"Clunk"

[Gregg1100]

Didn't the Waverley go between Western Super Mare and Minehead/Ilfracombe (can't remember which) for a good many years ???

[trainspotter48]

PS Waverly has had several seasons in the Bristol Channel.
This would normally include sailings from Avonmouth, Portishead, Cardiff, Barry to Sharpness, Lundy Island or out around the islands of Steep Holm and Flat Holm.
I've had the pleasure of going on some of these outings, and the engine room (from which the side sheeting has been removed) is a fascinating sight.
I also saw (from the dockside) how the ship was turned after sailing up the R. Avon to Bristol. Waverly has only a single paddleshaft, so it is not possible to rotate the two paddle wheels in opposite directions - however a rope from the stern secured round a bollard on the dockside allowed the stern to swing round once the vessel was under way astern, and then hauling the rope in using a deck (steam) winch completed the manoeuvre, allowing her to then go ahead to run back down the river.

[Pdxfashionpioneer]

You've got to love Wikipedia.

When Carl took my word for it that the United States retired the Blue Riband and he started talking up the speed of the QE2 I began to wonder if I got that right.

So here's the deal, in the beginning there wasn't an actual Blue Riband. It was a recognition amongst the steamship companies of the liner with the highest average speed attained during their regularly scheduled Eastbound and Westbound passages. They chose average speed because they all used different routes. They also averaged both East and West bound because Eastbound you're going with the Gulf Stream, Westbound against.

Then in 1934, a British shipowner named Hunt commissioned an actual trophy and loosened the rules. The steamship lines swapped the cup around and hoped no else paid any attention to the other possibilities.

At any rate 25 ships have held the Blue Riband for varying amounts of time. 15 were British, next up for most Blue Ribands were the German ships. The Italians and French got their licks in but the United States (the country) had none until the SS United States completed her maiden voyages.

She went on to prove that timing indeed is everything. She was retired from transatlantic service by the advent of the jetliners, which put all of the luxury liners out of business, so the United States steamship lines lost all of the battles but the last and SS United States succeeded earning a trifecta, first and only American Blue Riband holder and last one ever simply by having come on the scene at just the right moment.

When I learned, as a boy, she was retired before I had a chance to see her, let alone sail on her I was outraged! I couldn't understand the sense of dispensing with something so beautiful, capable and truly unique.

I finally figured out that's progress. Though I have to agree with Carl, one occasionally has to ask, is it really?

[skirtyscot]

I had a trip on the Waverley a couple of years ago; my first time on it for many a long year. The engines are quite a spectacle, as you have seen. The paddle wheels seem preposterously inefficient, slopping so much water everywhere that you wonder how there is any left to push through to move the boat forward. The whole thing is just so Heath Robinson in this day and age. And it has great views, and a bar for the return journey when you get a bit too far down river and the views get less interesting as the landscape flattens out. All in all, marvellous!

[crfriend]

The paddle wheels seem preposterously inefficient, slopping so much water everywhere that you wonder how there is any left to push through to move the boat forward. The whole thing is just so Heath Robinson in this day and age.

It was what was known at the time, much the same way as men can only wear trousers today. I forget who ran the pulling contest, but there was quite the argument at the time that a screw-powered boat wouldn't be able to outperform a paddle-wheeler, and the arbiter was that two boats of roughly compatible horsepower got tied together by a length of stout line and the engines were gradually run up to full throttle. The paddle-wheeler did her best, and splashed around a lot, the the screw on the other boat, completely submerged, did the deed and handily hauled the other boat sternwards as though helpless.

Of note, it should be pointed up that there were a few hybrids which had paddle-wheels and screws (and some even had a complement of sails to boot) of which Brunel's Great Eastern comes to mind. She was a commercial failure for the ventures that owned her, mainly because they wanted to run the North Atlantic route and she had been designed as a conveyance to the antipodes -- she lacked heat for the passenger areas. Contemplate that in February off Greenland. However, it turned out that she was a positively superb cable-laying ship, partially thanks to her hybrid propulsion, and laid not just the first trans-Atlantic cable, but a couple after that; her manoeuvrability was second-to-none thanks to her paddle-wheels. Great Eastern, therefore, shrunk the world faster and in a more dramatic way than air transport ever did -- almost a half-century before the first tentative powered flight.

It's long since been settled; screws trump paddle-wheels every time although there is one new-build paddle-wheeler that plies Boston Harbor today. In fact the prefix of "SS" stands not for "steamship" but rather for "screw steamship", hence Waverly's callout as "PS Waverly" for "paddle steamship". Furthering the classification notion, "TwSS" and "TrSS" were occasionally used (although not in common parlance) for "Twin-screw Steamship" and "Triple-screw Steamship". Apparently this notion fell into disuse because I can find no mention of "QuSS" (for Quadruple-screw Steamer") which SS United States was, as have been virtually all "modern" battleships and aircraft-carriers. RMS Titanic was a triple-screw steamship, but sailed under RMS because that was her formal UK registration.

