Blue Riband

The Blue Riband is an award held by the ship with the record for a transatlantic crossing. The first steam powered crossing of the Atlantic was in 1833. The Blue Riband was a creation of the transatlantic shipping companies in the 1860s, for the publicity opportunities of possessing the fastest ship. There were separate awards for the fastest eastbound and westbound crossings. It was represented by a blue penant in the top mast of the ship, until 1930 when Sir Harold Hales initiated a trophy. The Hales Trophy is awarded on the basis of average speed, since the distance of transatlantic routes varies. The last superliner to hold the trophy was the SS United States, which set a time that was not beaten until 1990

Some of the ships that held the record for the fastest crossing, with the date first achieved:

Ship	Date	Duration	Average (knots)	speed (km/h)
Sirius	1839 Apr 22	18 d 14 h 22 min	8.03	15
Great Western	1838 Apr 23	15 d 12 h 0 min	8.66	16
RMS Lucania	1894 Mar 31
SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse	1897 Nov 29
Deutschland	1900 Jul 12
RMS Mauretania	1907 Dec 5
Bremen	1929 Jul 22
Rex (Italia)	1933 Aug 16	4 d 13 h 58 min	28.92	54
Normandie	1935
RMS Queen Mary	1936 Aug 24
SS United States	1952 Jul 7	3 d 10 h 40 min	35.6	66
Hoverspeed Great Britain	1990 Jun 23	3 d 7 h 54 min	36.6	68
Catalonia	1998 Jun 9		38.9	72
Cat-Link V	1998 Jul 20	2 d 20 h 9 min	41.3	76

Reference

• Arnd Stroeh, "From Superliners to Airliners", as of February 27, 2003;
• The Blue Riband of the North Atlantic, westbound and eastbound holders, greatships.net;
  • which cites:
  • North Atlantic Seaway, Vol. 5, N.R.P. Bonsor, 1980
• The Hales Trophy, seacontainers.com;
• Danish ferry sets new Atlantic-crossing record!!, vulkanusa.com;

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Blue Riband is also sometimes used to highlight major sporting events. For example, in athletics the Blue Riband short distance event is the 100 m sprint, while the middle distance version would be the mile or 1500 m. In cycling the Blue Riband feat would be to break the world hour record.