FULL AHEAD FOR CUNARD – AFTER DIFFICULT DECADES
By Kari Reinikainen
Cunard Line is one of the best known names in shipping, yet it is only in recent years that it has started to show signs of vitality and growth. Acquired by Carnival in 1999, it introduced the 151,400 gross ton Queen Mary 2 four years later, and late this year, the 90,000 gross ton Queen Victoria will hoist its famous house flag in which a rampant golden lion holds a globe in its front paws. “The Cunard lion roars again,” says Carol Marlow, President and Managing Director of the company on 15 January at the naming ceremony of the new ship.
She says that passengers who book a cruise with Cunard are mainly aged 45 or above. Many, she points out, have travelled extensively and they come mainly from the UK and North America, but also from the Far East and Australia. They are looking for a genuine experience based on the line’s long history that links its name with the rich and famous, but obviously with all modern comforts. They appreciate genuine things, such as materials in the interior, and this is reflected in the décor of the ships.
Today, Cunard capitalises heavily on its Britishness, and this will continue with Queen Victoria. This is in sharp contrast with the attempts to “internationalise” the brand after the old ocean liners were phased out. In 1969, Queen Elizabeth 2 emerged originally as an attempt to propel Cunard to the “space age” and break away with everything the brand had stood for in the days of the Trans-Atlantic liners: Art Deco style interiors and often a strong feeling of continuity with ships that preceded each newcomer.
The company had been founded in 1840 by Sir Samuel Cunard (1787-1865) under the name of British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. On 4 July that year, the 1,163 gross ton wooden paddle steamer Britannia sailed from Liverpool for Halifax and Boston, to open a passenger and mail service across the North Atlantic. Initially, four such sturdy ships, whose design was based on Irish Sea packets and had no pretence to offer luxury, operated a departure once a fortnight, in both directions, year-round.
Liner trades’ decline triggered painful period
The company’s rise to prominence, and the illustrious ships it introduced, have been well documented in numerous books and on many sites on the Internet. However, its painful decline that started soon after 1958 - the peak year in Trans-Atlantic passenger travel by sea - was equally noteworthy as the glory years had been. Similarly, so is its current renaissance.
The 22,000 gross ton sister ships Saxonia, Ivernia, Sylvania and Carinthia that Cunard introduced from 1954 to 1957 were its last pure Trans-Atlantic liners. The two first-named were converted for cruising in 1963 and two years later, the company spent £1.5 million to adapt the 83,673 gross ton Queen Elizabeth for cruise service. The ship was supposed to have a good 10 years in service, when in fact, it had just three. Such was the surge of air travel, that liners that had carried half the Trans-Atlantic trade in the late 1950s, handled just 5% in the mid-1960s.
In 1958, Cunard had 12 liners in service between Europe and North America; 1969-70 was the first winter since 1839-40 when not a single liner of any company operated the route in wintertime. In 1970, the Cunard passenger fleet comprised Queen Elizabeth 2, as well as Franconia and Carmania, two ageing converted turbine steamers. As the biggest liner operator on the Atlantic, Cunard was poised to suffer most from the decline in the trade.
In the early 1960s, the company had planned a 80,000 gross ton successor for the Queen Mary, built in 1936. The new ship, dubbed the Q3 was intended to be a quadruple screw liner that would carry 2,250 passengers in three classes. Sir John Brocklebank, who had followed Colonel Percy Bates as Cunard chairman, while Q3 was on the drawing board, ordered the cancellation of the project. Instead, a smaller and more flexible design, called Q4 and which would focus heavily on cruising was introduced, namely the present day Queen Elizabeth 2.
The new ship was designed to break away from everything Cunard had stood for: the interior was space age in design, as interpreted in 1969 and even the famous black and red funnel colours were axed. Although well known designers were used at the time, the fact remains that the interiors of the ship soon started to look dated.
The “international” design trend was maintained with the two 14,000 gross ton ships, and later, a pair of 17,000 gross ton sister ships that the company introduced 1971 and 1976 respectively. Small, and of high density, with interiors and layout strikingly similar to large ferries of the time, these were eclipsed by the 30,000 gross ton second generation mass market ships of the copany's competitors in the early 1980s. The Cunard ships were cardinal mistakes.
A better move was the acquisition of Norwegian America Cruises, (NAC) with Sagafjord and Vistafjord, two 24,000 gross ton top end vessels in 1983. They were followed by the two 4,000gross ton Sea Goddess ships two years later, and finally, in the 1990s, by Royal Viking Sun, a 37,000 gross ton luxury ship built in 1988. In 1993, the company teamed up with EffJohn International, the now extinct Finnish company, to form Cunard Crown Cruises to pool the two 17,000gross ton sister ships with three of its partner's vessels of roughly the same size. The venture would end only a few years later, due to EffJohn’s financial trouble, making it another of Cunard’s bad moves.
When Cunard Countess and Cunard Princess, the 17,000 gross ton sisters, entered service, some observers noted that these might be the last ever deep sea passenger vessels to be built. Cunard’s own top brass of the time contributed to such boldly visionary statements a few years later by noting that the US cruise market can absorb one 30,000 gross ton newbuilding per year.
“Brand builder” Carnival steered Cunard towards its origins
By the late 1990s, Cunard remained a well-known name, buts its brand was blurred due to its involvement in both the luxury and the mass market segments. To make things worse, it decided to run NAC as Cunard NAC, which added to the confusion as to what Cunard exactly stood for.
Cunard had been owned by Trafalgar House since 1971, whose financial performance by the early 1990s perfectly justified its name: it was the Battle of Trafalgar seen from the French side. A collection of companies with no core business, Trafalgar sold off Cunard’s cargo shipping interests and the rumoured Q5 ocean liner remained just a rumour.
If Cunard had lacked direction under Trafalgar, it went adrift under Kvaerner, which had acquired Trafalgar in 1996, and was only keen to get rid of the cruise venture. Carnival Corp bought it three years later and quickly put it on a firm course to recovery. The introduction of a favourable tax regime for shipping in 2000 prompted the reflagging of Caronia (ex Vistafjord) from the Bahamas to the UK, and the path was then clear to start rebuilding the company as a British brand.
Today, only Queen Elizabeth 2 and Queen Mary 2 fly the famous golden lion houseflag. However, for the first time since the mid-1950s, the company has a clear mission: it is a premium market brand that operates large vessels, and which is unashamedly British in its appeal. With what is now Carnival Corp & PLC as its owner, the financial backing is there to develop and grow Cunard further.
On 15 January, the comeback of Cunard Line took a another step forward as Queen Victoria was named at the Fincantieri Monfalcone shipyard. Howard S. Frank, COO of Carnival Corp & PLC, has described the group as “brand builders, not brand destroyers.” He has forecast that in years to come, Cunard could add one Queen Victoria-type vessel every three years or so. Cunard Line is the only global one of all the 12 Carnival brands. Cunard does business in the UK, Continental Europe and North America, as well as the Far East and Australia. The newbuildings would allow it to capitalise on its strong name in all these markets.
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