VIVE LA FRANCE?

After four decades of service, the longest ship in the world may not last much longer.

by Tom Rinaldi

In the late 1950s, the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique-- also known as the French Line-- began drawing-up plans for a new flagship. A matter of national pride, the new ship would represent the very best France had to offer. She would be fast, though not a record breaker, and longer than any passenger ship before or since. Christened France, she was destined for not one but two legendary careers: first as one of the world's greatest oceanliners, then, re-christened Norway, as one of the most successful cruise ships in the Caribbean. Born into great fame and celebrity, the France would fall on hard times only to be resurrected and given a new lease on life. Now entering her fifth decade of service, the Norway has reached the end of that lease, and once again, the great ship faces an uncertain future.

When the France was inaugurated in 1962, she inherited the mace of one of the maritime industry's oldest and most prestigious institutions. The French Line was founded in 1855, and soon rose to become one of the most powerful companies on the Atlantic. In the 20th Century the company would commission a series of increasingly magnificent Atlantic liners, each of which became icons of French style and culture. There was the four-stacked, 23,769-ton France of 1912, whose elaborate decor earned her the nickname "Chateau of the Atlantic." Then came the 34,569-ton Paris in 1921, and then in 1926 the 44,356-ton Île de France, which would sail for over 30 years.

In 1932, at the height of the depression, the CGT launched one of the most ambitious projects in maritime history. At 83,000 tons, the Normandie would make her maiden crossing from Le Havre to New York in May of 1935 at record speed. She was the supreme expression of French artistic and technological achievement. Later surpassed in size and speed by the British Queens Mary and Elizabeth, the Normandie continued to be regarded by many as the most elegant liner afloat until the outbreak of the second World War brought her career to an untimely end.

In February of 1942 the Normandie was destroyed by fire during conversion to a troop transport. She was replaced after the war by the German Europa, passed to France by the United Nations Reparations Commission and renamed Liberté. Extensively rebuilt, the Liberté would become one of the most distinctive liners of the 1950s. With the Île de France and the smaller Flandre, she embodied all the style and flair implied by the French Line's "France Afloat" advertising campaign.

But as early as mid-decade, the CGT was already anticipating the retirement of their two largest ships. Producing a successor for such beloved and storied liners would be no easy task. One proposal was to refit the pre-war Pasteur, which had been engaged in transport service in French Indochina. Another called for two smaller replacements. But in the end the company and the French government decided on one, larger ship, which would replace both the Île and the Liberté. And so on October 7, 1957, the keel was laid for a new superliner. Few then foresaw that this would be the last of its line.

During the 1950s, the Atlantic shipping trade experienced a renaissance. But the advent of jet aircraft spelled the end of that resurgence. 1957 was also the first year during which more people crossed the Atlantic by plane than by ship. But on the stocks at Chantiers de l'Antique, where many a French flagship had been launched before, the new liner continued to take shape. On May 11, 1960, Madame de Gaulle sent the ceremonial bottle of champagne crashing into the liner's bulbous bow. Now bearing its nation's name, the hull of the liner France slid gracefully into the Loire, meeting its element for the first time.

By November of the following year the ship was ready for sea trials. Tipping the scales at 66,348 tons and reaching a maximum speed of 34.13 knots, she was neither the largest nor the fastest liner afloat. But at 1,035 feet in length, she surpassed the Queen Elizabeth by four feet, making her the world's longest passenger vessel- a title she holds to this day. All told, the France took over four years and $80 million to build, $14 million of which was financed by a government loan to the French Line. She was equipped with a 600-volume library, some 1,300 telephones and room in her holds for 94 automobiles. She could carry 1,110 crew members and 1,944 passengers (501 in first class, 1443 in tourist), and had capacity for 8,000 tons of fuel oil-- enough to fuel her 16 steam turbines from Le Havre to New York and back without refueling.

Externally, the new ship's long, sweeping hull closely resembled that of the Normandie. Stern and superstructure were re-worked, and of course, the France was given only two-thirds her predecessor's complement of funnels. But what funnels they were! Following suit after the Rotterdam of 1959 and Canberra of 1961, the CGT broke from tradition and gave the France two non-conventional stacks, designed both to deflect boiler soot and to add a distinctive flair to the new flagship. The result was a typical streamlined cylindrical funnel, but with ailerons, or wings, added at the top. Smoke was directed through the ends of these wings rather than straight out the top of the funnel.

