Lusi's worked.

If I may ask what you mean by faulty...? There wasn't a fault with Titanic's 4th funnel, it just didn't operate like the rest.

-John

 

[Lindsay Hymas]

John,
Sorry, I meant dummy, not faulty . Thanks for the answer.

Lindsay

 

[John Zoppina]

> No problem Lindsay, sorry for misunderstanding

 

[Mindy Deckard]

Sorry to get back to the color thing but I think Diana Preston said something about the coloration in her book about the Lusitania.

I don't know the exact quote but she did mention that many of the transatlantic ships painted over their gold names with black and repainted distinguishing features from their ships so they could be less detectable.

Many also raised neutral country flags to ward off Imperial Germany. However, Germany caught on to this and actually began to sink neutral country's ships.

 

[Mindy Deckard]

Furthermore, Ken Marschall's painting of the Lusitania entitled "Death of the Innocents" shows the painted over funnels and distinguishing marks.

www.transatlanticdesigns.com