Launched in 1907 shortly after her sister ship Lusitania, Mauretania was distinguishable by the large cowl ventilators on her deck. She was always a shade faster than her sister and held the record for a total of 23 years, nearly a quarter of the whole history of the Blue Riband, serving as a hospital ship during the intervening war years.

After the war she was modified with oil burners and this increased her horsepower to 90 000 hp and enabled her to better 27 knots. The Mauretania was always a well loved ship and Franklin D Roosevelt wrote about her in 1936:

"When she was born in 1907, the Mauretania was the largest thing ever put together by man. For almost 22 years she remained the fastest liner he had ever produced. Even after she lost her world record for size and speed, she remained the world's most famous steamship. Her contract speed was 25 knots, yet on many Atlantic crossings she averaged 27 knots or more the whole way across. Why, even in her old age, this old dowager had a burst of speed of 32 knots... The mauretania always fascinated me with her graceful yacht-like lines, her four enormous black-topped red funnels and her appearance of power and good breeding. Especially was this so in the later years of her life when she was painted white for cruising and became known as the White Queen or, as some of her crew have said, "Looking like a bleedin' wedding cake." I am not recording my affection for the Mauretania as President of the United States, but as a civilian, Franklin D Roosevelt, who loves the sea, its ships and the men who sail in them."

Since 1914 Mauretania had been running the north Atlantic with the Aquitania which eventually succeeded to her title in 1929.

In 1935 Mauretania went to the breaker's yard, leaving the Atlantic to the new specially built liners of the North German Lloyd.

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