Innehållsförteckning för November 2022 från Ships Monthly

On the move CRUISE ROUND-UP • Costa Cruises has cancelled the winter Mediterranean programmes on Costa Venezia and Costa Diadema, saying that travel is still difficult for some of its target passengers. Costa Diadema will join Costa Favolosa and Costa Fascinosa in South America for the 2023/24 season. All three ships will be based in Brazilian ports, and will offer Costa’s largest number of berths in the region to date. • Following the completion of her six-month charter as an accommodation ship for refugees from Ukraine in Rotterdam, Volendam returned to service on 24 September with a 14-night cruise from Trieste. The entire remaining Holland America Line fleet is now back in service following the disposal of four ships early in the pandemic. • Disney Cruise Line will have a…

Few ferries had longer or more varied careers than the twinscrew turbine steamer that ran between Harwich and the Hook of Holland as Duke of York for 15 years between May 1948 and July 1963. Built with two funnels in Belfast by Harland and Wolff to join three vessels dating from 1928 on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway service between Heysham and Belfast, she was coalfired, using mechanical stokers.Duke of York carried 389 first and 1,111 third class passengers, with extensive cargo space and special accommodation for cattle. First class cabins were on the boat and promenade decks, while third class travellers were accommodated on the lower, main and poop decks, with cabin berths for 228 and a ladies dormitory with ten beds. There was a 1942 call-up for…

A well-known passenger/cargo ship in the Indian Ocean region, and for a short period in the Atlantic, the 7,989gt Centaur was completed in 1964 by John Brown & Company at Clydebank for Blue Funnel’s Singapore-Fremantle service as a replacement for the pre-war-built twins Charon and Gorgon. Designed to carry up to 196 passengers as well as dry, liquid and refrigerated freight, the ship could also accommodate 4,500 sheep on the lower decks and had a reinforced hull strong enough to rest on the mudflats at the tidal ports Broome and Derby in Northwestern Australia. The combination ship was withdrawn from the Singapore route in 1982, and during the Falkland’s War was chartered by the St Helena Shipping Co as a substitute for its requisitioned St Helena on the Atlantic run.…

FREEDOM OF THE SEAS BUILT Aker Yards Turku Shipyard, Finland, yard no.52 TONNAGE 154,407gt (2006-15), 156,271gt (since 2015) DIMENSIONS 1,111.46 ft (338.77m) x 126.64ft (38.6m), height 209ft (63.7m), draught 29.61ft (9.03m) INSTALLED POWER Six Wärtsilä 12V46 (each 12,600 kW); propulsion diesel-electric; three ABB Azipod units, two azimuthing and one fixed; four bow thrusters for manoeuvring SPEED 21.6 knots GUEST CAPACITY 3,782 (double occupancy), 4,515 (maximum) CREW 1,360 REGISTERED Nassau, Bahamas Freedom of the Seas and her two sisters are enlarged versions of the line’s ground-breaking Voyager class of ships. The first ship of the type entered service in 1999 and introduced the North American market to the wide-open concept of the Royal Promenade, something that had been pioneered on board the Finnish cruise ferry Silja Serenade of 1990. Built at…

Eighty years have passed since the sinking of HMS Hermes (95), which had the distinction of being the first warship to be designed from the outset as an aircraft carrier. Hermes, ordered by the Royal Navy in April 1917, was launched on 11 September 1919, but it took until 19 February 1924 before she was actually commissioned. However, in the time between her being ordered and joining the Royal Navy the Japanese aircraft carrier Hosho was completed, and she therefore became the first purpose-built aircraft carrier to enter service. Sadly, aircraft from a Japanese aircraft carrier strike force were responsible for the sinking of Hermes in the Indian Ocean on 9 April 1942. 80 years on from that devastating attack by Aichi DA dive-bombers, the wreck of Hermes, located in…

