QM2 Chart

[happy daze john in oz]

Hi Jacyn try as John suggested--Brian
.

Brian, is it just possible the chart was 'Made in China' every thing else is !

[j.sabourn]

Put it on a gnonomic chart (spelt wrong ??) and will further bamboozle you. All the charts you are looking at are Mercator projection. JS[COLOR="Silver"]

---------- Post added at 08:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:08 AM ----------



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Brian just out of interest do these passenger ships still do a great circle, say New York to Liverpool. With all the Radars and ice reports nowadays was wondering if they still stuck to the old lore. In the 70"s did the run many times across to Seven Islands, ( spelt in the English as know you dont like French). I assume all the other ships made a similar passage plan as they call it nowadays, and did a composite Great Circle to the supposedly safe latitude where no ice was expected to have drifted down to. Dont even know if the Titanic did the passage this way, it seems not, or maybe someone estimated the drift south too slow. Cheers John S.

---------- Post added at 08:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:19 AM ----------

Charts and survey of thus... As we have already started to explore and map other planets, I always wonder that we arent jumping the gun. For example most of the Australian coastline is still unsurveyed. The last corrections follow on from Captain Cooks surveys in lots of instants. He did his surveys by the old tried and trusted way of hand and deep sea leadline, and these still stand as correct today. There have of course been others Dampier and a few more well known names among mariners. All our other maritime accomplishments of the past will be put in the closet and no one will know the years of work that went in to making some countries the leaders in maritime affairs. You can already see this and the ignorance ashore of a lot people who dont seem to care about their own history. Such is the modern way of thinking, live for today for tomorrow may never come. JS

[Captain Kong]

Hi John
and dont forget Mathew Flinders. another great cartographer of the Australian coast.

As far as I know they still do the great circle route across the Western.
and the same courses as the TITANIC,, did that on the QE2 and stopped right above the TITANIC and had a service for them on the 96th anniversary. Nearest Ice berg was 25 miles away. April 2008. with a US Ice Patrol plane in attendence. they also dropped a wreath.
The US Coast Guard are keeping a good watch on ice bergs, they are all monitored.
Cheers
Brian

---------- Post added at 10:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 AM ----------

On Canadian Pacifics Empress boats in the 50s and 60s, in winter we always went south about, from Liverpool, down the Irish Sea round southern Ireland and across to miss the worst of the weather., in Summer we went North about, through the North Channel and then across.
Cheer s
Brian


Hi Jacyn
here is the ships phone number, she is in Hamburg at the moment

Numbers for contacting the RMS Queen Mary 2 via satellite:
Phone: +1 732 335 3272
Fax: +870-323576211
When calling or sending a fax, you should always indicate the passengers' names and/or cabin No.

In the Inmarsat ship's directory, you can search for further numbers of Queen Mary 2.

The information is subject to change at any time. No guarantee for its accuracy can be given.

[Captain Kong]

Hi Jacyn
Here is the Chart on Deck 12,
.
(Below): Route map, Southampton to New York/Red Hook, on Deck 12, location of the sunken Titanic clearly marked so the QM2 could sail right over her. zoom in.
.I could not get the Chart Number,
Cheers
Brian.

[Richard Quartermaine]

#20
Off the course a bit but:
Cunard House
88 Leadenhall Street
London EC3
is etched into my brain because as a non resident of anywhere the basement mail room was my 'Home' address for Port Line and Shaw Savill. I wonder if it is still Cunard's HO?
Richard

[Captain Kong]

Hi Richard,
Today it is not the same Cunard that we all knew in the old days.
Carnival just bought the name of Cunard it was a defunct Company, Years ago it had been bought up by Trafalgar House, a Construction Company, it only had one ship, the QE2,
Then they sold it to Kaverner* a Norwegian oil company and then they got rid of QE2 and Carnival bought it with the name Cunard. The Head Office is in Miami and the UK Office is in Southampton.
Then Carnival built QM2 followed by Queen Victoria and then Queen Elizabeth after they sold QE2 to the Arabs in Dubai where she now lies Rotting away instead of being in a lagoon alongside the Landing Stage in Liverpool being a great success in her retirement like Queen Mary in Long Beach.
The new ships were under the Red Ensign, Registered in Southampton, then three years ago Carnival put them under the flag of Bermuda and Registered them in Hamilton, Bermuda.
So they are NOT British ships anymore, American owned and Flag of Convenience.
Cheers
Brian.

[Richard Quartermaine]

That's real sad Brian. I was rather proud when on the Port boats to have the red funnel and two black rings demonstrating our Cunard connection. I was used to packing my bag and moving on to foreign environments but here I am in the most foreign environment I could imagine. It's like I made the wrong turn at the airport and ended up on another planet.
Richard

[j.sabourn]

#24... Unless my eyes are deceiving me which is quite possible and unless that is a gnomotic chart, is not a great circle track. looks like one course straight through on a mercator chart. Cheers JS

[John Arton]

JS
Certainly not a great circle track, not even one were the vertex is limited to a latitude in the high 50's in order to avoid the winter lows tracking South of Iceland or possible ice fields.
To me it looks like a winter/spring track that takes them further south to give them possible better weather and also takes advantage of the North Atlantic circular currents so the added mileage is offset by calmer seas and current assistance giving an almost equal fuel consumption and average voyage speed that the traditional great circle sailing would give you.
Possibly this route was worked out by some "expert" sitting in a warm office giving Ocean Routeing advice to mariners, a bit similar to the one that advised us, when on passage from South Africa to Northern France, when just south of the latitude of Gibraltar, to take a great circle route from our present position to a point off Ushant!!!!! brilliant weather routeing expert eh!

rgds
JA

[j.sabourn]

Thanks John, a long time since done a great Circle, but that was one of the questions for the masters Navigation paper, what is the difference between a GC and a mercator distance to New York from Liverpool, going no further north than 63 degrees north (?) or thereabouts. The fast way of doing so probably not taught at other marine establisments could be got from the Traverse tables in Nories and was only about 10 minutes of working. Working the old and reconized way was well over an hour. Just had to remember Durham Light Infantry DLI which gave distance Latitude and Initial course, and work out every change of course for whatever time period you wanted. Would have to think long and hard to be able to do at moment, not like sextant and celestial navigation which was like riding a bike, once learned was there for life. However with a GC could if had a gnomonic chart believe could also get straight from the chart itself. Cheers JS

---------- Post added at 08:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:36 AM ----------

As regards weather Routing, we were receiving in the 60"s on pacific Ocean passages. Never saw a Master using it however. As 2nd. Mate and the navigator, the old man would put a pencil cross on the ocean chart and say make for there and there, 9 times out of 10 he was correct, and the bad weather was where we would have been if followed their advice. JS