Ship of the day

[ursus arctos]

Ship of the day

Lovely.

We have had a greater volume of bulk cargo ships going up the Hudson this week than usual. I've seen three, which means there have likely been more. This morning's was from coming from Cartagena in Colombia. They go up to a terminal just south of Albany, where their cargo is loaded onto trains bound west.

We also had a barge carrying construction equipment (including a cement silo and crane for the continuing work on the new Tappan Zee Bridge upriver.

[Sits]

Ship of the day

Cartagena trivia: it's called that thanks to Hannibal and co. The original Cartagena in Spain evolved from its classical one, New Carthage which was a colony of theirs. As besieged by Scipio Africanus.

Nice ships. Are these the ones nowadays also called Superyachts?

[ursus arctos]

Ship of the day

No, almost all of these will be training vessels for their respective navies (or other maritime services).

Superyachts tend to look like Roman Abramovich's Eclipse



though there are masted examples

[Sits]

Ship of the day

So what's the difference (the second one obviously)?

[Antepli Ejderha]

Ship of the day

Very grey and cloudy so not good for photos today. Perhaps tonight with long exposure I might get some nice photos.

[ursus arctos]

Ship of the day

Sits, the training ships will either have been built in the late 19th or early 20th century or built to original designs from that period. The masted superyachts will be of recent construction and feature all the mod cons that a contemporary oligarch would want. They will also be designed to sail for extended periods under engine power, whereas the training ships are intended to run under sail (though many do have engines).

[Sits]

Ship of the day

Thanks UA.

Not a great picture I'm afraid, but this the James Craig, which is moored across Darling Harbour from my office window:

[ursus arctos]

Ship of the day

Very nice

[caja-dglh]

Ship of the day

Very interested to see first footage of this beast in action (removing whole North Sea Oil rigs). Drones are certainly helping capture some intriguing footage.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Ship of the day

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146999584@N07/?

Today was the last day of the Tall Ships Festival, I've not been able to put the individual photos up yet but will try again later.

Not all of the photos are of ships so apologies in advance.

[Greenlander]

Ship of the day



The ferries will sound their horn, cruise ships often pipe out classical music but this beast of the US Navy left Devonport today blasting out 'The Joker' at ear splittting volume.

Standing on the quay waiting to slip the ferry we heard the Robert E Peary before we saw it. I think most of Plymouth did too.

[Sits]

Ship of the day

If you've ever been to Sydney you may well have walked past the Maritime Museum, as I did today. Floating exhibits here (straight into the sun unfortunately) are (with thanks to Wikipedia):

Main: HMAS Vampire, a destroyer in service 1959-86
Front right: the lightship Carpentaria, in service from 1916-83, appropriately in the Gulf of Carpentaria and also the Bass Strait
Closest, under wraps: MB 172, an officer's launch built in 1937 which served mainly in Darwin
And the masts in the background are a replica of Cook's Endeavour:

[Ginger Yellow]

Ship of the day

I visited the museum last time I was there. You can also go on a (tiny) submarine.

[Sits]

Ship of the day

Oh yes. Used to be visible from that vantage point but they've moved it so now you have to pay museum entry, basically. How bloody claustrophobic is that thing, even for ten minutes?

[Sits]

Ship of the day

So after a wait of over five months, an old trunk of my grandfather's, which was in my brother's house, has arrived by ship and I've been going through the contents. It contains some of my Dad's mementoes from his military service in India between 1945-47. This includes an Indian newspaper from Independence/Partition Day and a photo he took on the day featuring Messrs Mountbatten and Nehru.

Anyway that's for another day. I've started with a postcard of the troop ship he went from Southampton to Bombay (sic) on in mid-1945, the Capetown Castle of Union Castle Line. What a lovely looking ship:



Wikipedia entry here: Capetown Castle

Later on he's got a photo of the one he came home on, which I will share when I get there.

