Rich

[ 06-04-2010: Message edited by: joe at travelpage ]

Rich

[ 06-04-2010: Message edited by: joe at travelpage ]

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Originally posted by NAL:
Wonderful photos, Rich. I have seen another on board shot similar to yours with the Normandie doing a heavy, starboard roll.....almost alarmingly so. We forget how effectively modern stabilizers work to reduce roll. Thanks for sharing, Rich. Any additional ones would be greatly appreciated.

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I can only assume it was common and expected in those days. Modern cargo ships still roll extensively, and Queen Mary's roll was actually so bad that it was the muse for The Poseidon Adventure. Like QM, Normandie would have most likely had stabilizers fitted in the late '50s had she survived.

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Originally posted by Lubber:
Assuming Normandie would have been retired and scrapped in the late '60s, I also get the impression that the French Line would have also shut down at that point. There wouldn't have been a France, so QE2 as we know it would have been very different. No France means no Norway, so unless there was a different catalyst to bring about the megaships of today, the cruise industry would be very different. It's amazing how such a short-lived liner could make such a difference.

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If Le Normandie survived, she would have gone through a refit similar to Elizabeth 1940 with full air conditioning and private facilities in all of the tourist cabins. Through wear and tear the custom carpets and needle-point upholstery would have been replaced with less expensive stuff. Since 20's Art Deco was out of fashion in the 1950's she may have lost her priceless interiors.

I believe Le Normandie would have had the same liabilities in the half time cruise market, Mary, Lizzie, Mike, and Ralph would have had: too deep draft, too fuel hungry, and hard to fill. Those were the days before onboard revenue was the profit center.

I do agree about QE2 being different; maybe smaller when there were 3 80k tonner ships underemployed.

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Originally posted by desirod7:

If Le Normandie survived, she would have gone through a refit similar to Elizabeth 1940 with full air conditioning and private facilities in all of the tourist cabins.

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Absolutely. In fact, I could see Normandie getting full A/C right after WWII to make tourist class more attractive.

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Through wear and tear the custom carpets and needle-point upholstery would have been replaced with less expensive stuff. Since 20's Art Deco was out of fashion in the 1950's she may have lost her priceless interiors.

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Point taken, but I think Normandie's arc of investment and disinvestment would have mirrored QE2's more closely than Mary/Lizzie.

Algerian independence from France was a mutually painful, slow-motion process in the late '50s. Charles de Gaulle knew it was inevitable but politically costly, which is why he consolidated the two liners that were to replace Ile de France and Liberté into one grand ship of state to replace Normandie and, effectively, Algeria.

That basically indicates to me that Normandie would have been doted on in the late '50s and early '60s, much like QE2 in her later years and most likely with a "gut remodel" refit. Those legendary Deco interiors would be gone, but CGT would have spared no expense on the refit. Lots of murals like on the France, etc.

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I believe Le Normandie would have had the same liabilities in the half time cruise market, Mary, Lizzie, Mike, and Ralph would have had: too deep draft, too fuel hungry, and hard to fill. Those were the days before onboard revenue was the profit center.

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CGT was able to run the Flandre and France on transatlantic runs through the early '60s, so they may have kept the Normandie almost exclusively transat, then dispatched her on an "au revoir" world cruise or two in the mid-'60s before finally shuffling her off this mortal coil to make way for subsidizing Concorde.

QE2 would have probably resembled Canberra.

I saw the panels too. It's funny; en route to the Guggenheim I saw an old chair tossed out on the street for trash pickup that looked like it could have been a Normandie chair-- Normandie's fittings supposedly stayed in NYC after the capsize and found their way into various Upper East Side hotels. Thankfully, the chair was missing when I came back an hour later.