You might expect that gargantuan ships like the RMS Queen Mary are so large that even in rough
seas, the voyage would be relatively smooth, but that was not always the case with this ship. The
Queen Mary has a length of 1,019 feet or roughly 310 meters, and a width of 118 feet which is about
36 meters, and was 81,237 gross register tons. To put that into a comparison most people might
understand, she exceeded the length of Titanic by 137 feet and was nearly twice the tonnage.
This might lead to a false sense that the Mary would be more steady out at sea and therefore
more comfortable, but soon after the days of her maiden voyage, it became apparent there was
something very wrong with the ship...earning her the dreaded nickname “The Rolling Mary”.
In the year 1930, the engineers of John Brown Shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland had finalized
the design of the ship and had moved on to constructing large, scale models of it in order
to test their engineering in various conditions. Some of these models were 5 meters long and were
self-powered with working propellers. Over 8,000 tests were conducted in large wave
tanks designed to simulate the varied weather of the Atlantic. Engineers had been confident that
the ship would be among the steadiest ever built. The Queen Mary’s curse was rooted in the fact that
her metacentric height was slightly higher than she was designed for. For stability, all ships
have to have a certain weight distribution between the bottom of the ship and the top.
For every ton of weight added to the upper decks, a ship must have a counterweight at the bottom.
Now, all ships roll with the sea, but the steadiness of the rolling can be more carefully
managed with the right weight distribution. Too much on top and the ship will take too
long to recover from a roll, and it might even capsize. On the other hand, too much
weight on the bottom and a ship will recover from a roll too quickly, meaning that anything
that isn’t bolted down could be catapulted around. So a delicate balance is crucial.
Originally, RMS Queen Mary was designed to hold a total of 27 double-ended scotch boilers,
three of which were specifically dedicated to the ship’s passenger accommodations.
But during construction, Cunard had decided they wanted to replace the other 24 with Yarrow boilers
instead. The Yarrow boilers that went into the ship were more fuel-efficient than scotch boilers,
however, the Yarrow boilers weighed slightly less. The engineers knew the ship would behave
differently than expected in rough weather, but they assumed the difference would be
imperceptible to the average passenger. Those assumptions would eventually be proven wrong.
Prior to the Queen Mary’s maiden voyage, she had undergone sea trials in 1936,
pushing her engines to their limit and testing her maneuvering capabilities.
The weather during these 4 days of trials was relatively mild
and therefore any discrepancies in the ship’s predicted pitch and roll,
were not apparent. Newly constructed ships are on a strict deadline for being put into service,
it’s unreasonable to expect a ship to wait for stormy weather just to see how it would behave,
especially since such weather almost always results in some kind of mild or extensive damage.
And so, the ship passed her sea trials after an exceptional performance.
Her first few voyages had been quite comfortable, but the ship’s master Commodore Edgar Britten had
noted that it didn’t take much for the ship to roll. Again, all ship’s roll, the real test of
a ship is just how gentle or violent that movement can be. Generally speaking, the larger the ship,
the more force it takes to roll it. But the Queen was slightly more sensitive to the ocean swells
and winds than was expected. To make up for this the Queen often took on extra ballast.
In July of 1936, just two months after her maiden voyage,
the Queen Mary had traveled through a rather nasty North Atlantic storm, and for the first time,
the crew really began to see just how extensive her rolling could get. The Mary’s behavior was
not at all snappy, instead, she slowly moved this way and that, but the concern lay in
the fact that she adopted a more extreme angle than was expected for the weather she was in.
Later that year in October the ship ran into a 90 mile per hour gale that greatly concerned
Commodore Britten, the ship was still new, and she had yet been tested in such weather.
He stayed on the bridge throughout the storm for three days straight. By the time the Mary
arrived in Southampton 13 passengers had to be taken to hospital for their injuries.
And a month later in November, the ship hit an even worse storm, pitching and rolling violently,
passengers lost their footing on the various staircases and large open areas. Upon arrival
at port over 20 passengers were taken to the hospital. Among them was J.P. Morgan Jr. a wealthy
American financier. He wrote to Cunard suggesting the ship have ropes installed during rough seas
so passengers had something to hold on to. Cunard immediately put the Queen Mary into dry dock,
installing over 20 miles of Bakelite handrails down her various corridors and passages.
For large open rooms, brass notches were installed in the walls and pillars
to allow ropes to be tied. However, these additions weren’t much help in heavy seas,
passengers still couldn’t maintain footing and on the rougher voyages, the passengers
would have to be confined to their staterooms, having food and other services brought to them.
One of the most dangerous places to be on the ship during a harsh Atlantic storm was the 3rd
class staircase. You can see from the model that the bow of the ship has a tendency to bounce.
In the 50 foot swells of the Atlantic, people in the forward areas could rise and fall rapidly.
Those on the 3rd class staircase would often lose their footing and take a tumble.
This has resulted in at least two deaths during the Queen Mary’s years of service,
although only one of those two deaths was confirmed to be here on this particular staircase.
It may not have taken much to get the Mary moving, however, she was quite a stable ship,
this was proven when in December of 1942, just two years into her troop-carrying days of the second
world war. She was transporting 11,339 GI’s while plowing through nearly 60 foot swells.
