trams Posted December 5, 2006 #1 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Does anyone know why the QM2 bridge wings have been extended? The only reason I can think of is to improve the view of the stern whilst manoevering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hooked cruiser Posted December 5, 2006 #2 Share Posted December 5, 2006 According to another thread earlier whilst she was in Hamburg, this was exactly the reason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
judy&steve Posted December 5, 2006 #3 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Here is a photo I shot last week from our balcony on deck 10 of the extended bridge wing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cusyl Posted December 5, 2006 #4 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Here is a photo I shot last week from our balcony on deck 10 of the extended bridge wing. No picture attached :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgsmuzzy Posted December 5, 2006 #5 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Does anyone know why the QM2 bridge wings have been extended? The only reason I can think of is to improve the view of the stern whilst manoevering. Consensus has it that the reason is exactly as you stated. After the accident in FL, they realised that they needed more visability of the stern of the ship Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
judy&steve Posted December 5, 2006 #6 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Here is another photo of the bridge wing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnhmrk Posted December 5, 2006 #7 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Here is another photo of the bridge wing I still think that they just look ugly. What's the use of the ship being able to see where she is if nobody wants to look at her when she's there?:( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PRINSENDAM Posted December 5, 2006 #8 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Consensus has it that the reason is exactly as you stated. After the accident in FL, they realised that they needed more visability of the stern of the ship Not quite true. The extensions are there so that the master and pilot can see the SIDE of the ship when coming alongside a dock wall. Before, the view was obstructed by the lifeboats which actually stand proud of the ship's side. The new wings are also fitted with a much large glass floor for downward viewing. In time there will also be additional changes to the layout of the bridge equipment and fittings. The original layout was less than ideal for watchkeeping, shiphandling etc. Stephen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfo-john Posted December 5, 2006 #9 Share Posted December 5, 2006 I don't find QM2 to be a very nice looking ship (exterior-wise) but I think that the wing extenstions give her a little more distinction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curlyQ Posted December 5, 2006 #10 Share Posted December 5, 2006 I still think that they just look ugly. What's the use of the ship being able to see where she is if nobody wants to look at her when she's there?:( Daaarling, for heavens sakes! what are you trying to ask here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnhmrk Posted December 6, 2006 #11 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Daaarling, for heavens sakes! what are you trying to ask here? My dear. Can't one queen bitch about another?:D I'm not a great fan of the QM2 and I think those wings make her look top heavy:cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kindlychap Posted December 6, 2006 #12 Share Posted December 6, 2006 My dear. Can't one queen bitch about another?:D I'm not a great fan of the QM2 and I think those wings make her look top heavy:cool: I can't get the image of Edna Everage out of my mind having seen the pictures! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenC Posted December 6, 2006 #13 Share Posted December 6, 2006 My dear. Can't one queen bitch about another?:D I'm not a great fan of the QM2 and I think those wings make her look top heavy:cool: Top heavy???? At least she hasn't had a bunch of prefabs dumped on her top deck or a 'boob job' on her funnel :D .... well, not yet!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenC Posted December 6, 2006 #14 Share Posted December 6, 2006 I can't get the image of Edna Everage out of my mind having seen the pictures! That's not a nice thing to say about Malcolm just because he wears specs :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnhmrk Posted December 6, 2006 #15 Share Posted December 6, 2006 That's not a nice thing to say about Malcolm just because he wears specs :rolleyes: Ah:D You don't know which pictures he's talking about:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuranzuMaru Posted December 9, 2006 #16 Share Posted December 9, 2006 A before picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PRINSENDAM Posted December 9, 2006 #17 Share Posted December 9, 2006 A before picture. Why " Furanzu Maru " ? Are you originallyFrench or perhaps just ill ? