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	Time	Average Speed (knots)
Sirius	April 22, 1839	18d, 14h, 22m	8.03
Great Western	April 23, 1838	15d, 12h, 0m	8.66
RMS Lusitania	March 31, 1894
SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse	November 29, 1897
Deutschland	July 12, 1900
Mauretania	December 5, 1907
Bremen	July 22, 1929
RMS Queen Mary	August 24, 1936
SS United States	July 7, 1952	3d, 10h, 40m	35.6
Hoverspeed Great Britain	June 23, 1990	3d, 7h, 54m	36.6
Catalonia	June 9, 1998		38.9
Cat-Link V	July 20, 1998	2d, 20h, 9m	41.3

Reference

• Arnd Stroeh, "From Superliners to Airliners", as of February 27, 2003; [1]
• The Blue Riband of the North Atlantic, westbound and eastbound holders, greatships.net; [1]
  • which cites:
  • North Atlantic Seaway, Vol. 5, N.R.P. Bonsor, 1980
• The Hales Trophy, seacontainers.com; [1]
• Danish ferry sets new Atlantic-crossing record!!, vulkanusa.com; [1]

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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 100m sprint, while the middle distance version would be the mile or 1500m. In cycling the Blue Riband feat would be to break the world hour record.