ICELAND’S ELECTRIC FERRY David Fairclough looks at the recentlybuilt Icelandic hybrid ferry Herjólfur, which operates on electric power and is regarded as the ‘Tesla of the seas’. PLUS LORD OF THE ISLES • Mark Nicolson looks back over the career of Caledonian MacBrayne’s Lord of the Isles, one of the best travelled of any Scottish west coast ferry. OCEAN ENDEAVOUR • Profile of Ocean Endeavour, the small cruise ship built in 1982 as Konstantin Simonov for service in the Baltic and which, this year, is marking the 40th anniversary of her entry into service. THE INDIAN NAVY • Report on the Indian Navy, guardian of the strategically important Indian Ocean. ANDREA DORIA • Recounting the infamous sinking of the Italian liner Andrea Doria after her collision with the liner Stockholm…

Matson’s 140 years COMPANY NEWS The Matson Navigation Company, headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, is celebrating its 140th anniversary this year after disposing of its oldest vessel, the 49-year-old Matsonia, which has gone for scrap at Brownsville, Texas as the last of ten trailerships built by Pennsylvania’s long-defunct Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company. Formed in the days of sail by Captain William Matson during the late 1800s, the company became well known for its passenger liners that sailed the Pacific both before and after World War II. These included the magnificent Malolo of 1927 and her later and larger sisters, the triplets Mariposa, Monterey and Lurline of 1931-32. In the 1950s Matson had two Mariner-type cargo vessels rebuilt as the passenger ships Monterey and Mariposa, while an aging C3 freighter, Hawaiian…

Independence day INDIAN NAVY India marked the 75th anniversary of its independence with the commissioning of INS Vikrant (R11), its first domestically produced aircraft carrier. The occasion was also used to reveal a new naval ensign, the fourth such amendment since 1950. The latest version features the seal of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, with the ‘colonial’ St George’s cross being removed. Described by the Prime Minister as an ‘historic day and landmark achievement’, Vikrant is the largest warship to be built in India, with 76 per cent of her components indigenously procured. Half a dozen major industrial firms and more than 100 smaller businesses provided equipment and machinery. Naturally, such an ambitious project has encountered problems. The ship is six years late, and has suffered a sixfold increase in the final…

The most technologically advanced vessel to operate from Harwich was the 1997-built Stena Discovery, last of three 1,500-passenger/375-car gasturbine-powered HSS catamarans built by Rauma-based Finnyards. Her elder sisters ran on the Irish Sea; Stena Explorer from Holyhead to Dublin, and Stena Voyager from Stranraer to Belfast. Stena Discovery spent a month on the Irish Sea before a Hook route debut on 2 June 1967. She had two pairs of General Electric Aviation gas turbines powering four KaMeWa Water Jets giving a speed of 40 knots. In addition to reduced crossing times thanks to her speed, the use of specially designed linkspans also allowed quick port turnarounds by the 126m long stern loader. Stena Discovery replaced ro-pax vessels Stena Britannica (1991/25,905gt), which remains in the fleet as Stena Saga, and Koningin…

For over a century five generations of the Gibson family photographed shipwrecks around Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. They worked with determination and perseverance to document vessels that had run aground or been stranded, dashed against rocks or sunk in the waters around the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall, widely regarded as some of the most treacherous for seafarers. With so much maritime traffic using the shipping lanes which passed the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall, wrecks were commonplace in an era when manual navigation techniques were the norm and weather forecasting somewhat limited. The Gibson family regarded the images as artfully produced records of dramatic events. The photographs generated income when shipping companies bought prints to use in support of their insurance claims. The Gibsons also produced photographs…

HMS Sussex was a London class cruiser of 10,000 tons. During August 1940, she was in the Clyde to have a turbine rebladed, with the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering and Alexander Stephen & Co of Linthouse contracted for the work. The repair was expected to last six weeks, but was completed four days ahead of schedule and the crew had been instructed to rejoin their ship by midnight on 17 September 1940. Sussex was made ready for sea, being fully stored and armed. She lay berthed in the West Basin of Yorkhill Quay, with only final engine room adjustments to be made, with 300 to 400 naval personnel on board. Her intended sailing date was 23 September 1940 and she was to go to Murmansk on Convoy Duty. But, sadly,…