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;) Stephen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stowaway2k Posted December 9, 2006 #18 Share Posted December 9, 2006 Why " Furanzu Maru " ? Are you originallyFrench or perhaps just ill ? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;) Stephen LOL....clever, Capt., very clever! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PRINSENDAM Posted December 9, 2006 #19 Share Posted December 9, 2006 LOL....clever, Capt., very clever! :D Couldn't resist!:D Stephen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guernseyguy Posted December 10, 2006 #20 Share Posted December 10, 2006 Why " Furanzu Maru " ? Maybe it is a 'Claridon' call......lame I know....... Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PRINSENDAM Posted December 10, 2006 #21 Share Posted December 10, 2006 Maybe it is a 'Claridon' call......lame I know....... Peter Anything to shut that little girl up!:eek: Stephen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
travel-to-go Posted December 10, 2006 #22 Share Posted December 10, 2006 Okay, Stephen and Peter- Enough, I say! I followed the French part. (although not quite where "ill" comes in) Heck, I remember asking if Furanzu Maru was perhaps, Japanese (although for the life of me, I can't find that post- I don't think it was b/c!) But I draw the knowledge line at "Claridon" Fess up, Elucidate, young men! Karie, who does not understand the Claridon reference, being a "leftist" (side of the pond, that is, although I also lean in that direction politically) I suppose I could google it to try to make the connection. C'mon! Let us in on the secret joke! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stowaway2k Posted December 10, 2006 #23 Share Posted December 10, 2006 For Karie: The morning of Thursday, February 26th, 1959, was cold and rainy in Le Havre, yet by eight o'clock there were some four thousand people at the waterfront, huddled miserably in a chilly, persistant, wind-driven drizzle. They stamped numbed feet in soaked shoes and they eddied back and forth trying to keep warm by moving; they stared down at the sullen yellow-grey water lapping at the piles, and off across the mist-shrouded harbour; and finally, almost reluctantly, as though there were something to be morbidly ashamed of, they looked up at the looming bulk of the great ship moored alongside the quay. She did not look like the elegant, luxurious pride of the French merchant marine; she looked shabby, and bleak, and forlorn. The white paint of her superstructure was streaked with yellow, and there were rust marks on the dull black of her hull; her rows upon rows of portholes were smeared and grimy and desolate, like the curtainless windows of an abandoned house. She looked empty - but there was a thin, ragged plume of dirty-grey smoke issuing listlessly from her funnel, and the neat little Japanese sailors ran busily back and forth on her broad decks, glistening wet in the rain. The people in the crowd were silent, uncommunicative and withdrawn, like people at a large funeral for a public figure; here and there were the anguished faces of the real mourners, but most simply looked wet and cold and miserable and sullen and a little challenging, as though their reasons for being here were private, and they would resent intrusion. Perhaps two-thirds of the crowd were men; most of the women seemed to have children in their arms, and they glanced at the ship only occasionally and in an abstracted way - for the most part they were preoccupied with trying to protect their children from the cold rain, and occasionally holding them up high to stare at the ship with their round, bland, uncomprehending eyes. The children, for some reason , were for the most part silent, too. There was a sentry box on the pier at the foot of the single gangplank leading to the afterdeck, and a guard to keep people from going aboard. A cluster of newspaper reporters hung around near the sentry box, talking and laughing among themselves; they were the only people present who did any talking, and they paid no attention to the ship except whenever someone came down the gangplank, when they looked up to see if it was anyone worth interviewing, and then went back to their conversation, stamping their feet and cursing the rain and the cold. Parked near the reporters was a station wagon packed with radio broadcasting equipment, and a motion-picture camera car. The heaviest concentration of the crowd was near the stern of the ship, where occasionally a small group of French sailors or officers hurried down the gangplank carrying seabags or small suitcases - there was still a scattering of French seamen to be seen among the Japanese sailors aboard the ship. From time to time someone in the watching crowd would draw someone else's attention to the ship's vast rounded stern, where the Japanese had attached a modest-sized and temporary looking banner lettered with the Japanese characters meaning FURANSU MARU. The ship thus carried her new name as required by maritime law, but the little banner had been carefully so placed as not to obscure the large raised letters stretching across the ship's stern