It would have been a fantastic sight because the great ship sliced through the water with such
determination and ferocity. Suddenly, the Queen plunged into a deep trough and was then broadsided
by a 90-foot rogue wave. When it slammed against the side of her hull, she rolled approximately 52
degrees off verticle. The wave had punched open portholes along the side of the hull,
washing the men into the hallways and corridors. Some of the lifeboats were knocked loose,
and the windows up on the bridge had been smashed in. With the incredible strength of her rudder and
the force of her four mighty propellers, the Queen of the Sea slowly righted herself and pressed on
through the storm. An untold number of people had either been injured, killed or lost to the sea.
The men aboard had assumed the ship was hit with a torpedo, but they were soon assured the danger was over.
What they didn’t know was that if the ship had continued to roll another 3 degrees, she would
have certainly capsized, killing everyone aboard. This event would later become the inspiration for
Paul Gallico’s The Poseidon Adventure, which was then adapted into the successful 1972 film.
If there had ever been a fear that the ship wouldn’t be able to handle the rough weather
she was originally built for, then those fears were put to rest that day, for she had survived
the worst that the sea could throw at her. After the war, the Queen Mary had a good
reputation for being a strong and powerful ship, people ultimately felt safe aboard her decks,
and rightfully so. But even still, she was plagued with her frequent rolling. It was once said by a
ship’s officer that a strong breeze would cause the ship to roll the milk out of a cup of tea.
In 1958, the ship was given an extensive dry-docking to install stabilizers.
These were a set of 4 retractable fins made of steel that could be pushed out
and rotated in order to steady the ship, much like the wings on an airplane. Although the technology
was still somewhat primitive, the way it worked was that during rough seas, or heavy winds,
a built in gyroscope adjusted the positioning of the fins as the ship attempted to pitch or roll,
in order to keep her as steady as possible. These fins were quite useful in manageable weather,
allowing the Queen to stay upright even when encountering large swells, but they were somewhat
fragile in the event of a dangerous gale. I will share now the incredible story of
what it was like to work on the Queen Mary in rough seas. These events were originally
told by Ralph Rushton, a former restaurant server aboard the ship in the early 1960’s:
“We were on the way to Southampton from New York and we hit heavy seas.
They were pretty bad. Now, this was after we already had the stabilizers put on.
Now, when the seas are too rough, they can’t use the stabilizers, they had to put them in,
and...the ship really rolled. It was so bad we had to put ropes going through the dining room,
so when the passengers came in, they had something to hang on to, to get to the tables.
As you know, all the tables are fixed to the floor, the chairs were hooked to the floor with
ropes so you could still pull them out and push them back in. We had to pull up the wall edge on
the tables, you know, they go up and nothing can slide off the table then. So all that is done,
the passengers are all sitting down, and it was all still silver service, so we
all had to serve the same as we normally serve. So we went out of the galley, we get the stuff,
and I had a big tray piled up with it all on silver platters. So I went to the dumbwaiter and I
took off the plates and was putting them down in front of the people. Then I went back to
the dumbwaiter to get the food off of the tray and my tray was gone, I thought somebody was
playing a joke on me! And then I hear banging and crashing and I looked around. What had happened
was the tray had slid off, it was on the floor and there was food, soup, everything swishing about
as the ship rolled! What a mess it was! So later the passengers were sent back
to their rooms to be served sandwiches, and meanwhile, we got changed, put on knee pads,
and got buckets with soapy water and brushes. We entered the dining room and it was so dangerous!
You know, you’re hanging onto chairs and tables and you get down to scrubbing,
you turn around and your bucket of water is gone, so it was just impossible!
So then they said we have to do something about the lounge, so we go upstairs to the lounge,
we opened the door and looked in and said no way, we’re not going in there!
The Grand Piano had broke free and as the ship rolled it was going to
that side and back to the other, and on its way, it was smashing...everything!
So we said no way can we get in there and stop that, it’s too dangerous. So they just locked the
door and left it till the seas had calmed down. And when the seas had calmed down the next day or
so, we opened the doors up...you wouldn’t believe it, there wasn’t a stick of furniture left it was
all broke up to the size of a matchstick and even the paneling on the walls were smashed to pieces!
Now when we arrived in Southampton we were laid up for about a week
and during that time the workers came on board, they cleaned the lounge out,
and believe it or not, when we sailed again...the lounge was back to the original.”
When the Queen Mary was sold to the City of Long Beach, California in 1967,
she was taken to a nearby US navy dry dock to have her hull inspected,
repaired, and repainted before she was to be converted to a floating hotel.
Her stabilizer fins were removed and patched over with new steel plates.
On the bridge, the stabilizer console was gutted, leaving behind the cabinet that housed it.
It’s amazing to think that the designers of the ship could never have known just how badly the
Queen Mary would roll in rough seas, nor could they have predicted her grim nickname. And how
could they? Cunard requested different boilers long after construction had already been underway.
An alteration so simple had a profound effect on the first two decades of the ship’s life.
Though it must be said, when the swells of the sea were relatively mild,
the RMS Queen Mary was a gentle giant. But she was not perfect. And as we peer at this
gargantuan palace floating in the calm harbor of Long Beach, it’s difficult to imagine the injury,
death, and destruction that took place aboard...The Rolling Mary.
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