SHIPS MAIL Feeder ships Regarding the article on Scotland’s first direct container link with China (SM, Sept, p.9), I would point out that the caption to the accompanying photograph incorrectly describes the ship as a ‘feeder’. The attraction to shippers of KC Group’s new service is that it is direct, thereby avoiding transshipments and the need for feeder ships, which often delay the delivery of their cargo when using competing container lines. Three direct sailings are due to take place each month between Greenock and China and vice versa, also calling at Liverpool. The vessel Allseas Pioneer sailed from Greenock on 27 August bound for Ningbo and Shenzhen, its cargo including a large consignment of Scotch whisky. Malcolm Cranfield Heswall, Wirral Line voyages The picture of Shaw Savill’s SS Northern…

Ownership change for Seatruck Ferries CLdN The shareholding of Irish Sea freight specialist Seatruck Ferries, part of the Danish Clipper Group since 2002, was acquired by Belgian ferry giant CLdN in September. It includes eight purpose-built vessels, six of which currently serve routes from Heysham to Warrenport and Dublin, while there is also a link between Liverpool and the Irish capital. Seatruck is responsible for almost 20 per cent of Irish Sea freight traffic, and CLdN chief executive Florent Maes said the deal was in line with an overall strategy of expanding current trade and adding new routes. He added: ‘Seatruck Ferries is an excellent company with a great route network and strong business model and adds to our presence in the UK and Irish markets.’ Seatruck was established in…

Atlantska Plovidba sells bulker SHIP SALES Croatia’s Atlantska Plovidba has sold the ten-year-old 31,598gt bulk carrier Ston to new owners for $19.5 million, thus reducing its fleet to 11 ships, so it now consists of five panamax, four supramax and two handymax bulkers. Founded at Dubrovnik around seven small coal-burning tramp steamers in 1955, the company grew to operate a fleet of bulk carriers, coastal vessels and heavylifters with a combined capacity of 779,378dwt by 2001, but has since diversify its operations into other industries, such as tourist hotels and airlines, while helping to establish three maritime training schools in Croatia. JS New bulkers for Bulgaria BULKERS State-owned Navigation Maritime Bulgare, established in 1892 and considered Bulgaria’s largest shipping company, has taken delivery of the 32,150dwt bulk carrier Shipka from…

The historic crossing from Harwich to the Hook of Holland is today served by the 2010-built sisters Stena Britannica and Stena Hollandica, the biggest vessels in Stena Line’s near-40-ship fleet, offering day and night sailings in each direction from the Essex port to the Netherlands. The route fared better than many others during the Covid-19 pandemic from spring 2020, and remains the busiest continental connection from England’s East Coast ports. Indeed, in recent times £1 million has been spent on upgrading the two vessels to provide enhanced onboard passenger facilities. Early development of the service was down to the Great Eastern Railway, which started carrying cargo and cattle from Harwich to Rotterdam in 1883, although after reaching Holland vessels could only navigate the Brielle Bar to enter the river Maas…

Coastal trading vessels, also known as coasters, are usually shallowhulled shipsusedfortrade between locations on the same island or within a continent. Their shallow hulls and smaller size usually mean that they can access a wider range of ports, and coastal tankers which are seen on the Humber usually move oil and other chemical products delivered by VLCC to the Humberside refineries via the Immingham Oil Terminal. Most tankers of this class are described as Chemical/Oil Products Tankers. Some are used to take the many products of the oil refineries to their markets, and some are used for transportation of chemicals, eitherforusein refineries, or for export from chemical producers. There are three producers of fuel oil in the Humber area: the crude oil refineries of the Humber Refinery, the Lindsey Oil…

Shipwreck is an impressive new volume containing the amazing photographs taken in the West Country by the famous Gibson family. Their collection focuses on shipwrecks, which, over many decades, were captured by five generations of the family over 130 years. From Cornwall and the remote Isles of Scilly, the Gibsons documented these shipwrecks in photographs, creating a unique archive of an era when seafaring often meant risking your life. In the days of sailing ships, which did not carry modern navigational aids, the waters off Britain’s south-western coast were among the most treacherous in the world, with ships having to deal with tidal currents, submerged rocks, bad weather and uncharted channels. Thousands of ships were lost there, with their journeys to and from the ports of Britain and beyond all…