and proudly reading ILE DE FRANCE. The lettering had been painted over with black paint, but it was still clearly legible, as the Japanese obviously meant it to be. The Furansu Maru was to sail under the Rising Sun Flag of Japan, too, but it was still the Tricolour of France that snapped and fluttered in the chilly breeze from the ship's masthead as she lay alongside the quay; there was so far no sign of the Japanese flag, and here and there in the crowd someone drew someone else's attention to this and nodded, murmuring his appreciation of the courtesy. It had been announced that the ship would sail at eight-thirty, but it was nine-forty when the last of the French seamen hurried down the gangplank followed by a group of officers, and the waiting crowd was soaked through, chilled, and miserable. But there was a stir as the French and Japanese Captains appeared together at the top of the gangplank and shook hands warmly, and Captain Botrel squared his shoulders and marched down the gangplank without looking back. Captain Souhie then shook hands deferentially with a tall, erect, very old man who followed Captain Botrel ashore slowly, occasionally touching the gangplank rails with his hands, looking sad and weary huddled in his civilian overcoat and hat. This was Captain Joseph Blancart, the 'First Master After God', who had taken command of the Ile de France in May, 1927, on her departure from the shipyards in St. Nazaire where she had been built, and who had now made the long journey from his retirement in Brittany to bid a last farewell to his ship. The gangplank was now hauled in and the last hawser cast off; smoke billowed from the ship's funnels and yellow-white water churned at her stern, and slowly she moved away from the pier. The crowd, now suddenly alert, moved with her as she edged out into the harbour to pass the gleaming white Antilles, moored just ahead. And then the Antilles blew her whistle, three long hoarse blasts of farewell, and another ship half-visible in the now rising mist beyond did likewise. All at once the harbour throbbed with the deep mournful sound of ships saluting the Ile de France for the last time as she moved out towards open water; the mist lifted very suddenly and a ray of thin winter sunlight glinted bright on her white supersturcture, which in the distance no longer looked yellowed and dirty. For she was still the Ile de France as she left Le Havre for the last time: the Japanese had run their flag up her masthead above the flag of France as the law required them to do - but it was the Tricolour that flaunted proudly in the February wind, for the Rising Sun was tightly furled. It was a moving gesture, and the departing ship was a beautiful sight, and the hoarse farewell of the other ships was a stirring sound; many of the women in the watching crowd were crying, and their children began to cry, too, without knowing why. The faces of the men were wet also, and some of them looked as though not all of the wetness, perhaps, was rain. ILE DE FRANCE a Biography by Don Stanford Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stowaway2k Posted December 10, 2006 #24 Share Posted December 10, 2006 Okay, Stephen and Peter- Enough, I say! I followed the French part. (although not quite where "ill" comes in) Heck, I remember asking if Furanzu Maru was perhaps, Japanese (although for the life of me, I can't find that post- I don't think it was b/c!) But I draw the knowledge line at "Claridon" Fess up, Elucidate, young men! Karie, who does not understand the Claridon reference, being a "leftist" (side of the pond, that is, although I also lean in that direction politically) I suppose I could google it to try to make the connection. C'mon! Let us in on the secret joke! Hi Karie Take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_last_voyage Cease wondering, and then go to the video store Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenC Posted December 10, 2006 #25 Share Posted December 10, 2006 Okay, Stephen and Peter- Enough, I say! I followed the French part. (although not quite where "ill" comes in) Heck, I remember asking if Furanzu Maru was perhaps, Japanese (although for the life of me, I can't find that post- I don't think it was b/c!) But I draw the knowledge line at "Claridon" Fess up, Elucidate, young men! Karie, who does not understand the Claridon reference, being a "leftist" (side of the pond, that is, although I also lean in that direction politically) I suppose I could google it to try to make the connection. C'mon! Let us in on the secret joke! "After being sold to Japanese scrappers, the Ile de France was used as a floating prop for the 1960 disaster film The Last Voyage as the SS Claridon, where she was partially sunk, explosive devices were set off in her interior, and her forward funnel was sent crashing into the deckhouse. The French Line took the filmmakers to court, and succeeded in obtaining an order to have the funnels repainted, and barring the use of the Ile de France name." Ken who knew this, but cut and pasted Wikipedia to save time ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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