Cunard Royal Mail Ship Caronia, 1954

The RMS Caronia was launched on October 30, 1947, at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland. The christening ceremony was performed by HRH Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II), making it the first ship she personally launched.

The Princess and her future husband, Lieutenant Mountbatten, were greeted by a crowd of 30,000 spectators in ‘wild fashion’ at the ceremony, according to a local newspaper. This was the couple’s final public engagement before their wedding.

Built specifically for transatlantic crossings and leisurely warm-weather cruising, Caronia would be affectionately nicknamed the ‘Green Goddess’ due to her distinctive livery of four shades of green. Other cruises included this Japan-South Pacific cruise in 1954.

This lovely menu cover reflects the ship’s visit to Japan with delicate pink cherry blossoms, deeply significant in Japanese culture and representing the transient beauty of life against the background of Mt. Fuji, an active volcano about 100 kilometers southwest of Tokyo. Affectionately called ‘Fuji-san,’ it is the country’s tallest peak, at 3,776 meters (12,389 feet.)

American heiress Clara Macbeth (1871–1970) was a long-term passenger on the Caronia, notching up 14 straight years between 1949 and 1963. An only child, she was raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and inherited her family’s fortune based on the invention of an electric dynamite detonator and property investment.

The Caronia was known as the’ millionaire’s yacht’ for its luxury amenities and had 600 staff to cater for 600 passengers.

Clara stayed in the same stateroom (A32) the entire time, decorated with her personal items and attended to by the same stewards. William H. Miller, an expert on the heyday of ocean liners, referred to Clara and her group of other women who were long-term cruisers as ‘the kind of women who wore diamond bracelets up to their elbows at 9 o’clock in the morning.’

The Caronia was sold to a Greek shipping line in 1968, and the following year,  at age 96, Clara revealed to the NY Daily News that she was spending $396 a day to keep herself and her traveling companion, Madoline E. Frank, in luxury aboard other cruise ships. The heiress also had an apartment on Fifth Avenue in NYC but rarely stayed there.

After her death at the age of 99, Clara left bequests to her financial adviser and the New York Community Fund and  gave $300,000 (equivalent to $2.5m today) to her traveling companion Madoline Frank and $20,000 (equivalent to $166,000 ) to the Caronia waiter who served her daily,

The Caronia was scrapped in 1975.