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Message: [QUOTE="Mark Baber, post: 46825, member: 79063"] [i]The New York Times, 22 September 1907[/i] [b]LUSITANIA OFF AT 22-KNOT GAIT[/b] --- Wireless Tells of First Spurt on Big Liner's Trip to Beat Queenstown Record --- CROWD GIVES HER SEND-OFF --- Senator Hale Among Her Passengers, Going Abroad for His Health---Deported Man Aboard --- By Wireless Telegraph from THE TIMES Correspondent on Board the Lusitania --- ON BOARD THE LUSITANIA, Sept. 21---At this time, 10 o'clock Saturday night, we are forty-seven miles east of Fire Island, running at 22 knots an hour. The sea is smooth and the prospect fine for a good run to-morrow. ----- The big turbine Cunarder Lusitania, homeward bound on her first return voyage, passed the Sandy Hook Lightship at 6:41 P. M. yesterday, and from that point her time will be taken as she steams across in what many believe will be a record-breaking trip. Enthusiasts estimated yesterday that she would make the run to Daunt's Rock, off Queenstown, in 4 days and 12 hours. These figures, however, are entirely unofficial, and neither the ship's commander nor Vernon H. Brown, the Cunard General Agent in New York, would give authority to them. More careful estimates show that if the Lusitania makes an average speed of 23 knots an. hour she should reach Daunt's Rock at 1:51 o'clock on the morning of Sept. 27, with a record for the trip of 5 days 3 [?] hours and 10 minutes, beating the Lucania's record, now the best for the distance, by.6 hours 28 minutes. Those who put faith in the Lusitania's ability to do better than this and wrest the records for average speed and best day's run from her German rivals point to the fact that she averaged 23.01 knots coming this way, and now her machinery has had a shaking down. Her engineers, after a careful investigation of every part of. the big turbines, have failed to discover any defects. Her bunkers are filled with picked coal, and the supply is large enough to drive her at the limit of her power during the entire voyage. Every inch of available space on the new Cunard Line pier at the foot of West Thirteenth Street was crowded when the Lusitania started on her way to Liverpool. Both adjacent piers were filled, and about 2,000 persons struggled in the street and about the narrow entrance to the pier. A great deal of confusion was avoided by the Cunard Company's order that no one would be allowed on board the liner who could not show a ticket for passage at the gangplank. Leave-taking had to be done on the pier. Before the start there was one exciting incident, which came near being serious. Shortly before she began to back out a spring line forward, and leading to the pier, broke with a loud report, and the great hull began to move slowly forward. Her bow was about fifteen feet from the stringpiece, and she covered over half of that distance when the slack in the stern lines was taken up and she carne to a standstill. The two gangplanks from the pier through the side of the vessel were hurled forward with the lurch of the Lusitania, and men had to hurry forward to remove the small platforms on which their shore ends rested. As soon as the liner began to go forward the Pier Superintendent shouted to the few gathered near the top of the planks to get back into the steamer, and they lost no time in obeying, though they did not then understand what it was all about. The next second she came to a standstill, and it was over before much excitement was aroused. The Lusitania was scheduled to sail at 3 P. M., but it was forty minutes after the hour before the last line was cast off. As she moved out into the river American and British flags appeared on the pier and along the vessel's rail, and cheer after cheer went up. There was a throng along the water front and the sea wall at the Battery to view her as she passed out into the bay. There was very little saluting by river craft, and only once did the Lusitania give voice. That was when her siren snarled a warning to a ferryboat to keep out of her course. Edward Young, the pilot who took the vessel through the Ambrose Channel has been studying that fairway most of the week. Mr. Brown, J. H. Walker, assistant to the General Manager, Capt. Irvine of the Cunarder Pannonia, Capt. Turner of the Caronia, and Capt. Haddock of the White Star liner Oceanic went down through the new channel on the Lusitania. They were taken off in a tug after seeing the ship piloted through in safety. While preparations for the start were being made some well known men interested in steamship affairs were taken aboard. J. P. Morgan, Ernest Cunard, Director of the Cunard Company, Mr. Brown, and Senator Hale took luncheon as the guests of Capt. Watt. Senator Hale is going abroad in search of health. He said that he had not been feeling up to the mark lately, and wanted a change of stir and scene. The Senator is Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, and it Is said that he is not in favor of sending the fleet to the Pacific, but of this he would not talk. One passenger on the Lusitania who attracted much attention was Maung Myo, a Burmese, who came here to acquire a commercial education. He wore a native costume. Myo has been a student of the Y. M. C. A., Eighty-sixth Street branch. Just at the last minute Miss Delia Judge came hurrying on board to engage passage. She Is a sister of Police Lieutenant William P. Judge of the Union Market Station, and lives at 246 Sixty-seventh Street, Bay Ridge. This morning Miss Judge received a cable dispatch announcing that her mother, Mrs. Frances Judge, was dying in her home, County Mayo, Ireland. Down in the hospital of the liner there was a sad scene just before she sailed. Mrs. Gertrude Eversfield, an Englishwoman who had arrived a few weeks ago, had to return with her ten-year-old son Charles, who was ordered deported because of trachoma. She bade farewell in the ship's hospital to her daughter and another son, who also came over with her and who were allowed to land. The family came over to join the husband and father, who lives in Washington, Penn. The father will soon become a citizen of the country, and were he one already the boy could not be deported. Friends petitioned the immigration authorities to allow the boy to land, but there was no appeal from the medical certificate, and so the family had to separate. The honor of being deported on the biggest vessel afloat fell to the lot of John Walker, an Englishman. He was sent home on the ground that he was addicted to the chronic use of alcohol. A number of passengers who came over on the Lusitana [sic] returned on her. Most of them were steamship men, engineers, and newspaper men, whose object in coming was to study and report the working of the big liner. -30- [/QUOTE]

Verification: In which year did the Titanic sail?