History

SS Kaisar I Hind

by Neil.B.Ennis June 23, 2009 No Comments Shortlink

A painting of ship “Kaisar I Hind” outside the Wheelhouse bar aboard Dawn Princess.

Kaisar I Hind was built in Greenock for P&O in 1914 as a passenger liner.

At 11,430 GRT and 158m (520ft) she had a cruising speed of 18.5 knots, and operated a seasonal passenger service between UK and Bombay.

“Kaisar I Hind” is Hindi for “Empress of India”.

Although she didn’t have much cargo space, she had electric fans in every cabin, which were very popular with passengers.

She was almost hit five times by U-Boat torpedos during WWI. In fact, she was hit the fifth time, but luckily the torpedo failed to explode.

More info available here:
http://portal.pohub.com/pls/pogprtl/poghistory.display_document.pdf?p_id=1250

Dawn Princess, Video

Dawn Princess: "A Day in Brisbane"

by Neil.B.Ennis June 12, 2009 No Comments Shortlink

Ship Dawn Princess is currently receiving maintenance at a drydock on the Brisbane River.

Brisbane is beautiful in winter, so I thought I’d record and upload a timelapse video from her webcam of a day on the Brisbane River, from sunrise to sunset.

The view is across the river from the cruise terminal where most ships berth. You can see the CityCat ferries zipping across the water all day, taking passengers into the city, and traffic moving up and down the river.

I hope you enjoy it. And if you’re looking for a pleasant, relaxing place to visit during June, you can’t go past Brisbane!

Coral Princess, Slideshow

Coral Princess in Alaska

by Neil.B.Ennis May 24, 2009 No Comments Shortlink

I’ve been watching Coral Princess over the last few days as she tours Alaska.

Her webcam has been sending back some amazing shots of this beautiful part of the world.



If you’d like to look through the webcam archives, just go to http://ShipWatcher.com/Photos and browse away. If there’s a specific ship you’re interested in, just select it from the dropdown.

If you find any you like, please let me know and I’ll let everyone else know about them!

Aurora, Postcard

Aurora

by Neil.B.Ennis May 8, 2009 No Comments Shortlink

A postcard I sent home to Liz and the kids during my cruise between Sydney and Auckland.

The purser very kindly stamped it with the big black ship stamp before I posted it.

Unfortunately Aurora had problems with a thruster bearing during that leg of the voyage, so we missed a few ports, but it was still very enjoyable.

Built in 2000 for P&O, Aurora is 270m long, and over 76,000 GRT. She normally cruises at about 24 knots and usually does one circumnavigation in Feb / March each year.

History, Postcard

Postcard: RMS Queen Mary 2

by Neil.B.Ennis May 4, 2009 No Comments Shortlink

RMS Queen Mary 2
Originally uploaded by MagicTyger

A postcard from Wendy, who works on Cunard’s flagship RMS Queen Mary 2. This postcard was sent recently while she was crossing the North Atlantic from Southampton to New York.

Thanks Wendy!

Queen Mary 2 was launched in 2003.

She has a length of 345m (1,132 feet) and a tonnage of 148,528 GRT. With a displacement of about 76,000 tonnes, she is the heaviest passenger ship in the world, eclipsing RCI’s Freedom of the Seas, which although having a higher tonnage, only displaces 64,000 tonnes.

QM2 cruises at about 30 knots, making her the fastest ocean liner on the seas today.

She’s too wide (41m / 135 feet) to pass through the Panama Canal, which means that during circumnavigations she must sail around Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America.

Source: Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mary_2

History, Postcard

Rotterdam V in Bar Harbour

by Neil.B.Ennis March 27, 2009 No Comments Shortlink

Rotterdam V in Bar Harbour
Originally uploaded by MagicTyger

A Postcard from fellow ship watcher, Dave.

Built for Holland America Line (HAL) in Rotterdam in the 1950’s, she was the biggest passenger ship ever built in the Netherlands.

At almost 40,000 GRT, 228 metres long, she could carry almost 1,500 passengers on Trans-Atlantic crossings, but also with single-class cruises in mind. The staircase and dividing walls were able to be altered to allow passengers to enjoy the entire ship during cruises.

She was the first ship to be built without traditional funnels. an idea which was taken up by P&O when they build Canberra in 1960.

She served for 38 years with HAL until 1997 when she was sold to Premier Cruise Line (PCL), operating out of the Carribean.

PCL went bankrupt in 2000, and the ship suffered an uncertain fate until she was purchased by a consortium of two Dutch companies, Eurobalance and Woonbron.

She’s currently berthed in her home port of Rotterdam, awaiting refurbishment as a Museum.

ShipWatcher

Server problems fixed.

by Neil.B.Ennis March 22, 2009 No Comments Shortlink

I apologise for the unavailability of ShipWatcher.com over the last few days.

Our server failed, so we bought a new server, which also failed.

Not being one to give up easily, I’ve been on this issue since Friday lunchtime, and am relieved to say that as of about 10pm last night, everything is now working fine.

What was most disappointing for me was missing the lovely shots of QE2 as QM2 sailed into Dubai.

On the bright side, we have a larger, faster server so things should run much better than before.