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I went researching pre-steamer Atlantic crossing times for a project a few years ago.

Before steam, a sailing passage averaged 10-12 weeks. However the min/max bars were huge: a badly becalmed crossing might stretch to six months (with a high risk of malnutrition en route, living off ship's biscuit and pickled meat), while the fastest sail crossing was around 12 days (a fast clipper with a very favourable wind). 2 months was the norm, and the hull loss rate meant it wasn't for the faint of heart: IIRC about 5% of ships never made it to port.

Were these using trade winds? (ie Canaries to Caribbean westwards and NY to Cornwall eastwards)

Interesting to note that the sailing record nowadays are 3 1/2 days for west to east and 6 1/2 days east to west.

Not sure, but very probably: the record was specifically between US colonies and England, so NY to Cornwall seems likely.
I'm probably one of a few people on HN who actually went across The Atlantic on a liner (not a repositioning cruise ship). My grandmother was too afraid to fly, so in the mid 60's we went to Germany (where my family is from) from New York on one of the last liners (I was too young to remember much). We also took a train from Michigan where we lived, so it was probably a lot like travel 50 years earlier.
Cunard (subject to the pandemic) still operate a transatlantic service with Queen Mary II - which they describe as a true liner.

The crossing between New York and Southampton takes seven days. The clocks are changed by an hour on each sea day so you arrive in port on the target time zone.

The transit under the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge is quite spectacular...

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/nyregion/this-ship-is-so-...

My elderly next door neighbor died last year and one of the things she wanted me to have was a stack of menus frombher ocean liber trip in the mid-60's. She fondly remembered the voyage and the several months abroad taking g care of her "rich lush of an aunt".

I did keep the menus and they are actually quite fun to peruse.

That's a weird dataset.

The graph on this page appears to mostly show a progression of record crossing times, not necessarily typical crossing times - with the exception that there appears to be one datapoint in the set somewhere around 1912? which shows a higher time than the previous datapoint - at the time the Mauretania held the record from 1909 which would stand until 1929. Given the timing, I wonder whether it's meant to be representative of the journey time expected of the Titanic - perhaps the record speed achieved by a White Star Line Olympic class ship at the time?

It's possible that the dataset consists just of record journey times by certain notable ships. It's certainly not all the blue riband records (why are none of the times from 1846 to 1855 plotted?). But then it's not clear what the notable ship that took ~9 days in 1856? was (probably the Persia, but... why is that more notable than the Canada's 8.5 days in 1849?)

The fastest ship was the beautiful United States sadly rotting in place for ~50 years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_United_States

At its heyday it could do almost 80km/h sustained. Basically a 3.5 day train across the Atlantic

"The usage of ships for passengers is now restricted to cruise shipping, ferries, and small-scale passenger crafts on archipelago countries (Indonesia, the Philippines,"...

And some not so small. I've taken multi-day ferry transits in both these countries that were probably the size of turn off the century ocean liners. I'm the Philippines, there were often semi-open decks filled with bunks[1]. If it was blowing rain, you could roll down plastic curtains hanging from the deck above at the railing to protect those in bunks along the edges. In Indonesia, the 'cattle class' was in the hold and was just plastic covered meets on raised metal platforms, edge to edge. You put your personal stuff underneath, lay down, realize you're in the hold with next to no ventilation, and spend every second regretting your purchase decision[2].

[1] https://i0.wp.com/livelifelovecake.com/wp-content/uploads/20...

[2] https://www.monkeyrockworld.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018...

This is really cool. I was curious about how much it would cost, this article seems like a decent breakdown of what the original article refers to as the Golden Age: https://www.gjenvick.com/OceanTravel/TravelGuide/04-CostOfEu...
Given the CO2 emissions from planes, should we be considering reintroduction of Sea Liners at least on some routes? Would anyone use them? Would they be cheaper / at all economical?

Maybe the benefit would be there if you could move with a ton of luggage wthout being overcharged for it?

Is there any reason to believe the emissions are in fact lower? Passengers have to eat, wash, live and sleep for 7 days so you're carrying food and a lot of living space / entertainment stuff on each trip.
The excellent lowtechmagazine does a deep dive on this:

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/06/ocean-liners.html

> to transport one passenger across the Atlantic, a plane needs 4 times more engine power than a ship. Energy output does not say all there is to say about fuel consumption however, since it does not take into account the duration of the trip (see comments) and the fuel efficiency of the engines. It says even less about the emissions of toxic fumes and CO2, because marine engines burn much dirtier fuel than aeroplanes.

