Lusitania Repaired Sails In New Test.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 23, 1913:
Equipped with New Propellers, the Cunarder Is Expected to Break Transatlantic Record.
HALDANE ON WAY HERE
England's Lord High Chancellor Leaves the Great Seal in Charge of a Special Commission.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Aug. 22.— Lord Haldane, the first Lord High Chancellor to leave England since Wolseley, who would probably have lost his head in consequence had he not conveniently died a natural death, sailed for America to-day on the Lusitania to deliver an address before the American Bar Association at the annual meeting in Montreal.
    Accompanying him are his sister, Miss Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane, who keeps house for him, and Sir Kenneth Muir Mackenzie, Permanent Principal Secretary to the Chancellor's office since 1880.
    During Lord Haldane's absence the great seal will be in charge of a special commission of three.
    The party occupies the royal suite on the Lusitania, which is all spick and span after her absence from the service since the accident to a propeller early in the year.
    Extensive mechanical changes, some of a novel character, have been made during the Cunarder's stay in the Graving dock, and there are some expectations that she will develop a remarkable burst of speed with her new propellers, if not on this first trip, at least on a later trip.
    Lord Haldane is looking forward with keen anticipation to a pleasant experience. He has never crossed the Atlantic, and ocean travel is a novelty to him.
    The belief has been expressed by the Captain of the Lusitania and her engineers that the steamship, which has been laid up since January to have her four turbines rebladed and new propellers fitted, will now prove the fastest ship afloat.
    The engineers, after a number of consultations, decided that the liner's propellers would get a better grip on the water if they turned outward, as do the Mauretania's, instead of inward, as they were arranged formerly. Various propellers had previously been tried in order to get the maximum speed with the minimum vibration.
    The loss in passenger traffic, mails, and express freight to the Cunard Line in the eight months during which the Lusitania has been laid off will amount. it is said, to $575,000. and the cost of the reblading, involving the fixing of over 1,000,000 new blades, may run into $500,000.
    The reblading of the Lusitania's turbines has cost more than usual on account of the speeding-up of the work, involving the employment of 600 men night and day at Liverpool. Fully two months were lost at the beginning, while the engineers were deciding what to do — that is, whether it would be better simply to cut off the broken blades on the turbines and replace them with new ones, or to reblade the turbines entirely, as has been done. Part of the work was given out to Cammell, Laird & Co. and Parsons & Co. Great secrecy was observed by the Cunard officials, and no one was allowed on board the ship except the employes.
    The Cunard Line hopes to have the new 50,000-ton liner Aquitania ready to enter the Atlantic service next April. She will replace the old-time, record-breaker Campania. There will be no attempt to make the Aquitania as fast as the Mauretania and Lusitania. She will have an average speed of twenty-three knots.