Lusitania Facts and Firsts

• Lusitania’s Parsons turbine engines were 25 feet long with 12 ft diameter rotors.
• Lusitania’s counter-balanced rudder weighed 56 tons.
• The rudder machinery was built by Brown Brothers, Edinburgh. A main steering engine drove the rudder through worm gear and clutch operating on a toothed quadrant rack. A reserve engine, for emergencies, operated separately on the rack through a chain drive.
• The ship’s stockless bower anchors weighed 10 1/4 tons, made by N. Hingley and Sons, Ltd.
• The anchor chains weighed 125 tons and were 330 fathoms long, made by N. Hingley and Sons, Ltd.
• The capstans were steam powered and made by Napier brothers Ltd, Glasgow.

Lusitania Firsts:

• First British four-stacker.
• First four-stacker with evenly spaced funnels.  (although the space between funnels 2 and 3 was actually four feet wider than the spaces between the other funnels)
• First ship larger than 30,000 gross tons.
• First ship to cross the Atlantic in under five days.
• First quadruple-screw speed record-breaker.
• First turbine-driven speed record-breaker
• First ship wider than the Great Eastern (1858).