[Pdxfashionpioneer]

Thank you for the additional information. I had no idea that SS stood for Screw Steamship. I just assumed it stood for SteamShip.

And who wouldn't want their vessel to be known as a Royal Mail Ship?

[crfriend]

Thank you for the additional information.

You're more than welcome. Most everything one sees in this day and age is either MV this or MS that (usually MV) for "motor vessel" or "motor ship" and refers to anything that uses an infernal combustion engine. We get a lot or RV somebody-or-other up here which are "research vessels", and last week out on Boston Harbor if anyone wanted to get picky I was crew/ballast on SV Nelli ("sailing vessel", occasionally SY, "sailing yacht").

And who wouldn't want their vessel to be known as a Royal Mail Ship?

Somebody without a monarch?

[Sinned]

Just recently the Environmental Research Council opened it up to the GP to suggest a name for a Royal Research Ship and some wit suggested Boaty McBoatface which then, to their dismay, won the poll. Much to everyone's disappointment the ship was eventually named, very boringly, RRS Attenbrough or something similar. So much for democratic process.

[crfriend]

Just recently the Environmental Research Council opened it up to the GP to suggest a name for a Royal Research Ship and some wit suggested Boaty McBoatface which then, to their dismay, won the poll. Much to everyone's disappointment the ship was eventually named, very boringly, RRS Attenbrough or something similar. So much for democratic process.

Ah, but the name so chosen was not allowed to die on the vine -- one of the vessel's submersibles is going to carry it. So, at least in this case, some benefit was had by the polling process.

[pelmut]

... Most everything one sees in this day and age is either MV this or MS that (usually MV) for "motor vessel" or "motor ship" and refers to anything that uses an infernal combustion engine.

In the U.K. we also have 'NB' = narrowboat, a craft 7ft wide for use on narrow canals.

[Big and Bashful]

(From memory (and a documentary on Youtube)) The Waverley was built in 1946 to replace a war loss, the reason she has paddles is so that she could sail from piers on the Clyde such as Ardrossan, where the water is so shallow at low tide that screw powered ships just cannot operate, she is only something like 6 or 6.5 foot draft with paddles only about 4 foot into the water. She must be a challenge to handle, as the thrust is from the paddles at the sides of the ship there is no powered waterflow over the rudders. She doesn't answer the helm at anthing below about 6 knots, it's a good thing that the wooden piers around here flex because she often hits quite hard. If only she sold drinkable beer!

Oh, last time I did the Waverley Clyde trip I was kilted, couple of tense moments when I was filming from near the bow because it gets quite windy at 15 knots!

[crfriend]

[PS Waverly] must be a challenge to handle, as the thrust is from the paddles at the sides of the ship there is no powered waterflow over the rudders. She doesn't answer the helm at anthing below about 6 knots, it's a good thing that the wooden piers around here flex because she often hits quite hard. If only she sold drinkable beer!

Add to that the fact that she has only one transverse drive-shaft onto which both paddle-wheels are securely bolted. This makes differential thrust impossible. No wonder that she hits things occasionally when docking and undocking -- especially if the helm won't answer at slow speeds. (It also explains why in one of the videos I watched, supposedly taken during a departure, the engines went pretty much full power, fore and aft, most of the time.) I'd not want to try to handle her.

Oh, last time I did the Waverley Clyde trip I was kilted, couple of tense moments when I was filming from near the bow because it gets quite windy at 15 knots!

Link, please!

[Big and Bashful]

[PS Waverly] must be a challenge to handle, as the thrust is from the paddles at the sides of the ship there is no powered waterflow over the rudders. She doesn't answer the helm at anthing below about 6 knots, it's a good thing that the wooden piers around here flex because she often hits quite hard. If only she sold drinkable beer!

Add to that the fact that she has only one transverse drive-shaft onto which both paddle-wheels are securely bolted. This makes differential thrust impossible. No wonder that she hits things occasionally when docking and undocking -- especially if the helm won't answer at slow speeds. (It also explains why in one of the videos I watched, supposedly taken during a departure, the engines went pretty much full power, fore and aft, most of the time.) I'd not want to try to handle her.

Oh, last time I did the Waverley Clyde trip I was kilted, couple of tense moments when I was filming from near the bow because it gets quite windy at 15 knots!

Link, please!

Video not uploaded I'm afraid, it's lurking on a one of my disks somewhere, with an upload speed of no more than 1 Mbs it is just too slow trying to upload HD video. Also it is all engine and scenery footage, none of a big fat kilted man! A good day though!

[Judah14]

Regarding the USS Zumwalt, other ship designs have adopted the design of its bow as it is better at cutting through waves compared to the conventional bow design, such as the future Frégate de Taille Intermédiaire of the French Navy:

[Big and Bashful]

I would love to see some footage of Zumwalt in heavy weather to try and gauge how that hull design works.