Voyage History 1913

The maiden voyage arrived in New York on 18 June 1913, entering Hoboken, New Jersey at 12:50 pm (some reports have said 10:30 p.m.).  The crossing took 6 days, 5 hours, and 12 minutes. In reality the Imperator could have made the passage faster, but no effort was made to push her turbines to full speed and as a result she traveled consistently between 20.5 and 22 knots. To record the event, Hapag arranged for Brown & Dawson photographers of Stanford, Connecticut to photograph everything. In fact, some of the most famous shots of the Imperator were taken that day.
As she approached the harbor with her German flag waving from her stern, a meshing of American well wishers crowded the piers to catch a first glimpse of the Colossus of the Ocean. Throughout her arrival and docking and there were whistles, cheers, and general jubilation from the Americans.

During her stop over in New York on her fourth voyage, a fire broke out onboard on Thursday, 28 August 1913 while she was docked in Hoboken. The fire was in the refrigeration chamber, which was next to 1,500 sleeping emigrants in Second Class. Responding quickly to alarm indicators on the bridge, the ship stewards called the fire department and then descended upon the scene. By that time, the stewards and officers in Second class had already begun evacuating the passengers swiftly and efficiently from the hazardous area. A second unit of stewards and officers then worked to contain the fire by closing off the refrigeration area and surrounding cabins. In the course of fighting the fire however, second officer Gobrecht died of smoke inhalation.

While the Hapag personnel escorted the passengers to immigration on Ellis Island, droves of New York firefighters and harbour firefloats battled the inner blaze. It took nearly five hours to extinguish the threat, and in doing so firefighters poured an estimated 15,000 tons of water into the ship. The Imperator took on so much water (similar in volume to that on her maiden voyage) that it made her list as much as ten degrees. Head on photos of the bow taken afterwards showed the famous eagle in an obvious tilt.

Once the fire was extinguished, an investigation discovered extensive smoke and water damage to Second Class in addition to the burned out areas. A tally of damaged supplies found 56,000 lbs of ruined food and 8,000 pounds value of wine that had seen water damage soil or remove all the labels. The wine was later sold at an auction. The Imperator’s scheduled return voyage to Hamburg on 28 August was delayed and a host of contractors was brought on board to rebuild and repaint the damaged area. By 30 August, enough remedial work was completed that the ship was ready for her return voyage, but she sailed without any Second Class passengers, and still with a small crew of contractors who continued to work on the ship throughout the six-day trip home. Oddly, fires were a problem that haunted the great ship only at the beginning of her life and towards the end as the Berengaria.

On 22 October, the Imperator was sent back to the Vulcan shipyards for remedy to her stability problem. In Hapag’s design and execution of the grandest ship in the world, the metacentric height principle had been overshadowed by the unbridled use of luxury within First Class. A series of modifications were undertaken. First, the Imperator’s enormous 69-foot funnels were cut down; estimates vary from nine to thirteen feet. Next, the grillroom at the end of the Promenade deck had its heavy stone floor torn out and then split into two separate rooms. The larger room was transformed into a Verandah café with lighter weight fittings and wickerwork chairs to replace the heavier, oaken armchairs with their plush Gobelin seats and backs. The adjacent smaller room was turned into a central fire control center in light of the blaze that broke out during her second stay in New York. The fire control center was used to monitor and control the new alarms and sprinkler systems that were newly installed throughout the ship in all classes. In addition, a team of professional fireman became a part of the regular crew and performed rotating patrols day and night. In the First Class pubic rooms, large quantities of rich expensive marble and heavy paneling were replaced with lighter, though equally decorative materials. In the corridors and stairways, light paneling of plaster and asbestos were also installed. In the Wintergarden, like in the Grillroom, the huge luxurious, oaken armchairs were replaced with lighter wicker-work chairs and tables. In the Social Hall, even the bust of the Kaiser was removed; as if that would have had any effect on the stability of a ship this size. Finally, 2,000 tons of cement was poured into the ship’s bowels. The total cost of the modifications was 200,000 pounds, and all of it paid for by the Vulcan Shipyards in agreement with their five-year guarantee. It was almost too much to burden for the already fledging shipping building firm. The construction of the Imperator was financially strapping to the Vulcan firm to begin with, but these additional rebuilds combined with legal settlements paid to Hamburg Amerika Line left the company in debt. The incurred losses were so much that shareholders of the company received no dividends for the 1913 term.