Expedition Deluxe - Rolls-Royce enters the cruise market with contract to design cruise ship

ROLLS ROYCE´s troubled marine unit is finaly entering the cruise market, which is a rare piece of good news.
by Earl of Cruise
The set of vessels for HURTIGRUTEN is enviromental friendly and will be a new generation of cruise vessels for the over 100 years old company. ROLLY ROYCE will also suply equipment for the new cruise vessels. The contract will be worth £25m.

HURTIGRUTEN´s new Espen Øino designed ROLLS ROYCE MARINE cruise vessels - courtesy of HURTIGRUTEN

The plunging oil price hit the marine division of ROLLS ROYCE hard, as no longer offshore vessels had been ordered. Thus the main business of the subsidiary company had caused nearly a collaps.

HURTIGRUTEN was once the name of the post vessel line along the Norwegian coast, and offered a number of liner companies an existance ... till the end of the subsidiaries, once installed and guaranteed by the gouvernment, helping to establish this line. But it was terminated since its beginning.

Aurea Borealis green, blue, lila and yellow photo by Jan R Olsen - courtesy of HURTIGRUTEN

In the early 1920s it was more of an expedition sailing with the post express vessels, which went into nearly all ports along the Norwegian coast up to Spitzbergen. One of the lines introduced the STELLY POLARIS, which became a synonym for luxury cruising in the 1920s and 30s. She sailed worldwide in the winter, but offered cruises along the Norwegian coast in the sommer seasons. After WWII it became more and more popular going on a coastal cruise in Norway.

In the 1990s the former MATTHIAS THEISSEN WERFT constructed the masterpiece of new coastal vessels, which looked like shrinked Caribbean cruisers, and as the typical costal vessel. But despite of their small cabins they still offered they became a tremendous success and a further push in the cruise offer - Norwegian Coastal Cruises.

TROLLFJORD, one of the successors of the MATTHIAS THEISSEN built RICHARD WITH - courtesy of HURTIGRUTEN

The vessels had been "working horses" which offered the cruises in their first class compartments. The second class was the "coastal bus" for the Norwegians. And till today the vessels, even in use as cruise ships, do still their coastal travel business. Each of the vessels offer till today, and as well in the future a freight compartment, and Salons for the Norwegian people, going on board to reach their destinations, as streets are less in the mountainious costs of Norway are rare.

With the comming end of the mail subsidiaries, the companies started to think new on their coastal routes and passenger services. What followed was a merger over the years into at least one company - HURTIGRUTEN.

New vessels, new choices, outlook lounge and open outlook deck - coutesy by HURTIGRUTEN

The new cruise ships will be built by the KLEVEN SHIPYARD and will be refinaced via the Norwegian GIEK and NOX fonds, as for building in Norway and being enviromental friendly.

The new ROLLS ROYCE - Espen Øino - Olver design cooperation vessels are capable for cruises in polar regions and will be a great "win" for ROLLS ROYCE and open up a new market. They will have a lenght of 140m, a width of 23 m, a draught of 5,3m and will have 300 cabins for 600 passengers. With the new design the company is going new ways in its design - the vessel get more yacht like.

Helge Gjerde, Rolls's director of offshore and merchant solutions, said: “Hurtigruten and Kleven have agreed to build state-of the art passenger vessels, and Rolls-Royce will provide some of the most innovate ship technology on the market today. I’m confident that these new polar cruise vessels will bring the proud heritage of the HURTIGRUTEN into a similarly proud future.”

The latest addition of the HURTIGRUTEN fleet for expedition cruises, the SPITZBERGEN, a former ferry from Portugal massivley rebuild - courtesy by HURTIGRUTEN

ROLLS ROYCE is one of the few companies that are developing vessels which should or will be able sailing without a crew, based on artificial inteligence.

HURTIGRUTEN short review (German)

Comments

HISTORY - ts / ss BREMEN and ts / ss EUROPA

Germany’s two luxury liners, BREMEN and EUROPA , have not only played an important part in their country’s mercantile revival, but have added also an immortal chapter to the history of transatlantic travel. Copy from Shipping Wonders of the World From part 6 , published 17 March 1936 editing by Earl of Cruise ss / ts BREMEN in her early years - Source: Shipping Wonders of the World/Bundespresse Archiv The PRIDE OF A NATION - the NORDDEUTSCHER LLOYD quadruple-screw turbine express liner BREMEN . The keel of this ship was laid in June 1927. Her launch took place in August, 1928. In less than a year later, the Bremen made her first voyage to America, when she crossed the Atlantic from Cherbourg to New York in four days seventeen hours forty-two minutes, thus setting up a new record and gaining the coveted “Blue Riband”. During the passage the Bremen attained an average speed of 27.83 knots. ss / ts BREMEN in her early years - Source: W ikipedia For the pop...

