' Britannia ' is an old name first used by one of the P & O original group companies so a great choice.

Lets hope Queen Elizabeth ll is well enough to do the naming of this great ship.

The last P & O cruise ship she named was ' mv Oriana'.

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[ 09-24-2013: Message edited by: Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company. ]

quote:

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Originally posted by jeffrossatsea:
is it just me?...or do parts of the union jack flag above the britannia name look kind of like a carnival funnel...i know carnival owns P&O and the flag looks similar, but a portion of the carnival logo can be seen...tacky

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The 2 stack method has been done already, See Celebrity.

I wonder if you can rebuild the grandeur of an old liner in a new build, specifically geared towards the UK?

With all these Big Box ships - stacking the decks and putting two stacks on the back - is it really useful or a clever gimmick?

Will they be able to pull it off with this new build or just another pretty floating box with 2 stacks...

I get the marrying the old with the new, but we aren't in the past - and moving further from it. Britannia is going to be a P&O showpiece, they better get it right, with the right decor, style and charm.

Before her several of the original P & O or Orient Lines ships had two or three funnels with the forward funnel on the three funnel ships being a dummy !

The smaller aft funnel on ' ss Oriana ' was used for some of the airconditioning equipment and not for any engine exhausts.

I think ' Britannia ' looks smart with her two funnels.

Regarding the Celebrity cruise ships it is nice to see a cross retained on their funnels which goes back to when their original company was known as Chandris and their ships had blue funnels with a white cross.

Pam

[ 10-01-2014: Message edited by: joe at travelpage ]

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Originally posted by Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company.:
Two funnels on the P & O ships is not new as the last one built with what appeared to be two funnels was ' ss Oriana ' ......
Regarding the Celebrity cruise ships it is nice to see a cross retained on their funnels which goes back to when their original company was known as Chandris and their ships had blue funnels with a white cross.

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Lucky none of the Orient Line folks are here to read that ... those would be fighting words to them!

Oriana was an Orient Line ship ... not P&O! Orient Line's team designed and ordered the ship ... and P&O inherited it in the merger.

The Orient Line folks were always happy to tell you how much better she was a a ship than P&O's designed Canberra!

On the final cruise for the ' ss Oriana' , which was in the waters of the South Pacific Ocean, she did not fly the P & O house flag.

P & O Australia had some new Orient Line flags made and these were used though out her final cruise instead of her usual P & O flag.

We also had some flags around the ship for those wanting a picture taken with the Orient Lines flag in the background

Regarding who the ship belonged to it needs to be remembered that the P & O group of shipping companies had in the 1950's and 1960's consisted of 35 shipping companies of which Orient Line was one of the companies in the group which all had their own management team but was still controlled by the board of directors of the main company

Details of all these companies appeared in the P & O share holders yearly reports of which I still have several..

They used to say that in the UK there was three navies - The Royal Navy, The Merchant Navy and P&O which in those days consisted of over 350 ships !

The Orient Lines ship's crews may not have liked the merger of the two companies but Orient Lines, which then was only operating passenger ships, was loosing money due to the duplication of a lot of the sailings of the two companies, on the Australian service, with ships sailing on the same day or within a day of each other on the line voyages and often only half full.

I was one of the first P&O restaurant managers to take over the 1st class restaurant on the ' ss Oronsay' in December 1969 for what was the round the world winter cruise from the UK but we had a slight delay at Vancouver where having found out we had typhoid on board the ship remained for three weeks in quarantine and anchored in the middle of the harbour.

Regarding the old crew on the ' Oronsay ' they certainly did not like having P&O heads of the catering departments on board but had that not happened, and also the merger the two companies passenger ships, the company would have finished up operating at a bigger loss and the ships disposed of or, as happened, transfered to the P&O fleet.

Aways remember in those day many of the Greek companies were buying up old passenger ships and would no doubt have jumped at the chance to aquire some of the old Orient Line ships had they gone on the market.
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[ 10-06-2014: Message edited by: Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company. ]

In those days P&O was having competition from the Greek and Italian passenger ships on the Australian service line voyages so I doubt if they would even consider selling ships that could then be operated in competition with their own ships.

Re Chitral & Cathay they were transfered to the australian Eastern & Australian line ( E&A ) before being sold to the Chinese by the australian company which was part of the P&O group of companies but had its own management.

I had been on Chitral for about two years but was asked in September 1969 to transfer to the Cathay for her last voyage from the UK to Hong Kong as the management did not know what would be the reaction of her chinese crew with being made redundent.

As it happened we had no problems and some of the Cathay crew came out to Kai Tak airport to see us off when we flew back to the UK.

quote:

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Originally posted by Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company.:
In those days P&O was having competition from the Greek and Italian passenger ships on the Australian service line voyages so I doubt if they would even consider selling ships that could then be operated in competition with their own ships.

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P&O sold two of its pre-WWII ships to John Latsis in the 1960s. The 1935-built STRATHMORE and 1937-built STRATHEDEN went to the famous Greek and became the MARIANNA LATSI and HENRIETTA LATSI, respectively.

I did the final UK cruise on the ' ss Strathmore ' before she was sold to John Latsis in October 1963.

It was understood she would be operated as a pilgrim ship.

The last of three final cruises we made from the UK included a call at the Cape Verde islands where the local post office did a special franking of mail landed from the ship which included an outline of the ship and the date of the visit.

Limited amounts of certain hotel items were sold with the ship including cutlery, silverplate dishes and bed linen.

It would appear that after John Latsis sold the ' ss Strathmore ' some of these P & O items were transfered to the ex ' Windsor Castle ' !