{"id":1226,"date":"2015-06-03T00:58:05","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T04:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drivingfordeco.com\/staging\/3617\/?p=1226"},"modified":"2017-03-06T22:53:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T03:53:17","slug":"the-s-s-normandies-80th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drivingfordeco.com\/staging\/3617\/the-s-s-normandies-80th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"The S.S. Normandie’s 80th Anniversary."},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Normandie arrives at Pier 88 North River for the first time. June 3, 1935<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"Jean<\/a>

Jean Vernon bronze medallion for the maiden voyage.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Of all the famous ocean liners to sail the North Atlantic, the most elegant and the one to epitomize the 1930’s the best was the French Line’s S.S. Normandie. Built to compete with the North German-Lloyd \u00a0record-breaking liners, Bremen and Europa and the unfinished Cunard-White Star superliner, Queen Mary,\u00a0the Normandie was the first ocean liner to excede\u00a01,000 feet in length. Originally the French Line envisioned\u00a0the new ship as\u00a0a larger version of\u00a0their current flagship, the Il de France, a ship with a conservative hull and very modern interiors. During the early planning stage of the new ship, the French Line\u00a0was approached by a Russian expatriate living in France since the revolution,\u00a0Vladimir Yourkevitch.<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>He\u00a0had already proposed to\u00a0the Cunard Line the idea of using a clipper bow and a bulbous forefoot beneath the water line for their new ship (the future Queen Mary). But the Cunard Line was too conservative and rejected these innovated ideas.\u00a0The French Line embraced Yourkevitch’s designs\u00a0and as a result the Normandie would be the most powerful\u00a0steam turbo-electric propelled ship ever built and one of the fastest.<\/h4>\n

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