Sundream

The former Song of Norway has been sold for scrap in China, ending a long career which began in 1970 when she was built in Helsinki as Royal Caribbean International's first ship. Since then she has had quite a few names: Sundream, Dream Princess, Dream, Clipper Pearl, Clipper Pacific, Festival, Ocean Pearl and, her final name, Formosa Queen. I saw her, as Sundream, during the summers of 2003 and 2004, when she visited Southampton.

Here are some photos from then, which are all scanned prints. She's seen passing Calshot on 31st August 2003

At Southampton on 8th May 2004

And again on 22nd May 2004, with The World and Pride of Bilbao in the background

Blast from the past

Here's European Trader at Dover, in August 1990. She was one of a group of three sister-ships - herself, European Gateway and European Clearway built for Townsend Thoresen in 1975 - and one close sister, European Enterprise (renamed European Endeavour after the Zeebrugge disaster in 1987 when P&O wanted to rid themselves of any references containing the words 'free', 'enterprise' or combination of both) built in 1978.
European Trader was eventually moved to Portsmouth and then to the Irish Sea before being sold for further service as Taygran Trader. She finished her days in the Red Sea as Lina Trader and was broken up at Alang in 2006.

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I am hoping to catch up with another former Townsend Thoresen ship in a couple of weeks time. Me and a ship-spotting mate are going to southern Spain over a weekend and are hoping to do a day trip to Morocco on Sherbatskiy, the former Pride of Free Enterprise. The flights and the crossing are all booked, so we're hoping nothing happens to the ship in the meantime, she's reportedly not in the best shape. Oh and the flight out is on Friday 13th...wish us luck!

Odds and ends

A neighbour of a good friend of mine died recently and, as co-executor of his will, my friend, knowing of my interest in ships, asked me if I'd be interested in some books and other bits and pieces as the chap who passed away, John, had been hotel manager on the QE2 for a number of years (he also worked on many other Cunard ships, such as Franconia and Queen Mary) and had amassed a large collection of nautical books and ephemera.

Among the books were a number of copies of ones I had years ago and had sold over the years. As I regretted some of the departures I replaced those as well as found some that I had always wanted to read, but never got round to, such as the autobiographies of Captains Harry Grattidge (Captain of the Queens) and Geoffrey Marr (The Queens and I), as well as Captain Ron Warwick's book on QE2. Most of the books are Cunard-related but there were some others, covering ships such as the Norway and White Star's famous Olympic-class of 1911 (yes, including that unsinkable one that sank on her maiden voyage) plus John Maxtone-Graham's Crossing and Cruising and Liners to the Sun, which are in the same series as his classic The Only Way To Cross. I have The Only Way to Cross but have never read the other two, so that's something to look forward to.

Here are the other odds and ends:

A fridge magnet, destined to join the myriads of others covering the white goods in the kitchen. I don't think it's official Cunard tat, but it's nice all the same.

A badge, commemorating QE2's last voyage as a steam-driven ship

I don't wear ties, but these tie pins are nice

And a couple of bags. I can pretend I went on the 1993 world cruise...

...while the blue one opens out into a sizeable holdall.

I also ended up with copies of Ships Monthly and Sea Breezes from the 1980s, which took me right back. It was interesting going through those this morning and seeing how much things have changed, especially on the ferry and cruising front and not to mention how the size of ships has also grown, right across the board. Cruise ships, ferries and dry cargo ships have all grown much bigger over the past 30 years but tankers have actually grown a bit smaller, certainly in the Ultra-large class; you just don't see vast half-a-million DWT leviathans these days. Container ships have not only grown to huge proportions, they have also become ubiquitous as carriers of all sorts of dry cargo.

Famous names have since vanished, including the ferry operator Townsend Thoresen and the QE2 herself has also disappeared from our waters, although the latter still exists for now, languishing in Dubai. Unfortunately the magazines also brought back unwanted memories, as my teenage years were singularly unpleasant, thanks to a violent stepfather who made us kids' lives hell (he is, unfortunately, still alive while far better human beings have passed on at a younger age). Reading them took me right back to our home in Ryde which was not nice...I think I'll keep the interesting bits and photos of favourite ships (my beloved TT 'Spirits' feature quite a bit) and recycle the rest.

Hobbies keep people sane, I think and mine certainly did when I was a kid - that and rock music.

