Swedish Beauty

[Brian Probetts (Site Admin)]

Fifty years ago, in December 1965, workers at the illustrious John Brown shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland were busily adding the finishing touches to the 27,000-ton Kungsholm.
Seen here at Copenhagen with the earlier Gripsholm (1957), the 661-ft long Kungsholm was easily one of the most beautiful ships of her time.
She first entered service in May 1966.

[Keith Tindell]

Hi peter, what happens if there is a serious fire, which eventually involves the aluminium,seeing what happened when the HMS Sheffield was hit by a missile and a rapid fire developed is the reason I ask the question,it's an interest of mine, cheers. Kt

[Peter F Chard]

Hi Keith, The " Sheffield " was struck by an "Exocet " missile I believe -- with the temperatures involved under those circumstances even steel would vapourize, let alone aluminium. I have been involved with several investigations following shipboard fires over the years, the aluminium certainly buckled and twisted with the heat of a galley or engine room fire but did not melt to any great extent. Modern ships are generally fitted with automatic fire alarm systems which are really effective in dealing with on-board fires. Hope this helps, Regards Peter in NZ.

[Ivan Cloherty]

#10 Thanks for that Peter, the ship I was on was built in 1951 (if I remember correctly) so was probably one of the earliest to be built using the two metals, I think by the time I joined her (63) they had tried just about everything to cure the various ills, at least the 'Ramtek' tape (just remembered the name of the hatch tape, I wonder why! probably something to do with Swedish beauty!)prevented the water ingress

[Bryan Portwig]

i seem to recall reading - there was a third - stockholm - also twin funneled - but she never sailed as such - as she caught fire ?