> If we would stuff people in the Queen Mary 2 like we fold passengers in airplane seats, the ship could transport more than 500,000 people ... [This] would boil down to a power output of 0.18 kilowatts per passenger – comparable to the output of a well-trained cyclist and 700 times more efficient than the engine power per passenger of an airplane. Taking into account the duration of the voyages, the ship scores 70 times better than the plane.

> Transporting 30,000 people on the QM2 is far from unrealistic or uncomfortable ... Every one of those 30,000 passengers on the Queen Mary 2 would have 20 times as much space than a passenger on a plane, while at the same time consuming 43 times less engine power (taking the view that both engines has similar efficiency). Taking into account the duration of the trip, the ship is 4 times more energy efficient than the plane.Now this looks like an option that could be useful in a peak oil world.

> Replacing planes by ocean liners would be an ecologically sound idea, but only if marine engines become cleaner. Most ships make use of very dirty (unrefined) diesel oil that needlessly poisons the air and heats up the atmosphere. This is not a technological but a political problem.

Doesn't the ship have to work harder (and burn more fuel), as there's more friction from water than from air? That's my intuition, but it can't be true, as otherwise all containers would be flown by air from Asia...
It does take more energy to part water than air... at the same speed. Ships benefit in this regard from going much slower. They also benefit from floating by natural buoyancy rather than by burning fuel. Containers in particular are cost-effective because they are packed and stacked very densely -- a passenger ship would have to be uncomfortably cramped indeed to even approach that efficiency.
I crossed from Southampton to NYC with my family of 3 on the Queen Mary 2 in June 2019. Amazing experience, and one we hope to repeat sometime.

I'd found a 57% sale on cabins right after Christmas 2018, and even with upgrading to have an ocean facing balcony, that room for the three of us was 25% cheaper than three transatlantic airline tickets, including our flight to Southampton and from NYC to our final destination.

We were moving, so being able to bring as much luggage as we could handle also mean no extra baggage charges. Cunard has slowed their crossings to 7 nights at sea, since most passengers cross for the experience.

The ship's Internet connection was more expensive and slower than I thought the price was worth, so I didn't bother. It was super nice to have time for reflection on my previous work assignment before arriving and starting the next---and all with no jetlag.

I spent some time working offline on a personal python project in one of the lounges. Also read a book on creativity and another about the changing international monetary order from the ship's library---said to be the largest library on the open oceans. One of the people lecturing in their auditorium/planetarium was a former chief counsel for the NSA (though I can't recall his name), lecturing on surveillance; fascinating Q&A with the audience afterwards (Asked what he fears most when kicking back with friends around a campfire, he said he fears the dissolution of nation-states).

Other passengers with cruise line experience said that the QM2 is different---their kids program and entertainment options are minimal compared to cruise ships, but then again, the QM2 is built to cross the north Atlantic comfortably, and her cruising speed, or 2/3s of maximum speed, matched the top speeds of most cruise ships. Cunard requires formal dress in all but one restaurant and in public spaces on the ship after 18:00 each evening, alternating formal and black-tie, with tuxes available to rent. My wife, my son, and I had a blast dressing up and 'going out in the town' in the middle of the North Atlantic.

So, if you watch for a good sale, it can be a very reasonable week of vacation, or an actual transatlantic move.

I could see using it if the cost was reasonable, had lower emissions, and the travel experience was comfortable. It could be feasible to work from the ship if connectivity isn't too expensive or slow.
Cruiseliners should be looking at starlink to provide decent connectivity. I suspect many people may be happy

Cruiseliners aren't exactly low carbon though -- the QE2 had 1900 passengers and managed 125 feet per gallon at normal cruising speed. That works out 37mpg (us gallons) per passenger

A 777-200 is about 76mpg per passenger.

This is fun read about the first person to sail single-handedly around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Slocum http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6317
wish these still existed. I'd take a 3 day ship ride over 8 hours in a cramped airline seat.
I'm not so sure. I went on a cruise ship a few years ago, and they've got you on the hook for everything while you're there. Our cabin bill came to over £200 and all we did was have a (really) few drinks in the bar on a couple of nights. There was no internet either, so you'd better bring along a laptop and a lot of movies.
Its pretty easy to avoid that if you're prepared. Most lines let you bring on at least 1 bottle of wine or similar per person (which is plenty for us over 3 days). Avoiding expensive cocktails, drinks packages, dining experiences etc means its pretty easy to leave with a cabin bill of nearly zero. I've done that many times.

Working in tech I personally find the lack of internet a plus.

You can easily rack up £200 in charges on an airline flight though if you don't pay attention. A half bottle of wine is $18 on United!
I’ve never been on a transatlantic United flight where wine wasn’t free in all classes.
As mentioned above, the Queen Mary II apparently still operates (maybe not during Pandemic) as a liner. But it takes 7 days, not 3.