In smoke deflection the wing-top funnels of the France were only marginally successful. Soot was still a persistent problem for passengers, and today the wings are no longer functional. But for their aesthetic purpose the wings were a smash hit. They made the France instantly recognizable, and indeed became the ship's trademark, reproduced on luggage tags, as ashtrays and even hats. Twenty years later Carnival's first new-build, the Tropicale, debuted with a suspiciously similar funnel design. But the winged funnels of France/Norway remain uniquely hers, triumphs of atomic-age industrial design.

The Interior of the France was designed with chic, smart simplicity in mind. Double height public rooms were few and far between, and as aboard the United States, use of wood was kept to a minimum. The result was somewhat disappointing. Fitted with materials such as glass, plastic, aluminium and Formica, her ultra-modern interiors were seen by some as too stark, too severe. This even in comparison with ships such as the Rotterdam of 1959, whose modern decor utilized more traditional materials, resulting in a warmer ambiance.

Still, the France's interior did have its moments. That she was a two-class ship meant two sets of public rooms, and of course the more expensive set was more successful. Even the most harsh of critics had trouble finding fault with the ship's split-level first class smoking room, which on the Norway has survived in a somewhat altered state as Club International, remaining one of the most popular rooms aboard any passenger ship. Another favorite was the domed first class dining room-- the Chambord-- which New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne once called "the best French restaurant in the world." Indicative of its success, it remains today one of a very few public rooms to have escaped refit after refit virtually unaltered.

Among the more memorable accents aboard the France were those found in its cabins. Many rooms came fitted with a space-age dressing table, complete with elliptical mirror and stylized buttons to control piped-in music programming. Dressers came equipped with distinctive, triangular glass-base lamps.

On January 19, 1962, the France set sail on a trial cruise to the Canaries. On February 3, she set out on her maiden crossing from Le Havre to New York where she arrived to a grand reception five days later, on February 8. At least four fireboats accompanied a small flotilla of tugs and other craft in ushering the new pride of the French merchant marine up the North River to pier 88, the same facility built for the Normandie 30 years before. It was to be the one of the last great New York Harbor celebrations welcoming a new liner.

By 1962, as the France made her inaugural crossing, it was clear that the days of transatlantic liner service were numbered. Jets provided a faster and cheaper way to cross. "As the France on the North Atlantic she was utterly anachronistic, of course, launched well after it was apparent that the jets would win," wrote John Maxtone-Graham in Cruising and Crossing. "Like any aristocrat bound for the guillotine, though, she endured the prospect of economic failure with a combined de Gaullean flair and stoic shrug, steaming defiantly in the face of airborne adversity."

Built to withstand the fiercest winter on the North Atlantic, the France was designed for the transatlantic trade. Cruising was an afterthought- something she might do as an occasional divergence. At first she seemed an unabridged success. Summer crossings often sold-out, and during winter months she still managed 70 percent capacity. But by 1966, ticket sales began to diminish. More and more winter cruises were scheduled, and while these proved popular at first, the liner France was ill-suited for cruising, and she was still far from profitable.

In 1972, the French Line sent their flagship on her first of two world cruises. These were epic voyages, aggressively marketed and highly played-up. Too large to use the Panama Canal, the ship sailed around South America. To refuel, the France would rendevous with a French tanker periodically during the cruise. Supply and relief planes met the ship at various ports, delivering goods and crew from France, taking weary crew members home.

Even when fully booked, the France was unable to turn a profit. But as a ship of state, she wasn't really intended to. Writes Bill Miller: "to the French Government, and in particular to President De Gaulle himself, her purpose was to display the tricolor. Profit was not essential to her being." The France was kept alive by a government subsidy, and in 1962, such an impracticality was simply accepted. But by the early 1970s, the Général was no more: times had changed. Her losses for 1973 were estimated to be between $14.5 million and $21 million. When the oil crisis struck, and fuel prices more than doubled from $35 to $95 a barrel, Paris was forced to rethink the French Line's multi-million franc annual subsidy.

