In the last two chapters we spoke about the How the companies HAPAG and NDL pioneered in the business of luxurious shipping. Ships like the Augusta Victoria and the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große acted as flagships for their company but their coal consumption made them expensive to operate. It may come as a surprise, but those ships were in no way the ones that brought their companies the real benefits that allowed them to grow and start the 20th Century among the top shipping companies in the world. That job was carried out by less legendary workhorses.

In the case of the HAPAG it wasthe P-Steamers, conceived to transport a large number of rather not wealthy passengers in comfortable but not luxurious cabins and steerage, as well as a lot of cargo. The project of building this ships was one of the reactions of the troubles lived in Hamburg in the early 1890s. Director Albert Ballin had seen that the transport of passengers was very sensible to crises and a focus on cargo was necessary to keep the company afloat in troubled times. The original P-steamers were ordered at the Harald & Wolff shipyard in Belfast in 1894. They were the Prussia and the Persia. Two other sister were ordered from the AG Vulcan in Stettin, the Palatia and the Patria, and one from Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, the Phoenicia. This ships could carry up to 2500 passengers and 7500 tons of cargo. And most importantly: to steam through the Atlantic at 13 knots they consumed between 55 and 60 t of coal a day, while the faster luxury liners used to consume between 250 and 300 t for the same way.

The success of this ships was simply immense. In 1895 the HAPAG increased their benefits by 115% compared to the previous year thanks to them. On the face of the situation, the HAPAG ordered a new class of larger P-Steamers between 1897 and 1899. Those were the Pretoria, Graf Waldersee, Patricia and Pennsylvania. The 12891 GRT of the last one even made her the largest ship on earth for a short period. Remember Deutschland, first ship of the HAPAG? That sailor needed 6 years of voyages to transport the amount of cargo the Pennsylvania could carry in one crossing.