Brunel's SS Great Britain

SS Great Britain is a museum ship and former passenger steamship, advanced for her time. She was the longest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Steamship Company's transatlantic service between Bristol and New York. While other ships had been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean-going ship. She was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, which she did in 1845, in the time of 14 days.

When launched in 1843, Great Britain was by far the largest vessel afloat. However, her protracted construction and high cost had left her owners in a difficult financial position, and they were forced out of business in 1846 after the ship was stranded by a navigational error.

Sold for salvage and repaired, Great Britain carried thousands of immigrants to Australia until converted to sail in 1881. Three years later, she was retired to the Falkland Islands where she was used as a warehouse, quarantine ship and coal hulk until scuttled in 1937. A sad end indeed for a wonderful ship.

In 1970, Great Britain was returned to the Bristol dry dock where she was built. Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, she is an award-winning visitor attraction (my friend Rachel can vouch for that) and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with 150,000–170,000 visitors annually.

Thank you Rachel for these two lovely cards.

The Titanic

A nice painting of the RMS Titanic. Card sent to me by my dear friend Pia.

Search and rescue

This nice card sent to me by Silke from Bremen shows a boat of the German Maritime Rescue Service GMRS on station. Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search is conducted over. These include Mountain rescue; ground search and rescue, including the use of search and rescue dogs; urban search and rescue in cities; combat search and rescue on the battlefield and air-sea rescue over water.

Search and Rescue in German waters is conducted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger DGzRS (literally translated: German Association for the Saving of Shipwrecked, more common: German Maritime Rescue Service GMRS) with air support by the German Navy and the German Air Force. All incoming requests are coordinated by the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Bremen. The DGzRS is a non-governmental organization entirely supported by donations.
Besides the offshore Search And Rescue services, the German Air Force provides 8 SAR Command Posts on a 24/7 basis with the Bell UH-1D Huey. Further, the Technisches Hilfswerk is a key component of the German disaster relief framework. It is, among other things, regularly involved in urban search and rescue efforts abroad.

The Steamer "Island Queen"

In the 1880's, a farmer named James Parker lived a few miles east of Cincinnati, Ohio. He came to realize that his apple orchard, in a scenic spot on the riverbank, earned more money when he rented it out for church picnics and other excursions than it ever could by growing apples. So in 1886 he sold the land to a riverboat company, who opened it as "Ohio Grove, the Coney Island of the West."  An advertsing poster from that year boasted that the grounds were lighted by electricity, and proclaimed it "The Most Beautiful All-Day Summer Resort in America."  The steamboat company ran four round trips a day between Cincinnati and "Coney Island," as the park came to be known. The total price (in 1886) was 50 cents, including admission to the grounds AND round-trip steamboat transportation. Coney Island finally closed its gates in 1971, to be replaced by the more modern Kings Island amusement park the following season.

By 1905, the steamboat company had become The Coney Island Company. That year, they purchased the 12-year-old steamboat "Saint Joseph" from owners in Mississippi, had her re-fitted, and re-named her the "Island Queen." For seventeen years she ran the several daily round trips between the Cincinnati levee and Coney Island. There was entertainment on board the steamboat as well, for this is the "Island Queen" on which "Chimes - A Novelty Rag" by Homer Denney and "The Queen Rag - March and Two Step" by Floyd Willis were played on a daily basis.
As was the case with so many of the old wooden steamboats, she met her end by fire. The "Island Queen," along with the "Morning Star," the "Chris Greene," and the "Tacoma" all burned in a spectacular blaze at the Cincinnati levee in November, 1922.
This grand old boat was succeeded by a second "Island Queen," built in 1925 on a steel hull originally intended for the steamer "Louisville," which was never built. The second "Island Queen" continued in daily Coney Island service until 1947, when her fuel tanks exploded during refitting work in Pittsburgh, with the loss of nineteen lives. A near-twin to the second "Island Queen" is still afloat. Originally named the "Cincinnati," this boat was re-fitted and re-named, and made her debut as the "President" in 1934. Re-fitted once again in 1991 as a floating casino, the "President" is now moored at Davenport, Iowa. Thank you Jessica for this lovely card.

