Finally there was the matter of compartmentalization. Most ships of the time could remain afloat with as many as two compartments open to the sea; more meant serious danger. Gibbs told Buermann and Forrest that 12201 should be a “five compartment” ship, meaning that with as many as five of twenty watertight compartments flooded, the ship would remain afloat and stable. This far exceeded the standard he set with the construction of Malolo in 1927, which had survived a catastrophic impact comparable to the one that sent Titanic to the bottom. Not only that, but the fuel and ballast tanks on Gibbs’s superliner created a double skin that extended high up the sides of the ship, protecting her from sinking after grounding or colliding with another ship. As an additional safety measure, the ship would have two separate engine rooms. If one was hit by a torpedo, the ship would still be able to sail under her own steam.
The end result of all the work was a rakish, sleek superliner nearly 1,000 feet long but displacing only 45,400 tons of water. By comparison, Queen Mary, just 30 feet longer and 17 feet wider, displaced nearly twice the amount of water, 77,400 tons.22 This would give Design 12201 a speed advantage over the older British ship, even if her engines did not.
But on the other side of the drafting room floor, the Engine Department was already designing a power plant that would provide all the speed the boss wanted. Presiding over the effort was department chief Walter Bachman, whom Gibbs called “the greatest marine engineer in the world.” Bachman knew that Forrest and Buermann’s narrow hull design, while offering important advantages, would also pose problems for engine design. Torque caused by the propellers had sometimes led to an almost unbearable shaking in the stern section. Normandie had one of many bad cases of seagoing St. Vitus’ dance. For Design 12201, Bachman and his engineers planned on four steam turbines, producing as much as 60,000 horsepower per propeller shaft, all of which would be handled by four sets of double-reduction gears. Because the American high-pressure, high-temperature turbines were smaller and more efficient than earlier engines, they could easily be placed inside Design 12201’s narrow hull, where they could operate with minimal vibration. After years of seeing the engines perform superbly in the Navy destroyers he had designed, Gibbs was certain the technology was safe. Gibbs and Bachman fervently believed the American turbines could easily outperform Queen Mary’s four British Parsons turbines, which when connected to propellers by double-reduction gears, produced about 158,000 horsepower at full throttle. So for Design 12201, the Engine Department confidently mocked up an array of American-built steam turbines in the model shop.
By the end of the week, the Gibbs & Cox marine engineers gave William Francis what they had produced. The preliminary design showed the ship having a sea speed of 34 knots—unprecedented in liner history. The engines would produce a normal power of 200,000 shaft horsepower (total horsepower delivered to all four propeller shafts) and a maximum shaft horsepower of 240,000. Because of the high-temperature, high-pressure steam technology, the power plant was extremely compact. The four turbines and eight boilers could fit into the space reserved for Leviathan’s boilers alone, while producing nearly three times more power than the older ship.23 Thus, even with a slimmer hull, vast amounts of space would be freed up for cargo, fuel, and passenger amenities. And Gibbs’s smaller, more lightweight ship was projected to be able to carry almost as many passengers as the larger Queen s—about two thousand in three classes.
The Gibbs brothers knew that General Franklin was on record as a supporter of moderate-sized liners only, and was also very conservative with his company’s money. Their initial projections were that their Design 12201 would cost $50 million to build, $11 million more than Bates’s Design IV. The brothers needed to sell this bigger, more expensive ship, so they decided to first present their company’s moderate-sized Design 11811. Its advances over United States Lines’ America would underline Gibbs & Cox’s leadership in naval architecture. Then, if Franklin gave them an opening, they would bring forward Design 12201—the thousand-foot-long ship.
With the initial proposal complete, William Francis prepared his sales pitch for General John Franklin, and in February 1946, he decided to make a lunch date with the United States Lines president at the Broad Street Club in lower Manhattan. The timing was critical—his enemy Admiral Land had resigned as chair of the Maritime Commission only a few weeks earlier, and William Francis Gibbs, ever the opportunist, saw a rare chance to make his case.
17. PRIMACY ON THE SEAS
On February 6, 1946, General Franklin and the Gibbs brothers met for lunch at the Broad Street Club. Below the windows of the swank interior, tugboats, freighters, and ferries glided across the shimmering expanse of New York harbor. Nine months after V-E Day, troopships packed with soldiers were also on the water, as millions of American troops continued to trickle home. “Welcome Home!” banners on the pier heads greeted the ships as they pulled into berths on the Hudson River, and the bellow of ships’ whistles met the cheers of waiting families.
The most famous of the troopships was due into New York once more in just a few days: the great British ocean liner Queen Mary. “At a speed never before realized in war,” Winston Churchill wrote, “they carried over a million men to defend the liberties of civilization.” Now ships as well as people were returning to peace. The troops on board no longer lay awake at night worrying about attacks from submarines and Luftwaffe bombers. Nor did they dread the upcoming combat they knew they would face on the beaches of Normandy. As of early 1946, Queen Elizabeth had just been released from military duty and returned to the Cunard Line to finally be completed as a luxury passenger ship. Queen Mary and other liners would soon follow her.
William Francis knew that in the coming months, workers would swarm aboard the European ships that survived the war, reinstalling furnishings and artwork long languishing in storage, tuning up hard-worked turbines, and sanding soldier graffiti from decks and railings. Hulls would no longer be rust-streaked wartime gray, but gleaming peacetime black and white. Funnels would again bear colorful company livery: the red and black of the French Line, the orange and black of the Cunard Line, and the red, white, and green of the Italian Line. Salons and corridors would soon again echo with music, laughter, and clinking champagne glasses, decks lined with thousands of cheering passengers.
As he sat down to lunch, William Francis Gibbs believed his dream ship would become the leading lady of the great pageant to come. The victorious United States was now the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth, and deserved a ship worthy of bearing her country’s name and colors.
Clearing the lunch table, William Francis Gibbs—whose paper-white face and patched jacket stood out in a dining room full of ruddy complexions and blue suits—solemnly presented a set of drawings and specifications. They were for Design 11811—a ship beautifully conceived for United States Lines passenger service, but not in the same league as the European giants such as Queen Mary. After taking in Frederic’s financial presentation, General Franklin seemed interested, but remained noncommittal.1
Sensing Franklin’s lack of enthusiasm, Frederic shifted tack and said that “a far faster and more outstanding ship could readily be designed.” And one that also made sense financially, Frederic added, speaking as one risk-averse man to another. The topper: “It might be that one such ship which would place the U.S. Lines in a preeminent position.”