The New Cunard Queens

Until the dawn of the jet age, there was no better way to cross the Atlantic than aboard one of the Cunard Queens — ocean liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.

Sea travel remains a romantic way to travel, although the cruise ship has replaced the liner.

Yet as “The New Cunard Queens,” by Nils Schwerdtner shows, the ocean liner still exists.

This book tells the story of Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2, Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria is a cruise ship, but the QE2 and QM2 are ocean liners — ships intended to move people from one port to another on a regular schedule.

Galveston, one of the Gulf’s biggest cruise ship ports, knows cruise ships. An ocean liner is a different beast, as Schwerdtner makes clear.

Cruise ships are the destination and ply tranquil seas. Ocean liners follow schedules. They confront storms; they have reserve speed to make up lost time. They do this while maintaining the same level of luxury and comfort as a cruise ship.

When Cunard brought Queen Elizabeth 2 into service, in 1969, the ocean liner seemed anachronistic. In the intervening years, every other shipping line converted their liners into cruise ships.

Yet QE2 proved so successful that Cunard chose to build a second liner to carry on its tradition of unparalleled luxury in ocean transportation.

Its 21st century liner, the Queen Mary 2 is a ship of superlatives. It was the largest and most expensive liner ever built, and one of the fastest.

Nils Schwerdtner shows how Cunard succeeded where everyone else failed. While his book was written with the cooperation of Cunard, it gives a balanced picture, presenting both the successes and failures along the way.

Schwerdtner provides a history of Cunard, which discusses the original Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. He also examining the construction of the new ships and the changes they have experienced.

Lavishly illustrated, with descriptions shipboard life and interviews with captains, “The New Cunard Queens is a delight. Schwerdtner also inserts interesting sidelights, including a chapter on Hamburg’s love affair with the QE2 and a profile of Beatrice Muller, who chose to live permanently on the QE2.

If you cannot book passage on a liner, but always hankered to, take passage on “The New Cunard Queens,” instead. It captures the glitter, fun and luxury of an ocean passage on this most romantic of transportation.

“The New Cunard Queens,” by Nils Schwerdtner, United States Naval Institute Press, 192 pages, $54.95

Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, amateur historian and model-maker, lives in League City.