Arctic Adventure Part 2 - It's good to be king

The QM-2 crosses the Atlantic at a dead run then docks in South Hampton, England. This isn't necessarily a good thing. South Hampton is not really a resort town. It's a big industrial area.

      If you're a petroleum engineer you might love this view.

The town itself is rather unremarkable. Which is somewhat of a shame as the history of South Hampton begins in the stone age and is quite rich. The problem is that London is only 75 miles away and overshadows everything. 

Not a problem for this scooter

South Hampton was the sailing point for the Titanic in 1912. On this trip I was to hear a lot about the Titanic. The Titanic was operated by the White Star Line (though not for long obviously). In 1934 White Star Line merged with it's chief rival - Cunard.

Look familiar? This is the side of the Queen Mary. During the voyage over the captain of the QM announced that we were passing less than 100 miles from the watery grave site of the Titanic. I immediately went on the top deck and verified that all 3 radars were still lit off and turning (they were). 

Would radar have saved Titanic? Yes and no (believe it or not). For the reputed size of the 'berg they t-boned, radar would have seen it.  Easily.  That being said, radar alone isn't enough to ensure safe passage.  Not all icebergs capable of severely damaging or sinking a ship are easily seen on radar. Remember, only 10% of a hunk of ice is above the surface.

 During a storm, a piece of ice big enough to ruin your day can get lost in "sea clutter". There are some new digital processing algorithms that specifically look for ice on radar, not yet totally proven.  A searchlight at 30 knots is about as useless as using a psychic.

Lucky shot

A better way to look for ice is to use FLIR.

Forward Looking InfRared.  Great stuff, used by the military for years.  Able to see through fog and at night.

This bergie bit is quite clear at night - that's because the ice isn't the same temperature as the sea

So is all this how the QM avoids the same fate as the Titanic? No.  The sinking of the Titanic set off an international effort to make the seas safer. Back in the day, all reports of ice were plotted and passed on to the ships. Today, another way to spot (and track) icebergs has been made possible by NASA and ESA.

Landsat-8   NASA

Sentinel-1  ESA

So with all this high-tech wizardry are you safe crossing the North Atlantic? Nope. A study by the BBC  found that between 1980 and 2005 there have been 57 "incidents" between ships and ice. Witness the fate of the MS Explorer in 2007. The Explorer was an ice-rated ship designed for arctic and antarctic service. 

"Did anyone save the ruby?"

One of the interesting things that Micky Arison talked about on the voyage over was the current state of the Cunard name. Back in the heyday, Cunard was the biggest, most recognized name in the business. In 2005 Carnival bought them out for pennies on the dollar. Cunard executives were unsurpassed for providing superlative service on classy ships, they just didn't grasp the concept of turning a profit doing it. So here's the problem - the Queen Mary is a far more recognized name today than the Cunard name. The Cunard brand actually has 3 ships (Mary, Victoria, and Elizabeth).

Lizzy

Vicky

 Carnival is having trouble making a niche market for them.


While I may not have been overly impressed with South Hampton and wasn't heartbroken to leave, apparently I have a good eye for real estate. Check out this little get-away I spotted on the Isle of Wright (one of the islands that's part of the English Channel).

                      The beginning as it comes in sight

        View from directly abeam as we sailed up the Channel

This is actually Osborne House (doesn't mean much to an American). Osborne House was the beloved summer/vacation getaway castle of Queen Victoria. They (Vicki and Albert)  bought the property in 1845 from Lady Blanchford (no idea who she was).  That was the part that surprised me. I always assumed if you were the reigning monarch you could just walk into anywhere you wanted and tell the current resident to get the hell out. What good is being king if you can't boss people around?  It was your typical tear down and rebuild project. The new castle was finished in 1851. Apparently they really liked the place.  Both Vicki and Albert eventually died there.  Yes, Prince Albert was buried in a can on the grounds.

 In case you're wondering, the "Prince Albert" depicted on the can is actually King Edward VII (he was known as good ole Prince Al before he got the throne). He's the oldest son of Vicki (who didn't particularly like him - she thought he was just a playboy nitwit). The picture on the can was given to R J Reynolds himself by none other than Mark Twain (weird world huh?).

The King at his coronationBy User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1612595.

While on the subject of royal stuff, I'm skipping ahead to the port of Rosyth (Scotland, Edinburgh -possibly the most awesome city on earth). Here you will find this beauty.

 

This is the royal yacht (retired) Britannia. The Britannia was (in my opinion) the first mega yacht (she's too small and inexpensive to be a hyper yacht - those are the realm of internet billionaires and Russian oligarchs). Evidently I'm not the only one fascinated by this historic ship. Some 300,000 people a year tour her. She's a year older than me (built in 1953) and is 412 feet long, weighing in at 5,700 tons. Basically a small ship. She was built to fly this thing

all around the world as a British ambassador.  In the event of a nuclear war Queen Elizabeth was supposed to take refuge in her off the Scottish coast (not sure how well this would have worked out). The Britannia is the most famous of all the British royal yachts (there were some 83 of them starting in 1660 with King Charles II).  While I'm a huge fan, the boat is a little bit on the ridiculous side.  Consider the 277 "crew" it took to run it.

