The ShipWatcher Blog

Hindenburg LZ-129

A Postcard from Dan in Georgia. Dan is a kindred spirit who loves Ships, Airships Old Aircraft and postcards.

Thanks for the fantastic postcards, Dan. I’ve sent a couple more in reply.

Hindenburg.
Length: 245m
Beam: 41m
Payload: 500,000 pounds
Cruising speed: 125km/h
Max speed:: 135 km/h
Passengers: 50 crew, 72 passengers

Much has been written about this amazing airship. You can see [...]

MV Italia

GRT 20,223
Length 609 Feet
Breadth 78 Feet

Built by Blohm & Voss of Hamburg in 1928 for Swedish American Line (SAL) she was named “Kungsholm”. She ran on the North Atlantic route between Europe and North America in the 1930’s.

She was requisitioned by the US Government during World War II and renamed “John Ericsson”. During the [...]

Schütte-Lanz Airship Bombing Warsaw

An old WWI propaganda postcard I bought recently which shows Schütte-Lanz Airship SL2 bombing Warsaw in 1914.

The SL2 was 144 metres in length, but she was later extended to 156 meters, with a beam of 18 metres.

She could carry a payload of 8 to 10 tonnes at about 88km/h (47 knots).

“What’s an [...]

BE-40049

A postcrossing post card from Judit in Belgium

The ship in the picture is “Carina” (you might be able to see the name КАРИНА in cyrillic on her bow).

Length: 122m, 7600GRT, 328 passengers.

She is currently known as “Rochale One” and operates as a static ship for student accommodation in Amsterdam.

She was built in Nantes, France in [...]

RMS Baltic Postcard

A Postcard from Miry.

RMS Baltic is the twin funnelled ship whose stern is visibile in the picture.

At the time she was built in 1903, RMS Baltic was the largest ship in the world, with a GRT of 23,876 and a length of over 222 metres.

She was the third of a set of four [...]

Orford Postcard

A postcard from Grant in South Australia.

Built for Orient Lines in 1928, SS Orford was loaned to France during WW2 as a troop carrier. She ran aground in Marseilles while evacuating troops in 1940. It took seven years for her to be refloated, after which she was scrapped.

She made many journeys between Australia and [...]

Orion-Postcard

23,300 GRT, and 203m in length.

A postcard from Grant in South Australia.

Built as RMS Orion by Vickers Armstrong in 1934, she was the first single-funnelled ship to be built for the Orient Line since the turn of the century. She was also the first ship to be painted in the Orient Line’s corn-colored livery, sporting [...]

Suomen Joutsen

A Postcrossing postcard from Anne in Finland.

The three masted, full rigged “Suomen Joutsen” was built in 1902. She has a steel hull and plied the trade routes between ports in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Since this was before the days of the Panama Canal, this means she frequently passed through the treacherous [...]

Two postcards I came across this week which highlight how ocean travel has changed over 70 years.

Tegelberg: (Info from Ronald Turner’s web page)Dutch passenger ship Built at Nederlandscae Sb hij in 1938 Capacity: 640 passengers.GRT: 14140, Length: 170.5 metres, Width: 22 metres, Speed: 17/18 knotsConverted to a Troopship and chartered for the Ministry of War, [...]