Nostalgia and ships
Friday, 20 June 2008 16:44![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
claidheamhmorI've always had a soft spot for great ships. I think it started with my grandparents; they had a few books I read, over and over again. One was "The Vasa Venture", all about the discovering and raising of the wreck of the royal Swedish flagship Vasa which capsized and sank only 2km into its maiden voyage.
Another book (still in my bookcase) was "The Queen Elizabeth", published in 1947. It was all about the great ocean liner RMS Queen Elizabeth, voyages and wartime experience. The pictures and descriptions of the QE instilled in me a love of those grand ocean liners, and I'm fascinated by them My father was lucky enough to go to the UK on the QE in 1953, as a child, and he still has pictures of the fancy dress party he took part in at Christmas on the deck. I was very saddened when the Queen Elizabeth was destroyed in Hong Kong; it seemed so ignominious.
In the early 1980s, I won a scale model building competition (with a 1/72-scale Focke Wulf Fw-190D-12), and the prize was two models: the shuttle from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a model of the SS United States.
I loved that ship - elegant, technologically advanced (the superstructure was aluminium), and amazingly fast. It won the Blue Riband in 1952 on her maiden voyage, both east and west, for fastest transatlantic crossing. The eastbound record was only broken in 1990 by the catamaran Hoverspeed Great Britain, and the westbound record still stands, over half a century later. The United States could even do 20 knots (almost 40kph) backward! To reduce the risk of fire (perhaps the designers saw the gutting of the beautiful SS Normandie in New York), the only wood in the ship was in the bilge keels, the kitchen's butcher's block, and in a fire-resistant piano. Friggin' amazing.
Another beautiful ship I liked was the RMS Queen Mary, still preserved at Long Beach, California, and it's nice to see the pictures of her and the (less elegant) RMS Queen Mary 2 meeting up.
One bit of trivia about ship's horns that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vivian_shaw would probably appreciate: modern horn regulations require ship's horns to be in the 70-200Hz range for large ships, and the larger they are, the lower the frequency, so the QM2 has a 70Hz horn. The original Queen Mary, however, still has a 55Hz horn, designed so as not to be too painful for human ears. I would like one of those in my car, that's for sure.
Another book (still in my bookcase) was "The Queen Elizabeth", published in 1947. It was all about the great ocean liner RMS Queen Elizabeth, voyages and wartime experience. The pictures and descriptions of the QE instilled in me a love of those grand ocean liners, and I'm fascinated by them My father was lucky enough to go to the UK on the QE in 1953, as a child, and he still has pictures of the fancy dress party he took part in at Christmas on the deck. I was very saddened when the Queen Elizabeth was destroyed in Hong Kong; it seemed so ignominious.
In the early 1980s, I won a scale model building competition (with a 1/72-scale Focke Wulf Fw-190D-12), and the prize was two models: the shuttle from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a model of the SS United States.
I loved that ship - elegant, technologically advanced (the superstructure was aluminium), and amazingly fast. It won the Blue Riband in 1952 on her maiden voyage, both east and west, for fastest transatlantic crossing. The eastbound record was only broken in 1990 by the catamaran Hoverspeed Great Britain, and the westbound record still stands, over half a century later. The United States could even do 20 knots (almost 40kph) backward! To reduce the risk of fire (perhaps the designers saw the gutting of the beautiful SS Normandie in New York), the only wood in the ship was in the bilge keels, the kitchen's butcher's block, and in a fire-resistant piano. Friggin' amazing.
Another beautiful ship I liked was the RMS Queen Mary, still preserved at Long Beach, California, and it's nice to see the pictures of her and the (less elegant) RMS Queen Mary 2 meeting up.
One bit of trivia about ship's horns that
vivian_shaw would probably appreciate: modern horn regulations require ship's horns to be in the 70-200Hz range for large ships, and the larger they are, the lower the frequency, so the QM2 has a 70Hz horn. The original Queen Mary, however, still has a 55Hz horn, designed so as not to be too painful for human ears. I would like one of those in my car, that's for sure.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Friday, 20 June 2008 15:07 (UTC)I mentioned that if that movie had been made today they would have had to have included a placard at the end saying "By the way, Elizabeth did become Queen, blah blah blah."
We went on in this vein for some time. "Wait, the Queen is Elizabeth II now because there was once an Elizabeth I? I thought she was named after the ship!"
Yeah, late nights are weird around here.
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Date: Friday, 20 June 2008 16:37 (UTC)One confusing thing is that Queen Elizabeth II of England is Queen Elizabeth I of Scotland, because England's Queen Elizabeth I was not a monarch of Scotland.
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Date: Friday, 20 June 2008 16:48 (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 20 June 2008 16:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 20 June 2008 15:17 (UTC)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/canada/2128069/18th-century-British-warship-HMS-Ontario-found-intact-in-Great-Lake.html
I meant to make a post, but life hasn't cooperated.
no subject
Date: Friday, 20 June 2008 16:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 20 June 2008 19:35 (UTC)Tim's photo is ( here (http://www.pbase.com/tjod/image/98893019) ). The newspaper report is ( here (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008003489_nina18m.html) ). :)
no subject
Date: Friday, 20 June 2008 19:45 (UTC)Reminds me of the Wright Flyer, and how its first flight was shorted than the wingspan of a 747. Baby steps...