Four funnel liner in the context of "Funnel (ship)"

A four-funnel liner, also known as a four-stacker, is an ocean liner with four funnels.

In the early 20th century as shipping companies competed for passengers on the lucrative transatlantic route between Europe and America a series of increasingly large, luxurious and fast ocean liners were built requiring four funnels to service their expansive boiler rooms. An ocean liner with four funnels rapidly became symbolic of power, prestige and safety to the travelling public and shipping companies leveraged this trend extensively to market their best ships. The narrative that four-stackers were emblematic of safety was shattered with the loss of the Titanic, sunk on her maiden voyage in 1912. While the naval architecture of four-funnel liners started to give way to more efficient ship layouts in the 1910s the distinctive profile of the four-funnel ocean liner has firmly endured in the public consciousness well into the modern age, largely due to ongoing interest in the loss of the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania, which significantly altered the course of World War One.