[ursus arctos]

Ship of the day

Beautiful ship, with a rather sad story.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Ship of the day

the MV Plassey. It's seen better days. You may recognise it from the opening sequence of Father Ted. I was out on Inis Oirr there a couple of weeks ago, and it was the first thing I wanted to see.



It was driven onto the rocks during a huge storm in 1961, I was asking my mam about it because she would have been in college at the time, and she said she was at home in Carna when it happened, and she spent the entire night suspended from the ceiling by a rope, desperately trying to keep a skylight from being hurled off the roof, and the slates being ripped off. It would seem that massive storms didn't start today or yesterday

It's not in great nick, and its moved a good fifty metres up the beach in subsequent storms. How they do love to celebrate Clive in Limerick.

[Sits]

Lovely wreck.

Now it's high time I graced the thread with one of my blurred shots out of the office window. So here's the Glory River, a Singapore-based cement boat, on its way to dock.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Viking of Bergen is back in Greenwich, I expect Ginger Yellow to get a better photo tonight.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Not a ship as such but I would still like to include this gracious vessel in this thread for what the incredible feat her owner, Ben Cummins, is accomplishing (and also because I like canals and barges).



Ben Cummins is a green activist and ex university lecturer who decided to quit the rat race 5 years ago to pull his funny-looking engine-less barge ("the piano raft", made of recycled materials) from Liverpool to London via the canal network. He got into West Yorkshire waters about 2 months ago and is hoping to reach London by 2037. Now, if that’s not dedication to the environmental cause, I don’t know what is.

[ursus arctos]

Lovely gesture, but how do the boatmen behind him feel?

[Ginger Yellow]

I doubt my photo will be better by tonight, but I might have a good one over the weekend, if it stays that long. Which reminds me, I still haven't posted my photos from the tall ships festival. Another project for the weekend.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Plenty of canal rage incidents apparently...

That’s it, the much-awaited Parisian “sea bubbles” taxis - aka "the flying taxis"- have (finally) just been tested on the Seine two days ago:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...ine-next-year/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzrwPDT9Eac

More testing (with passengers) will follow in the summer, they also need to train the pilots/staff, get the heath & safety + first aid stuff in place etc. and hopefully, these amazing eco taxis should be up and running for the general public by next October/November. No detail on pricing as yet but I’ve heard that it should cost about €10-€12/per passenger for a 2 kms ride on the Seine in the first instance (the first ones should be leaving from outside the Orsay Museum).

http://www.leparisien.fr/info-paris-...17-7054029.php

[Ginger Yellow]

That fare estimate seems optimistic given the cost of the Thames Clippers, which have an established infrastructure and carry over one hundred people at once.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

That fare estimate seems optimistic given the cost of the Thames Clippers, which have an established infrastructure and carry over one hundred people at once.

That was my initial reaction too last year as the Sea Bubble taxi can only carry 4 passengers tops by the looks of it but (environment-friendly) projects such as this one tend to have the backing of the Paris municipality (before, during and after) and are therefore subsidised to various degrees (eg Paris vélib and Paris Autolib). However, hardly any figures have been released AFAIK so I'm not sure how the project will be structured financially, that side of thing is still under wraps. But €10-12/per passenger for a 2 kms ride on the Seine would sound about right if the company behind this project has been financially helped as I would imagine they have.

€10-12/per passenger is the most oft-quoted figure (here for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoNbtIT4isU - "Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo helped the start-up get off the ground and the team is repaying that favour by testing them out on the Seine. Mr Thébault hopes that eventually Sea Bubbles will be able to be hailed on apps such as Uber, and he estimates that fares in Paris will be around €10 if and when the project gets the final green light.") but who knows, it might turn out to be a bit more.

Note that a Sea Bubble only costs about €30,000 ("Thébault reportedly has the backing of several investors and 100 people have already registered interest in owning one of the boats, expected to cost €30,000") and would pay for itself reasonably quickly I'd imagine even taking into account R&D costs.