Kamchatka Peninsula

The Kamchatka Peninsula   is a 1,250-kilometre (780 mi) peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about 270,000 km² (100,000 sq mi). It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west. Immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula runs the 10,500-metre (34,400 ft) deep Kuril-Kamchatka Trench. The Kamchatka Peninsula, the Commander Islands, and Karaginsky Island constitute the Kamchatka Krai of the Russian Federation. The vast majority of the 322,079 inhabitants are Russians, but there are also about 8,743 Koryaks (2002). More than half of the population lives in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (179,526 people in 2010) and nearby Yelizovo (38,980).
The Kamchatka peninsula contains the Volcanoes of Kamchatka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Kamchatka receives up to 2,700 mm (110 in) of precipitation per year. The summers are moderately cool, and the winters tend to be rather stormy with rare amounts of lightning. Merja gave me this card which shows a Coast Guard vessel off the Kamchatka peninsula.

SS Rotterdam

The fifth SS Rotterdam, known as "The Grande Dame", was launched by Queen Juliana in a gala ceremony on 13 September 1958, and completed the following summer. The Rotterdam was the last great Dutch "ship of state", employing the finest artisans from the Netherlands in her construction and fitting out process. With a career spanning forty years, she was also one of the most successful passenger ships of all time. She sailed from 1959 until her final retirement in September 2000.

On July 12, 2004, she arrived at Gibraltar for asbestos encapsulation and removal performed by the Cuddy Group of the UK. She next visited Cadiz where her hull was repainted its original Holland America grey, and then moved on to Poland and Germany for final restoration. She returned to the city of Rotterdam on August 8, 2008. She opened to the public on February 15, 2010 as a combination museum/hotel and school for vocational training. This pretty card was sent to me by Ans.

The Titanic Tragedy

The RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, and sank on 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. Today it is One Hundred Years since that Great Maritime Tragedy.

The largest passenger steamship in the world at the time, the Olympic-class Royal Mail Ship RMS Titanic was owned by the White Star Line and constructed at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, UK. After setting sail for New York City on 10 April 1912 with 2,223 people on board, she hit an iceberg four days into the crossing, at 11:40 pm on 14 April 1912, and sank at 2:20 am on the morning of 15 April. The high casualty rate resulting from the sinking was due in part to the fact that, although complying with the regulations of the time, the ship carried lifeboats for only 1,178 people. A disproportionate number of men died due to the “women and children first” protocol that was enforced by the ship’s crew. Experienced engineers, using some of the most advanced technologies and extensive safety features of the time, designed Titanic. The sinking of a passenger liner on her maiden voyage, the high loss of life and media frenzy over Titanic’s famous victims, the legends about the sinking, the resulting changes in maritime law, and the discovery of the wreck have all contributed to the enduring interest in the Titanic.

April 15 2012 marks Titanic’s 100th anniversary. The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the largest peacetime maritime tragedies in history. My friend Hemant sent me this remarkable picture postcard. This is the only known postcard issued by the White Star Line to celebrate both of their new liners entering service. The image portrays OLYMPIC westbound for Queenstown as TITANIC makes her way to Southampton on the 2^nd April 1912.

As an aside I’d like to mention that, while I was in Singapore in January this year, I had the opportunity to see an extremely interesting exhibition on the Titanic. The exhibition was being held at the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands. The theme of the exhibition was “TITANIC The Artifact Exhibition – 100^th Anniversary”. As the name suggests the exhibition featured about 275 recovered artifacts – 14 of which have never been seen before – along with realistic re-creations and personal stories, each highlighting a different chapter in the compelling story of the Titanic’s maiden voyage.