This is a royal yacht after all.  Tut tut, it just wouldn't do to staff it with anything other than royal officers and men. The officers were appointed for two year stints.  The "yachtsmen" (read enlisted crew) were volunteers from the royal navy. 

It was a good time for the crew members (some stayed for 20 years).  The Britannia was run as a sparkling naval ship. As such, it was run with great precision, pomp, and circumstance - and therein lies a brief glimpse into British society and their love of class structure. 

Crew's bar

Officers bar

Sargent's bar

Royal bar

Being part of the Britannia was a great job. Before 8:00 that is.  All on deck crew work was required to be completed before 8:00 AM. If you ran into a royal you were required to stop what you were doing, come to attention, and never never make eye contact or speak unless spoken to.

While the Brits maintain a stiff upper lip, the royals are known for a sense of whimsy and humor. Two games were routinely played in the royal bar. Since the place was, more or less, off-limits to most of the crew - should you happen to pass through and the place was empty, the idea was to move the royal monkey to some place screwy.

Another lively game was called wombat tennis. A stuffed wombat was thrown up into the ceiling fan.

poor little blighter

Stuffed animals played quite a role in the ship.  The queen is, of course, quite taken with corgis.  Stuffed versions abounded aboard.

Sickbay

head wound most likely

Dinner was a big deal aboard ship. The main dining hall was where all the schmoozing went on.

If you look closely, you can see the tremendous precision with which the table was set.

It took 3 hours to set up the table. Placement of each setting was detailed down to plus or minus 1 millimeter! The food selection was worked out a year in advance - even the menus were printed a year ahead (the menus were considered the only souvenir you were allowed to keep from your visit). Good thing they never invited Putin aboard - he'da stolen everything. 
The silverware was exceptional.

 All the silverware was housed in it's own separate cabin.  Some poor bastard steward had to polish every single piece every single day.  What an awful job. No wonder there were so many bars on-board.

This is the queen's bed.  No, I have no idea why it's not queen sized. Got a good laugh though.

Queen vanity (complete with corgi)

Think this is costume jewelry? Guess again.

King's bed:

              Again, not king sized (or even queen sized).

The only queen sized bed on-board was this one:

Should have made it a princess/prince size bed.  Guess who?

Need something?  Pick up the phone 24 hours a day.

The engine room was a thing of beauty. Remember, the boat was built in 1953.  Big diesels weren't an option. Steam was. The Britannia was powered by steam turbines.

Note the extraordinary attention paid to details. No other steam engine room in the world has ever looked this good. The poor steward who had to polish all the silverware every day wasn't the only one on-board powering a rag by hand. There were probably quite a few engine room snipes that would have traded places with him (silverware isn't hot).

This is (a bad picture) of one of the dial banks:

The view is from the top looking down the panel

Very nice, but check out the other side of it:

Seriously?  Did they think the queen was gonna hang out in the engine room and get prissy?

When Colin Powell was given a tour of the engine room he is supposed to have remarked "very nice, but where's the real engine room?". I agree.  They must have spent a fortune on clean rags. A simple oil leak would have given the chief engineer a ulcer.

Dingy paddle? Nope.

One of the more formal royal salons had a fireplace.

Looks nice, except it doesn't work.  Never did.  The queen wanted a fire place but the ship designers told her the only way they'd put in a working fireplace was if the queen agreed to allow a seaman to stand by it with a fire extinguisher the entire time it was lit. Hard to be informal and dump on the prime minister with a crewman standing there.

One of the aft deck areas was the informal royal gathering spot.

Note the cheesy, cheap furniture.

Prince Al liked to paint in this area.

Good thing he had a day job.

Can't travel without the royal car.

Can't use the royal car unless you can get to shore first.  This is the royal gig.

Nice piece of word working, with odd accouterments.

The back bench was installed and raised so that people could get a glimpse of the upper crust riding to shore.

So will this be the last in a long line of royal yachts?  Possibly not. A move is underway to have the new government fund a new royal yacht.

One proposed design

The question is - is this a good idea? In my humble opinion, no!  The proposal is to spend only $160 M (only?). For today's hyper-yachts $160 is chump change.  Consider just ONE of Paul Allen's toys (he owns 3).

Octopus.  Bigger than the Britannia.  Waaaaaay more expensive. Complete with 2 helicopters and 2 submarines.

Or how about this Russian beauty?

If the idea is to fly the British flag world-wide, you need to do it with style and panache. A $160 M mega-yacht doesn't even break you into the world's top 100 yachts.

Still, it's good to be king. Just ask Tom Petty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SF1iLXSQto