EuropeBoard

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One of the most famous company operating in the ocean's is the 89 year old White Cunard Star. Been forced into a merger by both the British and Portuguese governments, the two companies decided to put decide their differences and together they started building new ocean liners, one of those been the N.T. Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1969.

Though both were founded as British companies in the 1800s, but the Portuguese, later Lusophone, governments, with the cooperation with the State-owned Real Companhia Portuguesa made an effort to start a venture, bringing both companies together into one, but right after the merger, it was decided to found a parent company, the Caravela Corp to manage both companies without the need of merging them even more. Since the 1970's both companies have been making money, even after older vessels were converted to atomic fuel after the Oil Crisis of 1970. This made their lifespan greater than in another time. With the addition of the infamous Titanic 2, after a rough two maiden voyages in the 1990's, the company decided to reduce their transatlantic trade to just three ships in a week basis and other starting cruises.

Though resuming the company's history just from 1935 until today is not good, so there will be three subsections, one for the Cunard Line and another for the White Star Line, from their creation to it's eventual merger in 1935 and then one for what happen from 1935 until now.

Cunard Line (1840 - 1935)

In the early 1800s, right after Napoleon's Victory over Europe and Britain's victory in North America, many immigrants decided to start leaving Europe for a new life in the new world. Sailing the North Atlantic in the early 1800s was not a pleasant voyage like it's on most voyages today. They were long voyages, and it could take months to reach it. For example, when the Portuguese Royal Family fled to Brazil it took two months to reach Salvador da Bahia: leaving Lisbon in November 1807 and reaching Brazil in January 1808. But then, ships started using steam engines, one of those been the British S.S. Savannah in 1819 when it sailed from Savannah Georgia to Lisbon.

And so, in 1839, a man in Halifax decided to open a new company to explore the idea of transatlantic crossings. Sir Samuel Cunard (1787 - 1865) managed to get a British Mail certificate to transport mail between Britain and Canada, and in 1840, the first ship, the R.M.S. Britannia started service under Cunard, which the parent company, at the time, was the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. And so, for nearly two decades, Cunard run unopposed in the Atlantic crossing, after many of it's competitors started to fail or lost a ship on the way.

The French had enter the race with the S.S. Napoleón in 1859 with routes from France to New Orleans and the French Indochina. And then, in 1870, a new company was formed in Britain to steal Cunard's Title, the White Star Line, which started navigation with the first R.M.S. Oceanic and then joined by 5 sister-ships, though the last two were slightly larger, though they were the same.

The rest of the 19th Century, with the competition at home with White Star and abroad with German, French and Portuguese vessels for dominance of the Atlantic trade. It was at the end of the 1890s that something brilliant appear: Portugal and the Germans built a new vessel which would be a revolution in the ocean travel: a larger ocean liner with 4 funnels, the N.T. Hansa (which now only has 2 funnels). Though Cunard's Campania and Lucania were fast in the Atlantic, Hansa proved that you could cross the ocean in a week, departing from Lisbon and arriving 6 days later at New York in 1898.

White Star Line had long left the business of being the fasted ship on the Atlantic Ocean and decided to put luxury and size over speed. So that left only Cunard to compete with the Europeans. And by 1903, they were already planning a new set of ships that would be larger and fastest than ever before.

With the support of the British Admiralty, in which the ships could be use for war, Cunard started building the two new ships. At this time, White Star's Big Four were the largest ships in the world, with the Adriatic, the last of the four and the largest, set to be launch in 1906. Cunard built their ships separate, not in the same yard, and let to see notable differences between these sister-ships and so, in 1906, while Adriatic was been launch in Belfast, word reach out that Adriatic would not be the largest liner, but Cunard's brand new ship, which was launch that same day, would. The ship was the R.M.S. Mauretania.

White Star Line (1870 - 1935)

White Cunard Star (1935- Present)

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Photograph	Name	Built	Built Place	Routes:
	S.S. Canberra	Original built: May 1st, 1961 Rebuilt: May 2nd, 2011	Harland and Wolff, Belfast, Kingdom of Ireland	Summer: Wellington - Lisbon via Goa Winter: Sydney - Lourenço Marques via Díli
	S.S. Carinthia	Original built: June 11th, 1925 Rebuilt: October 23rd, 2001	Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness, United Kingdoms of Portugal and Great Britain	Summer: Sydney - Mia via Los Santos Winter: Mia - Beira via Colombo
	S.S. Caronia	Original built: April 1st, 1947 Rebuilt: April 25th, 2009	John Brown and Company, Clydebank, United Kingdoms of Portugal and Great Britain	Summer: Hormuz - Eucia via Adelaide Winter: Melbourne - Nagasaki via Macau
	S.S. Laconia	Original built: April 9th, 1922 Rebuilt: November 11th, 1999	Swan Hunter, Northumberland, United Kingdoms of Portugal and Great Britain	Summer: Moçambique - Hong Kong via Goa Winter: Nagasaki - Broome via Alotau
	S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam	Original built: July 11th, 1937 Rebuilt: August 11th, 2018	N.V. Rotterdam Drydock Company, Rotterdam, The Kingdom of the Netherlands	Summer: Mia - Beira via Sydney Winter: Sydney - Goa via Singapure
	S.S. Noordam	Original built: October 1st, 1938 Rebuilt: December 9th, 2001	P. Smit Jr., Rotterdam, The Kingdom of the Netherlands	Summer: Malaca - Macau Winter: Singapure - Díli
	S.S. Oriana	Original built: January 1st, 1959 Rebuilt: February 14th, 2009	Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness, United Kingdoms of Portugal and Great Britain	Summer: Goa - Lisbon via Alexandria Winter: London - Sydney via Lisbon
	S.S. Rotterdam	Original built: July 7th, 1957 Rebuilt: August 24th, 2018	Rotterdam Drydock Company mij., Rotterdam, The Kingdom of the Netherlands	Summer: Lisbon - Wellington via Goa Winter: London - Sydney via Cidade do Cabo
	S.S. Samaria	Original built: June 5th, 1922 Rebuilt: August 1st, 2019	Cammell, Laird & Co, Birkenhead, United Kingdoms of Portugal and Great Britain	Summer: Singapure - Sydney via Díli Winter: Malaca - Paleto Bay via Port Moresby

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References:
Pictures taken in: Virtual Sailor 7
Models made by: Great Virtual Fleet
Repaint made by: The Commonwealth of Nations of NorthPortugal

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