Anyone Interested in Ships

[Bon Accord]

Not true, I am afraid.

 

http://realmuskoka.com/steamships/the-designation-royal-mail-ship-rms/  - at least the Segwun is active as well !. 

 

I'd love it if I were closer- I'd try for a job, as I can get a STCW steam ticket, but it would be some hard graft, mostly because the Navy training is by design, worth about 1/3rd at Transport Canada, so we didn't jump ship as it were.

 

But does she still actually carry the mails in the proper sense or is she merely a tourist attraction?

QM2 was gifted the title of RMS but doesn't earn it so to speak, it was a PR stunt.

ST HELENA is still very much the genuine article, is still operating a lifeline passenger/cargo service and of course still carries the mail as there's no other way to reach the islands she serves (for the moment).

[NorthBrit]

From

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by NorthBrit

[peach james]

But does she still actually carry the mails in the proper sense or is she merely a tourist attraction?

QM2 was gifted the title of RMS but doesn't earn it so to speak, it was a PR stunt.

ST HELENA is still very much the genuine article, is still operating a lifeline passenger/cargo service and of course still carries the mail as there's no other way to reach the islands she serves (for the moment).

You can post onboard, but as Canada Post (has...big Political there !) moved away from home delivery, she doesn't any longer carry mail, but she has a frank for canceling mail posted onboard.  So sort of met half way, I guess...the whole area has changed a fair amount over the last 120 years (1887 hull...).  All the area is now accessable by car, so the need of a mail steamer on a self contained lake system of ~89km^2 is now limited .  (Windermere is 14.7 km^2, to give an idea...).

[Nick G]

Taken at 1700 hrs today, WESTBORG coming alongside Raynes Jetty, Llanddulas on the N Wales Coast to load cobs for Stockvik in Sweden.

 

Main characteristics: 

MMSI: 246457000 
Call sign: PDBQ 
LOA: 89.25m 
Beam: 13.3m 
Draught: 5.6m 
GT: 2868 t 
DWT: 3780 t 
Main engine: MaK 6M25 
Speed: 12 kn 
Year of build: 2000 
Builder: Scheepswerf Peters B.V. SHIPYARD (KAMPEN, NETHERLANDS) 
Flag: NETHERLANDS 
Home port: Delfzijl 
Class society: DET NORSKE VERITAS 
Manager & owner: Royal Wagenborg (Delfzijl, The Netherlands) 
Former names: 
WESTGARD until Feb 2015 
SABINIA until Jan 2006

 

 

 

[Hilux5972]

QM2 was gifted the title of RMS but doesn't earn it so to speak, it was a PR stunt.

Queen Mary 2 does still carry some mail during her regular Trans-Atlantic season. As you say, not enough to earn any decent amount of money, but it is still aboard.

[Bon Accord]

Queen Mary 2 does still carry some mail during her regular Trans-Atlantic season. As you say, not enough to earn any decent amount of money, but it is still aboard.

 

That is not Royal Mail though, just items a passenger may wish to send/receive.

The Royal Mail Group (who grant the RMS prefix) confirm on their own webpage that neither QM2, SEGWUN or SCILLONIAN actually carry any mail and therefore their prefixes are very much only honorary or historical. "Today, just three sailing vessels in the world still have the formal title of Royal Mail Ship, with the RMS St Helena the only one to actually deliver mail."

See here: http://www.royalmailgroup.com/about-us/heritage/royal-mail-ships

[New Haven Neil]

Crikey Peach James, you were at sea young.....

 

  :jester:      

[phil_sutters]

Some from visits to Chatham Historic Dockyard

Edited August 3, 2017 by phil_sutters

[MarkC]

Sometimes the worst ships could be very enjoyable. I did time on this bucket, the Tolaga Bay, twin screw MAN K8SZ90/160A engines (ghastly things) and a lot of hard work but I have a lot of happy memories of her. I found that if you got a good crew a hard working ship could create a real team spirit and people were too busy to start moping about playing the equivalent of office politics. And as a sin bin ship you often found the happy lunatics on ships like her while the company bums and stiffs went on the nice and shiny new stuff.

