This is another installment in my series of alternate continuations of classic ocean liners' careers. The first installment was the SS Cap Arcona survives WWII and is transferred to the Compagnie Générale Sud-Atlantique: http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... =14&t=6297
The next alternate ship history I will do, as the thread's title implies is the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Große of the Norddeutscher Lloyd. In this timeline, the ship is not sunk in combat with HMS Highflyer. She is ordered back to Germany and stays there as a barracks ship in the port of Kiel for the entirety of the war. Of course the allies seize the Kaiser after the war and, not having a place in any of the premier transatlantic shipping companies' fleets she is sold to the Navigazione Generale Italiana. While she would be considered obsolete in any of the north atlantic passenger fleets, on the more southerly Genoa-New York route, she is one of the most sought after ships. After extensive refits she reemerges in 1921 as the SS Giuseppe Garibaldi. The interiors are transformed to a masterpiece of Italian neoclassical design and her power plant is converted to oil fueled steam turbines, boosting her top speed to a swift 24 knots. The most noticeable exterior differences are the new livery of black and white funnels, the white band around the top deck of the hull, and the addition of an enclosed portion of the promenade deck. Otherwise, her noble silhouette is unchanged and she becomes a symbol of Italian pride. She embarks from Genoa on her maiden voyage on April 16, 1921 with calls in Marseille and and Gibraltar before reaching New York nine days later. This is the beginning of a prosperous career in the service of her new owners which lasts until 1933 with the introduction of the Rex and Conte di Savoia. She is put on cruising duty but, her engines prove uneconomical and her interiors stuffy and out of style. Even so, she manages to turn a small profit by servicing an older, wealthy, retired clientèle on her winter cruises around the Mediterranean and those of the summer season mostly to the Norwegian fjords. She is demobbed and eventually scrapped in 1938, ending an over forty year life as one of the most successful ocean liners in history.
![[ img ]](http://i.imgur.com/itvNcgZ.png)
P.S. I use GIMP and the text function is being weird so I couldn't edit the credit line or the ship name, country, etc. in the top right corner of the template, so I just erased all of it. It shouldn't be a problem since this is just a fun exercise and will not be on the database, but so you think I'm trying to steal credit, the original artist was WhyMe.
