SS Normandie - Construction and Launch

Construction and Launch

Work by the Société Anonyme des Chantiers de Penhoët began on the unnamed flagship on 26 January 1931 at St. Nazaire, France, soon after the stock market crash of 1929. While the French continued construction, the competing White Star Line's ship (intended as Oceanic) – started before the crash – was cancelled and the Cunard ship put on hold. French builders also ran into difficulty and had to ask for government money; this subsidy was questioned in the press. Still, building was followed by newspapers and national interest was deep, as she was designed to represent France in the nation-state contest of the great liners and was built in a French shipyard using French parts.

The growing hull in Saint-Nazaire had no formal designation except "T-6" (with "6" for "6th" and "T" for "Transat", short for "CIE. GLE. TRANSATLANTIQUE" aka the "French Line"), the contract name. Many names were suggested including Doumer, after the recently assassinated president Paul Doumer; and originally, La Belle France. Finally Normandie was chosen. In France, ship prefixes properly depend on the ship name's gender, but non-sailors mostly use the masculine form, inherited from the French terms for ship, which can be "paquebot", "navire", "bateau", "bâtiment", but English speakers refer to ships as feminine ("she's a beauty"), and the French Line carried many rich American customers. French Line wrote that their ship was to be called simply "Normandie," preceded by neither "le" nor "la" (French masculine/feminine for "the") to avoid any confusion.

On 29 October 1932 – three years to the day after the stock market crash – Normandie was launched in front of 200,000 spectators. The 27,567-ton hull that slid into the Loire River was the largest launched and the wave crashed into a few hundred people, but with no injury. The ship was christened by Madame Andre Lebrun, wife of Albert Lebrun, the President of the French Republic. Normandie was outfitted until early 1935, her interiors, funnels, engines, and other fittings put in to make her into a working vessel. Finally, in May 1935, Normandie was ready for trials, which were watched by reporters. The superiority of Vladimir Yourkevitch's hull was visible: hardly a wave was created off the bulbous bow. The ship reached a top speed of 32.125 knots (59.496 km/h) and performed an emergency stop from that speed in 1,700 meters (5,577 ft).

In addition to a novel hull which let her attain speed at far less power than other big liners, Normandie was filled with technical feats. She had turbo-electric propulsion, chosen for the ability to allow full reverse power, and, according to French Line officials, was quieter and more easily controlled and maintained. The engine installation was heavier than conventional turbines and slightly less efficient at high speed but allowed all propellers to operate even if one engine was not running. This system also made it possible to eliminate astern turbines. An early form of radar was installed to prevent collisions such as the Titanic had.