I did 6 months on her when she was "Table Bay" - I paid off in Tilbury on 3rd December 1981, the day before she was handed over to OCL from British and Commonwealth. The trip started off with 6 weeks in HDW, Hamburg, whilst they changed her back from only being able to carry 40' boxes to her original mix of 20' and 40's. She'd just been redelivered from a long term charter to Zim Line, where she was named "Barcelona". A low bridge at Savannah, GA, was why she had that odd-looking funnel and low-slung mast - that was to get her under said bridge, and it wasn't worth putting them back to original condition after the T/C finished. (I see that some extensions were later put on the uptakes - it did get a bit 'fume laden' in the ER if there wasn't much wind, thanks to the cut-down 'lum'...). Then 3 round trips to South Africa.

 

Those main engines were a pain - but the 6 off (supposed) 1.5MW Ruston gensets, running on 1000 second HFO, were an utter nightmare...

Edited August 3, 2017 by MarkC

[jjb1970]

I did 6 months on her when she was "Table Bay" - I paid off in Tilbury on 3rd December 1981, the day before she was handed over to OCL from British and Commonwealth. The trip started off with 6 weeks in HDW, Hamburg, whilst they changed her back from only being able to carry 40' boxes to her original mix of 20' and 40's. She'd just been redelivered from a long term charter to Zim Line, where she was named "Barcelona". A low bridge at Savannah, GA, was why she had that odd-looking funnel and low-slung mast - that was to get her under said bridge, and it wasn't worth putting them back to original condition after the T/C finished. (I see that some extensions were later put on the uptakes - it did get a bit 'fume laden' in the ER if there wasn't much wind, thanks to the cut-down 'lum'...). Then 3 round trips to South Africa.

 

Those main engines were a pain - but the 6 off (supposed) 1.5MW Ruston gensets, running on 1000 second HFO, were an utter nightmare...

 

The generators were re-engine with Wartsila Vasa 4R32 engines. Other than that she lurched along pretty much as built, the main engine holding down bolts had to be re-tensioned every couple of months with invariably a few needing to be replaced. That said there was a good atmosphere when I was on her and the accommodation was nice enough. Good sea boat too.

[phil_sutters]

And a few more I missed

 

[MarkC]

The generators were re-engine with Wartsila Vasa 4R32 engines. Other than that she lurched along pretty much as built, the main engine holding down bolts had to be re-tensioned every couple of months with invariably a few needing to be replaced. That said there was a good atmosphere when I was on her and the accommodation was nice enough. Good sea boat too.

Good choice - I have a lot of time for Wartsilas, and those Vasas are bloody good. How many legs on yours?

 

Our biggest issue with the Main Engines was cracking cylinder heads in way of the cooling water inlets. We were changing them when we could whilst on the South African coast - one head in Cape Town, a unit in Durban (Job and knock - with a 40 hour port stay, that was a fine incentive) and one head in Port Elizabeth on the way back, as I recall. She ran on 3.3kV generated power - there was the separate High Voltage switchboard on the deck above the Engine Control Room, if memory serves. We carried 2 'Leckys - the standing joke was that if one of them got 'crisped', we had a spare...

 

Oh, and we could have fun with newbies - tell 'em to check round #4 Genset... We had 1,2,3,5,6,7 - the numbers came from the HV breakers, and #4 allowed us to split the HV 'board...

[jjb1970]

You probably sailed with the same lecky, there was an old boy called Sam who'd been on her from pretty much new and I'm not sure he ever sailed on any of the other P&OCL boats. Bit of a cantankerous old so and so. They still had two leckies when I sailed on here. And a permanent day work third who did nothing but generator work over and above the regular complement. She was ahead of her time in having HV electrical systems, nowadays HV is common but in the late 70's it wasn't that common on ships. Another memory is having races on the trolleys that ran up the duct keel. And thanks to the crappy kracht hydraulic valves fitted the engineers spent quite a bit of time in the duct keel. For all her faults she was much the best of the boats P&OCL had with twin MAN main engines,they had two other boats built around the same timewith the same engines, Resolution Bay and Mairangi Bay that made the Table/Tolaga Bay look like amodel of engineering excellence.

[MarkC]

You probably sailed with the same lecky, there was an old boy called Sam who'd been on her from pretty much new and I'm not sure he ever sailed on any of the other P&OCL boats. Bit of a cantankerous old so and so. They still had two leckies when I sailed on here. And a permanent day work third who did nothing but generator work over and above the regular complement. She was ahead of her time in having HV electrical systems, nowadays HV is common but in the late 70's it wasn't that common on ships. Another memory is having races on the trolleys that ran up the duct keel. And thanks to the crappy kracht hydraulic valves fitted the engineers spent quite a bit of time in the duct keel. For all her faults she was much the best of the boats P&OCL had with twin MAN main engines,they had two other boats built around the same timewith the same engines, Resolution Bay and Mairangi Bay that made the Table/Tolaga Bay look like amodel of engineering excellence.

