Cunard's new liner Queen Victoria

[Richard]

Hello everybody!

This may seem a strange topic for this forum, but I heard about it on Classic FM this morning, and it might be of particular interest to Dave.

Cunard's brand new liner 'Queen Victoria' is due to arrive in Southampton on Friday 7th December 2007, so there should be the opportunity for some great photographs. The ship has its own website, which is well worth visiting:-

queenvictoria.cunard.co.uk/

I see the ship is due to be named by the Duchess of Cornwall on Monday 10th December, before setting off on her maiden voyage the following day. She looks a magnificent vessel (I mean the ship)! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Best Wishes,

Richard

[Dave]

Thanks Richard, I did not know about this and if it arrives in the afternoon or evening I shall be there!!!

Diarised!

Cheers, Dave

[Richard]

Hello Dave!

I've added some more information to my previous post, and you might like to click on this link:-

queenvictoria.cunard.co.uk/southampton-arrival/index.html

Richard

[stevemacdonald]

Nice boat! Only problem is the rogue waves she will likely encounter on the high seas. The Queen Mary barely survived one back in 1942 and in 1998 Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2 was hit by a 90-footer. Entire cargo ships get swallowed up by rogues from time to time.

[Dave]

But Steve, the Queen Victoria will be unsinkable!

Richard, it will sail up The Solent on the high tide and that's around 10 am on its arrival date but a more reasonable (for me!) 12 noon on its maiden voyage date... I have some tough decisions to make here!

Cheers, Night Owl err, Dave

[Steve H]

Hi Dave and Steve M

Well I hope they sort out any teething troubles early on, Stuart and I are on her in August 2008, mind you, there are no rogue waves normally in the med!

Steve H

[graemek]

Hi Shipfans,
It's not the height of the wave that matters but the horizontal distance between wavetops as a proportion of that.
For example you can have 100' waves with 3 miles crest to crest & that's relatively gentle on the ship.
But as the crest to crest distance decreases (for the same wave height) the ship more or less falls off the wave bow first & dives into the water at speed at the bottom.
The buoyancy forces arrest the plunge of the ship & allow it to spring up again but meantime pure water pressure can crush the hull inwards & maybe rupture it.
Then its bye bye.
Hope you all enjoy your cruise
Graeme
PS Steve: Thanks for all your 1000 plus posts, particularly the untold numbers of 1st class pics you've taken & posted over time.
Very much appreciated by us all.

[petertong]

This is pretty sweet... I still remember back growing up and visiting Hong Kong (when it still belonged to you Brits) and seeing QE2 moored alongside the quay in Kowloon... good memories.

Is Southhampton a huge port these days? Southhampton is where just about 1/2 of my ancestors sailed from England to the Colonies... via the Mayflower, Fortune, etc., and Winthrop fleet... in the 1620s-1650s...

[stevemacdonald]

graemek said:

Hi Shipfans,
It's not the height of the wave that matters but the horizontal distance between wavetops as a proportion of that. ...

Thanks, Graeme, that should put fears to rest, right? Except for the inconvenient truth that "rogue" waves are not part of the category of waves you're describing. They're a thing apart and can come up without warning as an enormous, breaking wall of water even in calm seas and against the current. The physics of it all is still being puzzled out. I would direct your attention to some interesting (if terrifying) online articles such as this one from the ESA and this one from the BBC.

And Steve H, the Mediterranean is no safe haven for large vessels either. Gale-force winds regularly whip up shipping channels into a veritable bathtub riot. Stories and videos of such abound on the net as well. Good luck with your voyage.

I salute the courage of sea-goers who tempt fate on these liners like the QM and the QE2 and the soon-to-be-christened QV, but you would never get me on board one of those potential Poseidon adventures!

[Dave]

stevemacdonald said:

graemek said:

Hi Shipfans,
It's not the height of the wave that matters but the horizontal distance between wavetops as a proportion of that. ...

Thanks, Graeme, that should put fears to rest, right? Except for the inconvenient truth that "rogue" waves are not part of the category of waves you're describing. They're a thing apart and can come up without warning as an enormous, breaking wall of water even in calm seas and against the current. The physics of it all is still being puzzled out. I would direct your attention to some interesting (if terrifying) online articles such as this one from the ESA and this one from the BBC.

But these events are rare, can now be designed for... and are very much surviveable. They are no more serious for a large well designed ocean liner or ocean going cruise ship than is severe clear air turbulence for aircraft.

From the BBC article above:

In February 1995 the cruiser liner Queen Elizabeth II met a 29-metre high rogue wave during a hurricane in the North Atlantic that Captain Ronald Warwick described as "a great wall of water… it looked as if we were going into the White Cliffs of Dover."

Did it break up or sink? I don't think so. Why on Earth was it sailing through a hurricane anyway?

As for the Queen Victoria, it is a mere cruise ship (QE2 was built as an Ocean Liner) - but even so, from Wikipedia:

The hull has been built to meet the demands of the Atlantic Ocean, with extra steel added to strengthen key decks and bulkheads, and reinforced, thicker bow plating.

