Cruises

In 1914 the sea conscious citizens of Danzig were jubilant. At Schichau's shipyard in the mouth of the Vistula work was proceeding on two great ocean liners, biggest ever to be built in the ancient Hanseatic town. When war came with that year's early harvest one had been launched and later was slowly completed, but only the hull of the other had been riveted--and after German workers marched to war, work on it was abandoned for nearly seven years.

The completed ship the Allies took, handing her proudly over to Britain's White Star Line which ran her for years as the Homeric. Last year she was broken up for scrap. Meantime work was again started on her weathering sister ship on the keel site of 1914. In 1922, two years after Danzig became a Free City, the graceful beauty was launched, christened the Columbus. Until the advent of the Bremen and Europa seven years later she was Germany's largest ship, crack vessel of its mercantile marine; then the Columbus fell into third place. Re-turbined in 1929, the Columbus filled in with her two big sisters for the transatlantic busy season, began her famed winter cruises.

Last week the 32,565-ton Columbus was again being partly rebuilt, not in her birthplace Danzig, but at the foot of Manhattan's 46th St.--where, with 350 of her 600 crew sent on part pay to Germany for seven weeks, North German Lloyd officials figured the work could be done cheaper. On the sun deck $100,000 is being spent to provide 500 cruise passengers with a 20 ft. by 28 ft. open-air tiled swimming pool with dressing rooms and showers for 50, a dance floor 20 ft. by 60 ft. raised three feet above the deck and lighted from below. The whole top deck between bridge and forward funnel, will become a "Beach Club" 150 ft. by 50 ft., with railside refreshment tables under gay umbrellas, surrounding pool and dance floor.

When the refurbished Columbus sails late in December for the West Indies she will be but one of the 30-odd important vessels "cruising for the winter"--a branch of shipping that many ocean lines now consider an integral part of their business, for it keeps their ships occupied during the slack transatlantic season. The cruising business has not yet been materially affected by the present depression except for the abandonment of the sold-out Round-the-World cruise of the Bremen scheduled for February 1938--due partly to cancelations by passengers after the early autumn recessions of the U. S. stockmarket, partly to cancelations because of the alteration of the cruise route from the Orient to the Antipodes. In the main, however, battles in Spain, China, unrest in the Holy Land, North Africa and the Mediterranean have simply diverted cruises to South America, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the West Indies. In this winter of f lourishing cruise business most of the world's greatest liners--including the Rex, Berengaria, Empress of Britain, Paris, Normandie--will sail from the world's greatest cruise port, carrying an estimated 57,000 passengers to seas afar at an estimated $350 a head.

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