Aye, quite possibly I did sail with that 'lecky. Ah yes, the duct keels. I had to tell the Chief that we were 50 tonnes down, one day, from one of the bunker tanks. He went beserk before I could tell him where it was. When I did, he went even more ballistic, although it wasn't anyone's fault. I told him it was in the port duct keel, so we hadn't exactly 'lost' it... The joint between the bunker tank bulkhead and the tank valve had blown out. What a mess

[jjb1970]

Duct keels were evil things. I much preferred the arrangement on the Baby Bays and Liverpool Bay class with valve compartments at the bottom of holds accessed via the holds. That meant climbing a lot of ladders but it was far better than traipsing a couple of hundred meters up a duct keel, not to mention the safety aspects which I only really thought about years later looking back. For all the faults she was a solid old ship though, strong. And she was great in rough weather, it took an awful lot to get her rolling. She wasn't particularly fast (21.5kts was her cruising speed when I was on her), the bigger new ships P&OCL built in Japan cruised at 23kts and could get up to about 24.5kts but a few times the minty old Tolaga left them standing in the Channel and Biscay. When the weather got rough the Tolaga just ploughed through without really rolling or moving whereas the big, efficient and fast new boats were far worse sea boats in rough weather and lost shed loads of speed in rough weather. I honestly can't remember anything more than gentle movement on the Tolaga and never struggled to stay in my bunk, or went back to my cabin expecting to find devastation waiting for me.  

[MarkC]

Duct keels were evil things. I much preferred the arrangement on the Baby Bays and Liverpool Bay class with valve compartments at the bottom of holds accessed via the holds. That meant climbing a lot of ladders but it was far better than traipsing a couple of hundred meters up a duct keel, not to mention the safety aspects which I only really thought about years later looking back. For all the faults she was a solid old ship though, strong. And she was great in rough weather, it took an awful lot to get her rolling. She wasn't particularly fast (21.5kts was her cruising speed when I was on her), the bigger new ships P&OCL built in Japan cruised at 23kts and could get up to about 24.5kts but a few times the minty old Tolaga left them standing in the Channel and Biscay. When the weather got rough the Tolaga just ploughed through without really rolling or moving whereas the big, efficient and fast new boats were far worse sea boats in rough weather and lost shed loads of speed in rough weather. I honestly can't remember anything more than gentle movement on the Tolaga and never struggled to stay in my bunk, or went back to my cabin expecting to find devastation waiting for me.  

When I joined her, during that 6 weeks in Hamburg we had to fit shims under all the piston rod palms, to lift the pistons & increase the compression ratio, plus change all the injectors, in order to run at reduced power for long periods. That limited us to about 19-19 knots, if I remember rightly. Fuel saving...

 

She was indeed a tough old ship - she and her sister were built in Bremen, of course, at AG Weser. The only time we took any sort of roll was one morning, waiting off Cape Town for the pilot. One awkward combination of waves, a bit of swell, and off she went!

 

This thread has brought back memories of her - most of them good, but yes, the duct keels were a different story...

 

It's funny; back then she was thought of as quite a large ship, some 2700 TEU, although a full hatch smaller than the Bay and Ben boats on the Far East run (if I remember rightly, the Durban pilots wouldn't take anything bigger than her size at the time), yet we're now looking at behemoths taking 8x that number of boxes. Scary.

[t8hants]

I have always liked this photo my father took on the Ryde to Donkey Popyard ferry, when we were leaving the harbour.

I think in the date is the early 60's.

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

That is not Royal Mail though, just items a passenger may wish to send/receive.

The Royal Mail Group (who grant the RMS prefix) confirm on their own webpage that neither QM2, SEGWUN or SCILLONIAN actually carry any mail and therefore their prefixes are very much only honorary or historical. "Today, just three sailing vessels in the world still have the formal title of Royal Mail Ship, with the RMS St Helena the only one to actually deliver mail."

See here: http://www.royalmailgroup.com/about-us/heritage/royal-mail-ships

 

That raises an interesting question.  What about the MS Oldenburg?  A bit if research indicates that Lundy Island issued stamps now incorporate the Royal Mail charge for onward mainland transit so is the Oldenburg actually carrying Royal Mails (do people send letters etc from Lundy although it has no Post Office - there is a posting box of course but not a Royal Mail one).   Interesting technical question - are items posted on Lundy technically still regarded as Puffin Mail until they are handed over to the Royal Mail at Ilfracombe?