Calais, 2003

I have got a slide and negative scanner and have had a go at scanning some pictures from negatives. It's a bit hit-and-miss and the device is temperamental at times, due mainly to a dodgy USB port on my computer, but I tried it out with some scans of negatives from a couple of trips to Calais ten years ago (TEN years??!!). I have had a bit of trouble getting the colour balance just right as there was a green bias on some of the originals, plus dust and animal hairs had got onto the negatives, despite my best efforts, but the process is easier and quicker than using a flat-bed scanner and scanning prints one at a time. The photos are also noisy, but noise-reduction software which works really well on images from a digital camera doesn't seem to work as well on scanned negatives; this is most likely because the scanned pictures are grainier anyway, especially that from 400 or 800 ISO film, which is very evident onscreen. One thing is certain, there's no way I would ever return to using film, not unless I absolutely had to!

Sobering to think that four out of the six ships shown here are now no longer with us - SeaFrance Cezanne, SeaFrance Renoir, Pride of Provence and Pride of Dover have all gone to the great harbour in the sky, the latter two prematurely - while out of the remaining two, only Pride of Kent remains on the Dover-Calais route, while Pride of Calais is now TEF's new Ostend Spirit and, from what I have heard, very pleased Oostende are with her, too. Not only that, SeaFrance are also gone, having gone bust and their remaining ships taken on by Eurotunnel (of all people) trading as My Ferry Link.

Looking at these pictures on the computer screen highlights the deficiencies in the camera equipment I had then, you don't notice soft edges on 6x4 prints. Also, one of my old Nikon F3 or FE was definitely on the way out, judging by the fact quite a few photos are turning up 'fogged'.

It's time I made another trip down that way. I definitely plan to in the spring at some point.

Goodbye (another) Old Friend?

It seems as if there is no end to bad news and potential bad news. Following on from the rumours about QE2 (and they are, thankfully, only just rumours so far) and hearing that one of my old friends has gone to the great harbour in the sky, there was further bad news yesterday when Pride of Dover's name came up in a list of ships sold for scrap. This is getting depressing!
She'd been laid up in Tilbury since December 2010, so without a buyer or someone to charter her (and several potential sales and charters fell through, for various reasons), her future was becoming more and more tenuous.

Obligatory photos, as is the case with all my favourite dead, doomed or soon-to-be-doomed ships, from over the years, right from the late 80's (taken from Pride of Kent) up to the 2000's starting with the oldest first. These are all scanned prints.

Update (6th Nov)...
Or is it? I see the ship's name has vanished from that list. On Dover Ferry Photos Forums the latest rumour has her said to be sold to 'German shipping interests' and to be 'towed away for repair'. Would they repair a ship if she's not going to be scrapped? I hope she is saved.

Goodbye Old Friend

While browsing Shipspotting.com earlier I was sad but not entirely surprised to see an old friend has gone to the breakers; a recent photo shows what's left of her at Aliaga in Turkey (the photo is sad for another reason, there are some reefers there way before their time). The Anthi Marina began life as Spirit of Free Enterprise in 1979, became Pride of Kent (I) after the Zeebrugge ferry disaster which wrecked her sister ship Herald of Free Enterprise, and went through further names, variations on 'Kent' - P&OSL Kent and P.O. Kent. She was lengthened in 1991, a process which completely ruined the ship and further ruination was visited on the poor thing when sold, in 2004, to a Greek ferry company which stuck a new bow on her.

I dug out some old photos I took of her in August 1990 at Dover and in 2002 and 2003 leaving Calais.

I was fond of this ship and her other sister (I never knew the Herald, as that came to grief before I ever visited Dover) so I am sorry that she has gone. Now, of the three original ships, there is only Oleander - Pride of Free Enterprise - left and I wonder how long she has until she, too, leaves us?

And here's a really old photo, from May 1988 (I think), of the ship in the Channel, taken from Pride of Dover. This was one of the last photos I took with a really crap old 35mm compact camera I had. This had a poor-quality fixed plastic 38mm lens and wasn't really fit for purpose but it was better than nothing.

If you click here and scroll down, there are some - rather horrific - pictures of her at the scrap yard in Turkey. It looks as if a fire had broken out as she was cut up.

Blasts from the Past

Having a sort out at home, with the idea of possibly moving house, and I found some old photo albums containing my old pre-digital ship photos, so I decided to scan some of them.
They are fairly poor quality prints to begin with and the scans don't make them look any better, but here they are.

Costa Allegra is seen here in Funchal harbour, Madeira, in April 1993. She recently arrived at the scrap yard at Aliaga in Turkey after spending months laid up after a fire.

QE2 and Canberra meet in the Solent during a review in 1994 to mark the 50th anniversary of the D-day landings.

The QE2 and Geestport meet in the Solent, in May 1993

And, going back even further into the past, here is the Canberra returning from the Falklands conflict in 1982. These were my first ever ship photos, I was 12 years old at the time.

I have got hundreds of photos so I expect some more Blasts from the Past will appear on the blog in due course.