On March 28, 1974, French Transport Minister Aymar Achille-Fould announced that the government could no longer afford to subsidize the ship. The news made page one of the New York Times the following day. Money would instead be directed to Air France, for the Concorde project. French Line president Jacques Ribière was left little choice but to announce the liner's withdrawal, and on July 18, her retirement date was set for October 25, 1974. The next day, as the France tied-up in Le Havre, passengers signed a petition protesting the Government's decision to discontinue the subsidy.

But the end came even sooner than expected. On September 12 as the ship approached Le Havre nearing the end of what was to have been one of her last crossings, the crew staged a mutiny. Passengers were tendered ashore. For nearly a month, the France sat at anchor in the English Channel as her disgruntled crew demanded the subsidy be reinstated. A blockade of government patrol boats surrounded the ship. Supported by the French Maritime Union and the Communist mayor of Le Havre, the crew held out until October 9. Upon reaching her home port, the France was laid-up immediately, thus ending 119 years of French Line passenger service. The strike continued for two more months, finally ending on December 7.

The France was moved to the Quai de l'Oublie, in the backwaters of industrial Le Havre. There she remained for five years, silent, paint fading, cracking, peeling, yielding to rust. Reminiscent of the Normandie's layup in New York during the first years of the war, her furnishings were covered, and only a skeleton crew remained aboard. Rumors circulated as to what the ship's future might hold. There were proposals to make her a floating hotel in the French Riviera or in the Caribbean. The Arab League was reportedly interested in using her to transport pilgrims to Mecca; Moscow supposedly wanted her for passenger service or as a hotel ship in the Black Sea. In October of 1977, she was sold for $22 million to Akkram Ojjeh of Saudi Arabia, who proposed making her a floating casino-slash-center for French culture, to be moored off Daytona Beach, Florida. But nothing materialized, and the France remained in Le Havre. The menacing glow of the scrapper's torch looming on the horizon, some foresaw the ship's demise.

Then, in 1979, came Knut Utstein Kloster, director of one of Norway's largest shipping companies and of the Norwegian Caribbean Line, known since 1987 as Norwegian Cruise Line. By the mid 1970s, nearly all the great giants of the passenger shipping trade had either vanished completely, abandoned passenger operations, or scaled them down to a shadow of what they had once been. The Italian Line, United States Lines, and the French Line had all discontinued passenger service, and the once-mighty Cunard Line operated only a few ships.

In their wake, a handful of small cruise lines emerged. These included names like Carnival, Princess, and, of course, Norwegian Caribbean. In 1979, today's enormous cruise industry was just beginning to take flight. Norwegian's fleet of four small ships could no longer meet demand, and Kloster needed additional tonnage fast. Building new ships or stretching the existing hulls would have taken too long. The market booming, no-one was willing to sell their own tonnage. So Kloster looked to what was by then a fleet of laid-up oceanliners, scattered about the world. The aging United States was considered, as were the younger Italian liners Michelangelo and Raffaello, but it was the France that seemed best suited for the conversion to cruise ship. "She was of absolutely impeccable quality," Kloster said later. "Everything about her- from the hull plating to the engines- was top quality."

Norwegian Caribbean purchased the France in June of 1979 for $18 million. Re-christened Norway, the last French ship of state left Le Havre without incident on August 22, 1979, under tow. Bound for the HAPAG-Lloyd yards at Bremerhaven, she was to undergo $80 million worth of upgrading and conversion work, in preparation for a new life in the Caribbean.

She emerged in the spring of 1980, new ship, new name, new career. New livery as well- Her black hull was now a deep blue, funnels once red and black were now two shades of blue and white. On board, decks and public rooms were re-named. Pont Promenade became Pool Deck; Pont Principal, Norway Deck. The Restaurant Chambord became the Windward Restaurant. An open patio between the ship's funnels was filled-in with a pool, while the existing glass-enclosed tourist class pool was brought up into the open. Deck space was expanded. Too large to dock in many Caribbean ports, a pair of large tenders was perched where the forward cargo hatch had been.

