The precise kind of ship they wanted to build as a replacement caused many headaches for the directors of the French line. Initially, they were planning on building a pair of smaller sister ships but upon receiving assurances from the govt led by de Gaulle who wanted to see one grand liner in the tradition of the Normandie, they opted to build one ship in exchange for the govt paying 20% of all costs plus the rest covered by low interest loans.
Since the Jet Age had already begun, directors were also conscious that the ship needed to be successful in cruising to remain viable. It would also need to be fuel efficient and built for the cold North Atlantic as well as the warm Caribbean. Despite the grumbling of the French govt, the company would include the best of shipbuilding technology from various countries as they had in their previous ships built for Mediterranean service. It would be a true collaborative, multinational effort. The propellers, engines, boilers was American tech. The designer of the hull, bow, and superstructure was an American naval architect. The funnel design, lifeboat system, and desalination system was Italian tech including from Turin Polytechnic. The alternators employed British technology.
As she was going to built in
Saint-Nazaire, the traditional birthplace of all great French liners, and perhaps would be the last great French ship of state, she would be called the
SS Bretagne in honour and recognition of the region's shipbuilding industry. The French Line would market her as the longest ship in the world, and indeed she would be the longest. Stretching 321 metres, she was also marketed for being the exact height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris that had recently been extended in height due to the addition of a television antenna. But in fact, she would be smaller than Normandie and Cunard's Queens overall with a beam of 34 m, and 68 m in height from keel to mast (with 12 decks, 9 for passengers) and there were no plans to compete in the weight department.
Despite her size, she would be a dual propeller/engine ship. Her propellers would be five-bladed. Powered by two of the most powerful double-reduction steam turbines on the planet by Westinghouse, she would do over 120,000 shp considerably less than the Normandie. She had roughly half the power of a Forrestal/Kitty Hawk Class aircraft carrier which carried 4 of those turbines with 8 boilers and 4 five-bladed shafts. She would have four Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Due to this, she would only have one engine room and one boiler room, greatly reducing the need for maintenance crew and improving efficiency in addition to having highly modernized engineering/control panels, automation, and a closed-circuit-television system. To ensure safety and reliability, the ship would be able to be powered with either engine/propeller with the other switched off. This allowed her to run at half her normal fuel consumption during cruises. For efficiency reasons, she would use alternators and alternating current to generate electricity for passenger services. Her planned service speed was 27.5 knots, the minimum needed to maintain a weekly transatlantic service with Normandie.
There were various ways in which the designers planned to reduce the weight of the vessel to reduce the fuel needed to run her. Firstly her water needs would be met entirely by 3 desalination evaporators producing 1200 tons of freshwater daily installed on the ship. Her superstructure was mostly built of aluminium and Gibbs pioneered new use of lightweight materials and construction techniques. This included unique metal-metal isolation techniques using specialized barrier tapes to solve problems of galvanic corrosion for aluminium. All of this significantly lowered the ship’s center of gravity, resulting in better stability. The exception was the frontal section of the superstructure which remained reinforced in steel due to the dangers of North Atlantic rogue waves. A large part of the construction would be prefabricated thus cutting down construction time significantly.
Her hull was also welded rather than riveted and featured extended watertight bulkheads for added safety. The underside of the hull, especially the bow, used an unusual bulbous shape instead of the traditional knife-edge to improve high-speed performance and reduce water resistance and friction. She would have bow thrusters with guillotine doors for added manoeuvrability so she could dock without the aid of expensive tugboats. There was some pushback by the French line directors against Gibbs' fastidious use of fire-proof materials, but the end result was still a ship that used far more aluminium, metal, plastics, formica, glass, and spun-glass fiber for its decor and relatively little use of woods. For fire-safety reasons, the ship would feature fewer double and triple height rooms than the Normandie.
She would have a similar clipper-like bow as that former ship, but feature an updated cruiser stern. In addition, the lifeboat davits were capable of launching lifeboats against a 25 degree list and all lifeboats were motorized and equipped with radios. For stability, the ship featured two sets of active retractable stabilizers. It had an advanced bilge keel design situated at the fullest part of the underwater hull. The forward part, just as the forward stabilizer pair begins, is radically swept inward.
One of the most distinctive features of the ship was the design and placement of the single funnel and machinery. To maximize space saved, they were shifted to the two-thirds aft position of the ship. Instead of a traditional even surface, the funnel had a trellis pipework structure to reduce weight and allow wind to pass through it. This was deemed necessary to prevent such a massive funnel from being caught by the wind making the vessel difficult to handle. On top, there was a cap that acted as a smoke deflector but also a filter for heavier solids. This revolutionary design would be copied by most ships in the future but it was extensively criticized by the French press for being ugly. But the design greatly reduced smoke on the open decks. In the tradition of the Normandie of course, the funnel area housed the kennels and featured a dog promenade and washing pool area underneath.
The basic funnel design seen here on an Italian ship.
A large portion of the frontal sundeck would feature a lido pool area covered by a magrodome that could be opened or closed according to the weather. This was done both to make the ship competitive in cruising but also to reduce friction to boost speed efficiency. All the ship's outdoor pools would be infrared-heated capable of boosting temperatures by several degrees. Of course, all the rooms in the ship would be fully air-conditioned and all cabins would have heating and AC controls to allow passengers to adjust temperatures as they see fit. All staterooms would also feature bathrooms (including baths for both First and Tourist class). Tourist class cabins would offer an unprecedented amount of living space, including no bunk beds. Overall, she would be designed to carry 700 first class and 1100 tourist class passengers with the capacity for a 100 car garage. She carried a complement of only 942 crew. It is still considered an astonishing feat of naval engineering that a ship featuring so many revolutionary new types of technology for the first time was able to be built with relatively few mishaps.
These are the main details and specifications of SS Bretagne's exterior design and the generalities that were decided upon. Up next, was the question of the interior design and decor of the rooms which
SS Bretagne had a lot to live up to as she was
SS Normandie and
SS Ile de France's successor.