I’ve added Ocean Village and Ocean Village 2 to ShipWatcher.
They’ll soon be transferred to P&O’s Australian fleet, but by adding them now, you’ll be able to watch them on their final voyages for their current company.
You can follow them here:
Ocean Village on ShipWatcher
Ocean Village 2 on ShipWatcher
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 some great pictures of the interior and read more about her at Dan’s site: airships.net
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 war she operated as a troop carrier and took part in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day in 1944.
Sold to Home Lines in 1948, she was refitted and renamed “Italia”. She served until 1964 when she was sold to Freeport Bahama Enterprises who renamed her “Imperial Bahama” and used her as a floating hotel.
She was sold for scrap in 1965.
This is a Postcard from Dan in Georgia. Dan is a kindred spirit who loves Ships, Airships Old Aircraft and postcards. He runs the AirShips.Net website dedicated to the Hindenburg and other Zeppelins.
Thanks for the fantastic postcards, Dan. I’ve sent a couple more in reply!
I’ve added Carnival’s latest ship, Carnival Dream to ShipWatcher.
At over 1000 feet in length, Dream is the largest ship in Carnival’s fleet.
She was built by Fincatieri in Italy, and leaves on her maiden voyage today, from Civitavecchia near Rome.
Even though you might not be able to be there on her maiden voyage, you can still enjoy the view from your computer screen and follow the voyage of Carnival Dream via ShipWatcher.
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 airship doing in a ShipWatcher blog” you may ask? Especially in a wartime setting. The Schütte-Lanz Airships were the precursors of the more well-known Zeppelins of the 1920’s and 30’s. The ship in this picture (and it IS a ship – even if it does fly) is about the same length as a small to medium sized cruise ship.
In fact, later designs of the Schütte-Lanz Airship reached a length of 275 metres – about the same size as a modern ocean liner, although these later designs were never actually built.
The most famous relative of these flying ships was the ill-fated Hindenburg. A Zeppelin measuring 245 metres in length, capable of carrying 70 passengers at speeds over 130km/h (70 knots). On one flight in 1936, the Hindenberg carried a specially designed aluminium grand piano – the first ever piano to be carried in flight.
Airship technology is now over a century old. Who knows? Perhaps soon we’ll have modern safer airships conducting cruises similar to those of the 1930’s.
A postcrossing post card from Claus in Hamburg.
Claus says that when QM2 is in town, people go crazy, and over a million people may watch her.
She looks beautiful, Claus.
Thanks for the postcard!