As a one-class ship, the France's two sets of public rooms were redundant, and some, such as the tourist class promenade, were filled-in with cabins. Her crew complement was reduced from 1,110 to 800, while passenger capacity grew to 2,181. No longer speeding across the Atlantic, her forward engine room was closed-down, four screws reduced to two, and top speed reduced to 21 knots, in accordance with her new, leisurely Caribbean lifestyle.

Now pride of the Norwegian merchant marine, the Norway sailed triumphantly into Oslo- her new home port- in the spring of 1980 to a reception evocative of that received by the France only 18 years before. At 70,202 tons, she was now the largest passenger ship in the world, eclipsing Cunard's QE2 by some 3,000 GRT. From Oslo she crossed to New York, and from there the Norway sailed to Miami, where she began the Caribbean circuit in which she has now been engaged longer than the France crossed the Atlantic.

In the cruise industry she was revolutionary. More than twice the size of most cruise ships at that time, the Norway was the precursor to the megaships of today, which have now grown to eclipse even her in size- though not in length. But would she succeed? How could this ship which couldn't make money even in the role for which she was designed ever succeed in a market she was never intended to serve?

Perhaps the most remarkable part of this story is that the Norway did in fact succeed. Playing a part she was never intended to play, the ship was more profitable than she had been doing what she was designed to do. Built to cross with an occasional cruise, the Norway has proven tremendously successful doing just the opposite. Knut Kloster's investment not only paid-off, but proved to be the prototype for dozens of new-builds.

Since her debut the Norway has undergone three refits. The first came in 1984, when the ship was brought to Hamburg, where all steam-powered auxiliary machinery was converted to diesel power. The most extensive and controversial refit came in September of 1990. Returned to Bremerhaven, two decks were added atop the superstructure, increasing passenger accommodation to 2,565. While the new decks unquestionably marred the ship's long, sleek profile, they were generally accepted as a necessary evil for extending the ship's life. Re-registered in Nassau, the Norway returned to service in October, her tonnage increased to 76,049.

The third refit came in fall of 1996. It was on this trip that the ship made her first appearance in Le Havre since 1979. Hardly anyone could have expected reception that awaited her, as tens of thousands of people crowded the quais to get a glimpse of the former France. But many were less enthusiastic when the ship emerged from her latest refit with two of her original public rooms re-worked-- her circular first class library turned into a perfume shop, the adjoining reading room altered beyond recognition after conversion into another form of revenue-producing space. But disappointing as these changes have been, the treasure hunt for original fittings can be as entertaining as any shore excursion for the devoted ship enthusiast who manages to locate the ship's former chapel-- now a dressing room for the ship's theater company.

The 1996 refit also provided the Norway a short-lived, third funnel livery. Following the lines of her French Line color scheme, what was black was made navy blue, what was red was made white. Drawing mixed reviews, her funnels were soon repainted again, this time to match the rest of Norwegian's fleet. Now painted entirely in a deep shade of blue with gold "NCL" emblems added on either side, the new livery has enjoyed a more positive response. Far more elegant than her original Norway colors, the deep blue both befits the ship's dignified character and blends with more modern fleetmates.

Today, the Norway has reached the end of her second life. On October 9, 2001, Norwegian announced the retirement of their flagship, to take place with a 16-day transatlantic "Farewell Voyage," starting in Miami on September 2 and culminating via New York and Le Havre in Southampton on September 18, 2001. Surely she has enjoyed a full life, indeed one of the most remarkable careers a liner has ever had. As the France she ranked with the Titanic, Queen Mary and QE2 as one of the most celebrated ships of all time. As the Norway, she has already outlived several cruise ships not yet built in 1980.

Braynard, Frank O. and Miller, William H. Fifty Famous Liners. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1982.

Cairis, Nicholas T. Era of the Passenger Liner. London: Pegasus Books Ltd., 1992.

Kludas, Arnold. Great Passenger Ships of the World Today. Somerset: Patrick Stephens Ltd., 1992.

Maxtone-Graham, John. Crossing and Cruising. New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1992.

Maxtone-Graham, John. The Only Way to Cross. New York: Collier Books, 1978.

Miller, William H. Picture History of the French Line. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 1997.

Miller, William H. The Last Atlantic Liners. London: Conway Maritime Press Ltd., 1985.

Photo credits: Maritime Matters.Com, Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, Alan Zamchick collection
and World Ship Society (PONY) files.