Ocean Liners in Movies or Films at Sea (updated Nov 2017)

For liners and the shipping companies movies and films had been a top marketing tool Movies or Films and liners at sea, had been intriguing me since I have read about in my youth in LUXUSLINER - BILDER EINER GROSSEN ZEIT by Lee Server ( THE GOLDEN AGE OF OCEAN LINERS ). But earlier, mot only since my first crossing, I was keen watching movies with liners in it, and disapointed, which was an understatement, when I realized the films have been made in a set ashore in some movie "factory". That was after my first crossing. by Earl of Cruise an essay in progress `Sabrina´, Humphrey Bogart in the office, while LIBERTÉ is sailing out of New York harbor - screenshot Ocean liners, especially those of the luxury category, had been the location of dramas, love stories, thrillers, suspense and catastrophies sinde film was born, or nearly. In this list, the most descriptions are taken from Wikipedia, as I guess no one can expect having seen all these films ... otherwise I w...

HISTORY - FRENCH LINE - COMPAGNIE GÉNÉRALE TRANSATLANTIQUE, a review - Part II Belle Epoque

The COMPAGNIE GÉNÉRALE TRANSATLANTIQUE, known since the Belle Epoque as FRENCH LINE in the English speaking world (or TRANSAT or CGT), had its origins in 1861. by Earl of Cruise E mperor Napoléon III. wanted strengthening the French primacy on the oceans and an adequate mail line for the French mail. The 1855 established COMPAGNIE GÉNÉRALE MARITIME of the Péreire brothers was the core for the new company. This company´s headquarter was, as any major business in France, situated in Paris, while the homeport of the vessels had been Le Havre for the North Atlantic and Marseille for the route to the Orient and Africa. Houseflag of COMPAGNIE GÉNÉRALE TRANSATLANTIQUE S.A. - soure: ebay "On limited space, we put our country on display", a crewmember declared once. And no other line put in more of its national personality into its product than COMPAGNIE GÉNÉRALE TRANSATLANTIQUE . After the French - Prussian/German war of 1870/71 France had to sig...

Germany and HAPAG - A Journey through History

HAMBURG-AMERIKANISCHEPACKETFAHRT ACTIEN GESELLSCHAFT - HAPAG or HAMBURG AMERICA LINE is reflecting, as Germany, the LLOYD of Bremen, two times of rsing and two times of devasting downfall and a third rise. BORUSSIA , 1856, First Day Cover 1956 of Deutsche Bundespost - own collection Once Germany´s biggest shipping line HAPAG / HAMBURG-AMERIKANISCHE PACKETFAHRT ACTIEN GESELLSCHAFT-LLOYD, merged with it former old Hanseatic rival NORDDEUTSCHER LLOYD in 1970, to now HAPAG-LLOYD, had its peaks and downs, but rose each time on its own to new hights, without any state subsidies. As German mail subsidiaries did never cover the costs for purchasing or mainting the vessels ordered for the specific German mail lines. by Earl of Cruise In this article I used most German Wikipedia links, as they proved to be mostly of better research quality, and surprisinf to me, some English lines and liners have only German written articles, for the others, English Wiki links are to ...

WORLD DISCOVERER Shipwrecked in a remote bay of the Solomon Islands

Hidden in a remote bay of the Solomon Islands, the beached wreck of the German-built Liberian flaged expedition cruise vessel WORLD DISCOVERER slowly rusts away. Built in 1974, it served multiple official owners faithfully for over 25 years. In April of 2000, the ship struck an uncharted reef formation just off the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. by Earl of Cruise WORLD DISCOVERER in Australian waters - own collection, courtsey SOCIETY EXPEDITIONS WORLD DISCOVERER was anew type cruise ship designed for the expedition cruise market, a few years earlier inaugurated by LINDBLAD CRUISES. WORLD DISCOVERER was built by SCHICHAU SEEBECK WERFT, Unterweser , Germany in 1974 as the second purpose built expedition cruise ship ever in the world. During construction the vessel was called BEWA DISCOVERER, the ship was completed 1974 in Bremerhaven , Germany . WORLD DISCOVERER was classified as a Swedish/Finnish 1A Ice Class , allowing the ship to withstand minor ice floe impact...

