QE 2.

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Monterey10

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I saw this on the Coastside forum.

Queen_Mary.jpg
 
Great picture. I wonder who the guy is that left the figue eight wake directly in front of the course line of the giant ship?
 
Maybe the fireboat? It has the two sprays of water hiding most of the boat in that picture....
 
I didn't realize there was a QM.

Anyway, I like picture. It's quite animated and the view of Richardson bay is quite interesting.
 
Thed original Queen Mary cruise ship is down in Long Beach. It is a tourist and convention center.
 
I suppose I would be dating myself if I admitted that I was on hand when the Queen Mary made its last voyage to Long Beach. Went out to meet it as it came into harbor.

Rod
 
Rod, yup you're dated! I toured her a couple of years after she got her permanent berth at Long Beach. It seemed like a movie set to me. I was disappointed that when I toured the bridge was closed. That is the part I primarily wanted to see!
Must be the skipper in me.......
 
The captians course I took in SoCal was on the QM in 1988.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Flutterby

Rod, I was disappointed that when I toured the bridge was closed. That is the part I primarily wanted to see!
Must be the skipper in me.......

Click to expand...


About 8 years ago I went on a Hawaiian Island cruise aboard the SS Independence. This was the only US flagged cruise ship at that time, and the ship was an old steamship built in the '50s intended for trans-Atlantic passenger service.

When the ship was in harbor they offered tours of the bridge AND the engine room! I, of course, did both!

The ship was still operated just like you see in the movies! A lot of modern equipment in the bridge, but they still used the telegraph signal. You know, the big stand with the handles that rings as it moves positions?

Saw it at both ends. The movies always showed you the bridge end and left it to your imagination as to what happens at the other end. Turns out the other end looks just like the one in the bridge. There is an inner pointer and an outer pointer. The handle moves the outer pointer, and when the opposite end responds by moving their handle to the same spot the inner pointer moves. If the pointers are aligned, the command has been acknowledged.

If the pointers don't align, they send someone down to the engine room to wake up the engineer!

Nothing fancy down in the engine room. A guy is stationed at each operating boiler (the SS Independence had three but only operated two at a time for the cruise). The boiler's watcher job was to keep the oil fed burners going and a head of steam up. A big air conditioning duct gave the guy an island of cool in an otherwise swealtering engine room.

The "engineer" stood next to the telegraph unit, which was next to a large valve that had a ~3 foot diameter wheel on it. The engineer knew how many turns of the wheel "1/4" speed was. The telegraph would ring, he would move the valve, acknowledge the command.

The SS Independence was a great old ship. It made me sad when it was decomissioned a few years ago and sold for scrap.

Rod
 
Any other special memories onboard a ship to share? My only trip on a cruise ship was to the Mexican Riviera on the Princess lIne. It was ok, but I'm not sure I'd do it again.
 
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