The Cunarders

THE MOST FAMOUS OCEAN LINERS IN THE WORLD

Cunard Line Ltd, Liverpool (Est. 1840)

(Website Est. 2005)

RETURN TO THE HOMEPAGE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   THE CUNARDERS

The Cunard Experience:

Cunard Line - QE2 and Caronia (late 1990s)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8naEzhli84

Experience Cunard Line video clip (2004)
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Introduction

Welcome to our "The Cunarders" website celebrating the great ships of Cunard Line.  The Cunard Line was founded in 1840 by Sir Samuel Cunard and has become one of the most famous British shipping lines and its ships still sail its traditional transatlantic route today in the 21st century thus enabling passengers to continue to enjoy and relive the history and traditions from the Golden Age of Ocean Travel. 

Cunard Line over the years has produced some of Britain's greatest ocean liners and is closely associated with many great ships such as Mauretania, Lusitania, Aquitania, Caronia and of course the legendary Cunard Queens. Many of its ships have given sterling service through war and peace. But not to be forgotten is the Carpathia and her epic role in the rescuing of the survivors from the ill fated Titanic. As a result her story lives on and she has become a legend. Today the Carpathia and her story is forever intertwined with that of the Titanic and her tragic sinking on her maiden voyage in the early hours of the 15th April 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. 

This renowned shipping line has long been associated with the transatlantic route to New York and from 1911 the Dominion route to Canada. Cunard Line reached its centenary in 1940. It intended to celebrate this with the launch of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth on the two ship weekly transatlantic service from 1940 but sadly the Second World War intervened and this was not realised until 1947. Due to the war there were no celebrations to mark Cunard Line's centenary. In 1965 Cunard Line celebrated its 125th Anniversary. Indeed with its long and illustrious history, it is fitting that Cunard Line has for many years celebrated its inspiring, legendary and illustrious past and promoted the remarkable fact that it has "The Most Famous Ocean Liners in the World".


In recent years there have been many ownership changes to Cunard Line. In 1971 it was bought by Trafalgar House Investments Ltd, a company with interests in property, civil engineering, hotel ownership, house building and investments. In 1990 Cunard Line celebrated its 150th Anniversary. In 1996 Cunard was acquired by the Norwegian company, Knaevner. Finally in 1998 it was bought by Carnival Corporation, the American cruise giant set up by Ted Arison. In 2003 Carnival Corporation merged with the British cruise giant, P&O Princess Cruises PLC, to form a dual listed company as Carnival Corporation and PLC headquartered in both London and Miami. This merger created the largest cruise company in the world.
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Today the line is part of the Carnival Corporation & PLC cruise empire and is now enjoying renewed success and is entering a new Golden Age with a new pair of Cunard Queens gracing the world's oceans in the form of the famous RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 and the new RMS Queen Mary 2. In 2007 history was made when these legendary ships were joined by another Queen - the Queen Victoria - giving Cunard Line for the first time ever a trio of Cunard Queens.

In 2008 the legendary QE2 was retired from service and sailed off into preservation in Dubai as a hotel, restaurant and entertainment complex. In 2010 the new Queen Elizabeth entered service and once again brought the fleet back up to a trio of Cunard Queens once again and thus the Golden Age continues. Today the fleet is one of the youngest in the cruise industry and comprises the Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth. In 2015, Cunard Line will celebrate its 175th Anniversary and its legacy and tradtions will continue into the future.

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Photo: The RMS Queen Mary 2, the flagship of Cunard Line, sails majestically out of New York at the start of another transatlantic crossing bound for Southampton. Today the Queen Mary 2 and her new fleetmates Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth continue the glorious traditions of Cunard Line into a New Golden Age of Ocean Travel in the 21st century.




Throughout the website any links to external websites will open up in a new window. When this happens you will be leaving the Cunarders website. So when you leave this website we hope you have enjoyed your visit to us today and will return again soon.

If you have any comments about this website please feel free to contact me, Alex Naughton, via e-mail at:

ships@thecunarders.co.uk
This Website is developed using historical information researched from a wide variety of sources, including books, magazines and websites etc too numerous to mention or credit individually. Main sources include Simplon Postcards, Reuben Goossen's SS Maritime, Maritime Matters, Shipping Companies and the author's own collections. We are most grateful to them for giving us permission to use their collections on our website. While we try our very best to ensure that any apparent "copyrights" are not breached, due to limited time and resources we cannot always guarantee that inadvertently mistakes may occur. But should such inadvertent mistakes come to light we will do our best to cooperate.

This website does not intend to infringe any copyright and all reasonable steps are taken to ensure this to the best of our ability with limited resources. It is believed that all the information contained in this website, apart from those articles written by the author, are freely available within the public domain (on websites and in other media) or freely given for use on this website. All information on this website is purely intended to help promote the story of Cunard Line and its ocean liners and cruise liners to a wider audience and to maritime enthusiasts and is entirely not-for-profit and is not intended for commercial gain. We warmly welcome any donations of photographs or information to this website on the basis that no financial reward is asked for or given as this website is purely for charitable not-for-profit purposes. If you have any comments or wish anything removed from or added to the website then please contact ships@thecunarders.co.uk and we will be delighted to oblige where appropriate.

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We believe that this ship site should be kept as a reference, HistoryX in 2024