[The Stationmaster]

Just to give you engine chaps a bit more to talk about here are some none too brilliant pics I took a couple of weeks ago (sorry to bore those of you who have already seen them).  I'll post them in order of where the power comes from ending with a shaft (one of the two)

 

A couple of the ship's four Ruston 1047hp RKcZ diesels which are the main power source (there are also two x Ruston 320hp AP diesels for auxiliary power (one of which is out-of-use due to lack of spares) plus a Deutz emergency generator.

 

 

 

The bigger Rustons are each directly coupled to a 660volt 950kW NEBB generator

 

 

These drive - via the main switchboard of course

 

Two x Brown Boveri 1270kW dc propulsion motors are provided, one for each shaft (obviously).  Plus  1 x 689kW motor for the bow thruster 

 

 

These drive two piece shafts, the joint area being just visible on the right of this final picture

 

 

With a Summer displacement of 3139 tonnes the ship normally has 3 main engines running while at sea providing propulsion/manoeuvring power plus cranage, navigational, and domestic needs.  Notwithstanding the need for very accurate manoeuvring plus accurate station keeping on many tasks the ship, of 1982 build, does not have variable pitch propellors so all control of the main propellors is via the main motors which can be quite interesting at times with one going astern while the other is going ahead but both at very low speeds for station keeping purposes.

 

All small beer for the seagoing/former seagoing engineering professionals of course but interesting enough to this layman (and possibly to other followers of this thread?).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DaveF]

A Norwegian coastal tanker, Solheim, registered at Larvik.  She was completed early in 1962.

 

The photo was taken at Shoreham, probably in late August 1962.  I can't remember why but we must have sailed to Shoreham from Portsmouth in Dad's boat.

 

The photo was taken with my old Brownie 127.

 

 

Solheim at Shoreham DB111

 

 

David

Edited August 4, 2017 by DaveF

[Bon Accord]

That raises an interesting question.  What about the MS Oldenburg?  A bit if research indicates that Lundy Island issued stamps now incorporate the Royal Mail charge for onward mainland transit so is the Oldenburg actually carrying Royal Mails (do people send letters etc from Lundy although it has no Post Office - there is a posting box of course but not a Royal Mail one).   Interesting technical question - are items posted on Lundy technically still regarded as Puffin Mail until they are handed over to the Royal Mail at Ilfracombe?

 

On the west coast of Scotland (with the exception of the Western Isles) the mail still goes by ferry albeit in a Post Office van onboard, however these ships are no longer considered RMS and do not fly the Royal Mail pennant (which is a requirement).

[phil_sutters]

A Norwegian coastal tanker, Solheim, registered at Larvik.  She was completed early in 1962.

 

The photo was taken at Shoreham, probably in late August 1962.  I can't remember why but we must have sailed to Shoreham from Portsmouth in Dad's boat.

 

The photo was taken with my old Brownie 127.

 

 

Solheim at Shoreham DB111.jpg

Solheim at Shoreham DB111

 

 

David

Your photo reminded me of one I took sometime in the '60s at Bridgwater, near where we lived in Somerset. I had a camera which took a size of roll-film which was very hard to find - before the days of Google or Ebay anything!

Edited August 4, 2017 by phil_sutters

[NorthBrit]

P & Os Aurora  in Cadiz

Taken from Independence of the Seas as she departs Cadiz  --  From left to right --  Aurora, Britannia and Disney Wonder.  Britannia is just leaving her moorings and follow I.o. t. S out of port.

[Hilux5972]

Another type of ship I absolutely adore is the Royal Australian Navy's Armidale Class Patrol Boat. Fantastic looking vessels, one of which starred in Sea Patrol Season's 2-5 as the HMAS Hammersley.

[eastwestdivide]

I can recommend the day cruise round Rotterdam docks by Spido:

https://www.spido.nl/en/tochten-cruises/dagtocht-tweede-maasvlakte

You go from near the Erasmus bridge all the way out to the newly-reclaimed land at the tip of Europoort, and back on a different route. Food on board, and a trip round the FutureLand visitor centre. Commentary mostly in Dutch, but not really necessary if you've got a map (e.g. the 1:50 000 ANWB cycle map) and an eye for detail. You might even see some trains too.

I've got some photos somewhere...