Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Better than to be scrapped...

There are two points of view when visiting a ship that has been transformed into a museum. The landlubber will undoubtedly appreciate the old nautical and navigational instruments, be curious about the crew cabins and be astonished by the engine dimensions…

The mariner will step aboard and immediately realize that this once glorious vessel is in fact dead. The continuous noise and vibrations coming from the engine room are not there, there is no rolling whatsoever, when opening the engine room door you do not get overwhelmed by the heat, the handrails down to the main engine are not burning, the ever present mixed smell of diesel with food being prepared on the galley is missing, there is no one standing on the bridge and instead of the crew what you see is a bunch of tourists using cameras and explaining their wives that nowadays it takes one GPS and one parrot to run the vessel (although I think that the parrot will face unemployment soon…)

Nevertheless these are always good occasions to take some shots and think that it is better to be a museum than to end in some beach in Alang…


Radiogoniometer (radio -who? I ear some asking...)


Not an item of the lifeboats! These were used on the galley's oven.



On the bridge is Full Astern and on the engine room is Stopped. Must call that Chief Engineer at once!


8 comments:

Raquel Sabino Pereira said...

You are so right, my friend... That's exactky how I felt once, inside «D. Fernando II e Glória». I made the exactly same comment, but my «Boss» looked at me thinking I was going mad...

LUIS MIGUEL CORREIA said...

This particular ship was one of the very few that went to a breakers yard and came back. She was towed to Alhos Vedros and stayed at they dead row finger until saved at the very last minute by present owners.
I did take many photos of her in the late seventies and early eighties when she operated as a reefer transporting imported fish. I beleive she did her final voyage in 1984

Raquel Sabino Pereira said...

Está a decorrer o segundo passatempo com prémio do Atlântico Azul!

You are welcome to participate in the second quiz with prize of Atlântico Azul!

Anonymous said...

Just been surfing a few sites about Alang in India, many fine old passenger ships have gone under the axe there recently, and all the new ones look the same, glad to see that this ship survived even if it is a museum.

Unknown said...

Caro Daniel,só agora descobri que já passou um ano de excelente "blog",embora atrasado,envio os meus parabéns para ti e para o Zé.Muita força,para ambos.
P.S. não te cances muito deste lado,pois tens a News Letter para preparar...ihihih
Abraço grande

Luis Daniel Vale said...

Se fosse só a newsletter...
Abraço!

Raquel Sabino Pereira said...

Está a decorrer o terceiro passatempo com prémio do Atlântico Azul! You are welcome to participate in the third quiz with prize of Atlântico Azul!

Raquel Sabino Pereira said...

Parab�ns, Malheiro, foi o grande vencedor do passatempo! Para receber o pr�mio basta comparecer na Real Regata das Embarca�es do ejo que se realizar� no dia 5 de Outubro de 2007!!!