...and for the largest true Ocean Liner to have beeen built recently, Queen Mary 2,

Due to the size of the ship, the luxury of materials, and the fact that, due to her nature as an ocean liner, she required 40% more steel than a standard cruise ship

So yes, new dangers have been discovered but as usually happens, design and construction is upgraded to handle them.

Choose a modern well designed and built Queen of the Seas, and you'll be fine, Steve. Somewhat safer, i suspect, than flying in a transatlantic jet plane. But stay well clear of Indonesian ferry boats (and probably, every other form of transport there).

Cheers, Dave

[graemek]

Wow, now we're into the topic.
Thanks Dave, Steve.

Here's quite a good article on real incidents:
www.europhysicsnews.com/full/35/article4.pdf

Anybody here read "Supership"? Written by a South African it goes over world oceanography & many incidences of "freak" seas.

A bad spot is the East side of the Cape of Good Hope which is caused by a combination of the 5 knot Agulhas current & an underwater cliff about 8km off shore plus seasonal strong South West winds.
Given the right circumstances a "hole" appears in the ocean into which the unfortunate ship plunges quite often breaking its back.

Since reading that book I've assumed (mistakenly it seems) that any ship incident was caused by a combination of events like the Cape ones.

Also from adding wave motions together its quite normal to get a resultant wave suddenly doubling up only to subside when the condition passes.

Very interesting subject. I'm always willing to learn more about it as I regard my own knowledge as full of holes. (pardon the pun)

When I worked in Blohm & Voss a Hamburg shipyard I was aware of ice strengthening of hulls but wasn't aware of any difference in design between ocean going & cruise ships. Usually the insurance category was quoted eg. Lloyds 100 A1 & that included the purpose of the ship.
It often worries me when I look at the huge glass areas that the Florida based cruise ships have.
I notice, just to get back on topic that Queen Victoria is quoted as 90,000 GRT & QM2 is 151,000 GRT (quite a large difference in size)
Graeme
PS my own sea experience consists of UK to Aust as a 10 year old,
Aust. to Rotterdam as a 27 year old & Genoa to Sydney as a 31 yr old.
Plus quite a few large ferry trips.

[graemek]

Hi All,
Some confirming material re the Agulhas Current , rogue waves etc.


Graeme.....

PS Steve & Stuart. Please don't read these last 2 posts till you come home again. i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

[stevemacdonald]

And just when you thought it was safe to go on a ship....

More than 40 on cruise ship hurt in NZ storm

1 August 2008

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - More than 40 passengers on a cruise ship were injured when it was hit by a storm off New Zealand packing seven-meter (23-foot) waves and powerful winds, officials said Friday.

P&O Cruises corporate affairs director Sandy Olsen said three passengers with broken bones were taken to a hospital in the northern New Zealand city of Auckland after the ship, the Pacific Sun, docked Friday.

The storm hit the vessel on Wednesday night.

Olsen said the vessel was never in danger, although it sustained some "internal damage."

Most of those injured suffered cuts and bruises, with some requiring stitches. Several elderly passengers among the 1,732 passengers and 671 crew left the ship with arms bound in slings.

Chris and Joy Vickers from the North Island city of Tauranga said they were on the top deck when a big wave slammed into the ship, throwing them around "like human rag dolls."

Two women from New Plymouth, on New Zealand's west coast, said it was "like being in a disaster movie."

Erica MacGregor was quoted by the Fairfax Web site as saying people screamed and cried when the storm hit just after dark as many were sitting down for dinner.

"In the dining rooms the tables were bolted down but nothing else was and everything just went flying," she said. "People were desperately trying to grab hold of things to keep safe."

Others told of flying crockery and glasses and sliding furniture as the ship rolled in the heavy seas.

On land, the storm's wind and pounding rain ripped down swathes of trees, cut roads and electricity supplies and flooded tens of thousands of hectares (acres) of farmland. One person drowned in a flooded stream.

The captain had plotted a course from Vanuatu to Auckland to avoid as much of the bad weather as possible, Olsen said, "but on Wednesday evening the weather took a turn for the worse with seven-meter (23-foot) swells and 100-kilometer (60-mile) an hour winds."

[graemek]

Hi Steve,

When you go on board a ship over a large stretch of ocean the 1st thing that strikes you is how big the sea is & how small the ship.

When Marianne & I were returning to Australia quite a long time ago (on board the 28,000GRT Lloyd Triestino ship Marconi) the roughest seas were in the Mediterranean.

One of the unexpected experiences of a rough sea is the incredible noise of the hull coming down from the last crest into the next trough.

Graeme

[larryhauck]

Graeme,

The roughest water is in the North Atlantic. We took waves over the bow of the flight deck on the sixty thousand ton USS Forrestal A/C Carrier in 1958. Needless to say we didn't have flight operations that day.


Larry