I have to applaud the sense of humor of Captain Kevin Oprey, commanding officer of RMS Queen Mary 2, the world's largest ocean liner (as opposed to cruise ship). He posed for publicity photographs standing on the bulbous bow of his ship, to illustrate her size. Here's one of the pictures, greatly reduced in size to fit this blog. If you can't immediately spot the Captain, look down at the waterline in front of the bow. I'm sure he insisted they wait for a flat calm!
The full-size picture is much more impressive, as are its companion photographs. You'll find them at the Daily Mail, with an accompanying article. Fun reading.
Peter
Very fuel efficient. Gets six feet per gallon.
ReplyDeleteNot sure where you got your figure from, it actually gets 41 ft/gal pushing 151k gross tons with a cruise speed of 28.5 knots, even the original Queen Mary gets 13 ft/gal at 81k gross tons with the same cruise speed.
ReplyDeleteWhat huge ships like that really need are thorium reactors, so they get circumnavigations per kilogram.
ReplyDeleteHeh, I notice they cleaned off a spot for him to stand, otherwise he'd have slid off and gotten wet! And he's also wearing a Mustang survival vest, just in case!
ReplyDeleteYou said it Rolf, the drive engines are already electric.
ReplyDeleteIt would be funnier if he was holding a canoe paddle, looking as if he was the one pulling it along.
ReplyDeleteI provide fuel for the QM2 whenever she comes to NY. Weekly fuel consumption is actually on par with other cruise ships- for US/Caribbean runs she usually takes about 800 metric tons of RMG-380 (a heavy #6 intermediate black oil) and 50ish tons of LSDMA (a clean diesel).
ReplyDeleteCruise ships use marine electric azipod propulsion- the engines are just big generators- propulsion and steering is done with electric motors mounted in swiveling pods that hang under the stern. This is computer controlled with a KaMeWa steering knob- basically you point the knob in the direction you want to go, and choose a speed- the computer does the rest.
Older cruise ships used steam propulsion, requiring about 3x as much fuel per unit HP, but with much lower maintenance, longer service life and easy repairs. Economy is a lot more than MPG on ships- service costs are a larger driver than fuel costs.
Also, whoever designed the QM2 forgot to incorporate equipment for ship-to-ship bunkering (fuel transfer). No matter how careful we are, we beat the hell out of her hull because the architects put the fueling hatch in dumb spots and then forgot to leave bitts and bollards for us to moor to. We literally hold on to them using shackles, hawsers and lifting straps like on a crane. Very high pucker factor.