Many thanks for your comments.

No. I am not the same person as Rueben although I am friends with him.

I note you are from Japan.

Did you cruise on Chitral when she did the Japanese cruises ?

Regards,

The article last week from the Times of India stated

quote:

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Confirming that the cruiseliner had beached at Alang, the port officer Anil Rathore said, "The Blue Lady has beached today in plot No V1 after completing all formalities required. It should be ready for dismantling in a month's time."

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I did a line voyage as a passenger on CHITRAL with the Eastern & Australian SS Co in 1971, Captain Mackie, Yokohama-Rabaul-Sydney. Very spaced out and pleasant voyage. Notable for me in that this has been the only occasion I have ever sailed from Yokohama. The stewardess (at whose table I sat) was the Australian movie actress Janet Lee, still in her twenties I think, beautiful and a delightful personality.

The engineers told us the gearing on CHITRAL, cut at her French builder's yard, was extraordinarily quiet and superior to that of her Belgian-built sister CATHAY. Nevertheless it was CATHAY which was destined to have the much longer life.

Incidentally, I am an acquantaince of the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who told me he and his parents did a Mediterranean cruise out of Italy in CHITRAL in about 1970.

Bob, I know we're getting off topic here, but do you have a personal connection with CHITRAL?

[ 08-22-2006: Message edited by: Indarra ]

It's "beached", but the photos show her to still be on an even keel and in effect sitting on a sandbank some distance from the shore. As you say, demolition has not yet commenced.

Because her engines were not able to be used for the beaching this "beaching" appears different from the usual Alang beaching in which the vessel is run at full power into a positon on the beach from which refloating is not possible.

The tide table shows that the tide will return to higher levels than 15 August when she was towed to her present position.

But it doesn't matter, as a real object, she's 99.9999999% dead.

[ 08-22-2006: Message edited by: Vaccaro ]

I was on Chitral for all the cruises she made from Yokohama with mainly Japanese passengers on board and also on Cathay for the voyage from UK to Hong Kong when she took over the Australian service from Aramac in November 1969.

At Hong Kong the crew from the Aramac, which had arrived in port the day before us, took over from our own Hong Kong Chinese crew although some of the Aramac Senior Officers had joined us at Singapore.

I was also on Chusan when she first visited Japan in the early 1950's.

Before any comments are added, I know I am off track again but no doubt this is of interest to those who did not know about the Japanese cruises made by Chitral from Yokohama to Kobe, Hong Kong and Keelung in 1968/9.

Willem

= = =

> However, he seems to have abandoned all premise of actually running a maritime history site and now uses it largely as a vehicle to excercise his ridiculous vendetta against Star Cruises.

My contacts at Star are absolutely livid at
SSMaritime's vendetta against them. Needlesss to say, much of what it says is absolutely
incorrect, especially what has happened to the Norway since they sold the ship in January. I have the details, which are too lengthy to go
into here, but suffice it to say they held on to the ship for two years in the hopes of finding a new role or trading buyer for the ship.
Several deals were on the cards, but each and every time the proposed buyers were unable, for one reason or another, to cough up the cash for
the ship. Star's patience finally ran out in January when they decided that finding a trading buyer was a fruitless task. Actually, the ship
was in the process of being chartered/sold to Dubai-based interests for use as an accommodation ship when it left Germany. The plan was for it to be refitted in Asia prior to taking up the new role. The deal failed at the very last minute.

> I am not sure what the poor company did to incur his wrath. Perhaps
> they did not invite him on enough free cruises.
>

They gave him the full VIP treatment before he started his latest campaign. This is extremely annoying for Star considering it has always
been very generous with its accommodating of requests from ship buffs, even going so far as to give free cruises to people running ship
enthusiast websites, but now the PR/Marketing department is understandably reluctant to continue in this manner. Well, we know who we have to thank for that.

[ 08-22-2006: Message edited by: Willem ]

I was not aware of CHITRAL's Japanese cruises, although I was aware that she had cruised out of Italy for P&O just before transferring to E&A.

Willem

= = =
As many of you know, I've had an SS NORWAY Yahoogroup since right before the September 2001 "farewell crossing" on the ship. Many
members there have been lambasted and harrassed for expressing their opinions about the ship, NCL, Star and old liners and big business in
general. Those who SSMaritime feels are "against" him have received hate e-mail and have been criticised on his web site, along with Star.

quote:

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Originally posted by Patsy:
This gets more interesting. Any more?

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Not yet

http://www.artofeurope.com/turner/tur1.jpg

The breaking of great and beloved ships has been going on for well over a century.

P.S. On the National Gallery website this statement was found:

The Greatest Painting in Britain
In a poll held by the National Gallery and the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, members of the British public were invited to vote for what they considered to be the Greatest Painting in Britain. Here's the winner...The Fighting Temeraire

[ 08-22-2006: Message edited by: dmwnc1 ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Patsy:
That's a beautiful painting, dmwnc1. What's it called?

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Full title: The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838

circa 1839

Painter: TURNER, Joseph Mallord William
1775 - 1851

In all my worldly travels I have had the good fortune of being able to visit most of the greatest art museums in the world, yet this painting ranks as one of my favorites.

A brief history lesson for those interested...

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPu blisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG524

[ 08-22-2006: Message edited by: dmwnc1 ]

Many thanks for that list of ships.

We often had members of the Japanese branch of the World Ship Society visit the P&O passenger/cruise ships when in Yokohama and sometimes at Kobe as well.

Being a member myself I always took the parties on their tour of our ship, if I was on board at the time, and we always provided the party with refreshments after the tour which gave everyone time for a chat about the ship.

Quite often our Captain would join us for the refreshments and would also autograph the ships souvenir menus and other items we provided for the visitors.

If he could not make the party then I would sign them instead.

Regards,

This is getting into familiar turf. I helped set up the Japanese WSS in about 1974 or 1975. You will see a photo of me (in a group photo) in Marine News some time in late 1975 or early 1976, I think. I don't think we've met, however.

I'm sending you a PM, as this conversation is doubtless distracting for the others.

[ 08-22-2006: Message edited by: Indarra ]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmwnc1:

Full title: The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838

circa 1839

Painter: TURNER, Joseph Mallord William
1775 - 1851

In all my worldly travels I have had the good fortune of being able to visit most of the greatest art museums in the world, yet this painting ranks as one of my favorites.

A brief history lesson for those interested...

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPu blisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG524

[ 08-22-2006: Message edited by: dmwnc1 ]

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As a lover of historic warships, this one tugs at the heart strings. While we Americans have done better at preserving historic warships than most, the list of "should have been's" is way too long even for the United States. I would top the list with Enterprise, Oregon, any of the surviving Pearl Harbor battleships, and Hartford.

Many of the posters from the UK no doubt regret the demise of Warspite, King George V, Duke of York, Vanguard, or perhaps Illustrious & Victorious.

quote:

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Originally posted by dmwnc1:
As much as it pains to say it, is it time to remove/update this page...?

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What and pretend that she never existed?

We have a number of reviews about ships and cruise lines that are no longer with us. I find it interesting to read the opinions of the time.

[ 08-28-2006: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]