HISTORY - the ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY sailing the South Atlantic

While on research for an article published in print in Jan/Feb 2017 eventually, about the CAP Express steamers of HAMBURG-SÜD (Wikipedia) HAMBURG SÜDAMERIKANISCHEDAMPFSCHIFFFAHRTSGESELLSCHAFT I had to look into the competitors and took advantage of creating seperate articles about. by Earl of Cruises ROYAL MAIL LINE cruise broshure of 1959 - own collection The first of these South America or Rio de la Plata route related articles is about the ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY which was a British shipping company founded in London in 1839 by the Scottisch business entrepreneur James MacQueen. The line's motto was ` Per Mare Ubique´ (everywhere by sea) - nobody ever should argue about the motto of Albert Ballin `Mein Feld ist die Welt´, both mottos are not ostentatious they express the same: I don´t want to be hindered by frontiers and my limit is the other shore or the sky. After good and bad times ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY became the largest shipping group in...

Thank You 500,000 readers

HISTORY - HAMBURG-SÜD and the CAP express liner

The CAP express liners of HAMBURG-SÜD, CAP FINISTERRE, CAP TRAFALGAR, CAP POLONIO and CAP ARCONA, are known worldwide for their luxury, renowned service on board and grandeur. Their successors of the 60s, the CAP SAN vessels, have not been that elegant, but truly first class and were known as the "White Swans" of the Atlantic. by Earl of Cruise HAMBURG-SÜD´s SANTA TERESA in Santos - courtesy HAMBURG-SÜD Since its formation in 1871, HAMBURG-SÜDAMERIKANISCHE DAMPFSCHIFFFAHRTS-GESELLSCHAFT ( HSDG or HAMBURG-SÜD ) has evolved from a conventional freight and passenger shipping company into a global operating transport logistics organisation. Today, it ranks among the world's ten largest container shipping lines and is one of the leading providers in the North-South trades. T ill recently it was a member of the successful Oetker Group, one of the largest and best-known family enterprises in Germany. The heirs and owners sold HAMBURG-SÜD to the Danish MAERSK Group ...

ss NORMANDIE 1935 - 1942 IX

s s / te NORMANDIE starting from cold Owners: COMPAGNIE GÉNÉRALE TRANSATLANTIQUE BUILDERS: PENH Ö ET, St. Nazaire, France by Stephen Carey © , editing by Earl of Cruise This document is almost exclusively about the engineering aspects of NORMANDIE , mainly on how to start her up from cold. If you are looking for photos of the passenger spaces, there is a plethora of them on the web, in Facebook groups - Admirers of the ss Normandie , ss Normandie photographic file , The French Ocean Liners / Les Paquebots Fran ç ais , ss Normandie , GREAT LINERS OF THE PAST & PRESENT , and others, Pinterest and in articles about NORMANDIE here in the blog, please see at the end of the article. Using "ss" for NORMANDIE is quite incorrect, as NORMANDIE was a Turbo Electric vessel and not a steamship, therefore NORMANDIE should be adressed as "te". by Earl of Cruise te / ss NORMANDIE berthed in Le Havre, Gare Maritime May 29th, 1935 - colouring courtesy ...

HISTORY - One of the earliest steam ship companies in the world ÖSTERREICHISCHER LLOYD was founded in 1833 - III 1914-19 becoming LLOYD TRIESTINO

After the assaination of crownprince Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajewo , all European powers did run with `eyes wide shut´ in the first catastrophy of the 20th century. This war, caused equally by all the imperial powers, which was thought " to end all wars in the future ", seen as a " clearing thunderstorm ", caused with the Versailles Treaty only more war, grief and sorrow, with a final push from the Great Depression of the 1930s. LLOYD express steamers PRINZ HOHENLOHE and BARON GAUTSCH in Pola - own collection, copy from a postcard Even if the signals for this war could be seen as Menetekel (portent) at the walls, everybody was taken by surprise. Especially the economy, as nobody really was prepared for this war. by Earl of Cruise At the beginning of the First World War many ships of LLOYD AUSTRIACO were scattered on the oceans of the world. Some ships had to seek shelter in neutral ports, numerous were used by the k. u. k. Kriegsmar...

Search This Blog

Thank You 500,000 readers