#ss normandie

[dieselfutures]

SS Normandie - exmortal

#exmortal #SS Normandie #Ocean Liner #Liner #Pulp #Dieselpunk #Weird War

[postingcards]

a postcard from the 1939 world's fair in new york city depicting french liner normandie

#postcard #postcards #ocean liners #ss normandie #french line #1930s #back incl #(theres a darker stripe at the top of the back bc i didn't take it out of its sleeve to scan it. it fits too snugly)

[your-resident-boat-person]

something about your blog seems to have changed but I can't quite put my finger on what :3 p.s. what would you say is the worst liner, looks wise

I got a new icon :3

And as for your question, there's a couple of ways I could answer this. There are probably thousands of no-name liners that no one's really ever heard of, so the answer is probably one of those, but I wouldn't have any way to know. Instead, let's have some fun with more of the "popular" choices.

Number one would be the SS Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt. She's become something of a meme is this niche little boat community for having a mouthful of a name and a relatively unpleasant exterior. Her superstructure is much too tall, her funnels are too short and too far back, and her hull has comparatively little freeboard (distance between the water and the bottom of the superstructure). Later in her life, she was refit as a cruise ship, and she looked surprisingly better.

As you can see, they made her funnels taller, and the lack of freeboard is much less noticeable while painted white.

As for my second choice, this one is extremely controversial.

I'm not a fan of the Normandie, and one of those reasons is her exterior. My two big things are the funnels and the shape of the bow. The funnels are too big. I think if they were shorter OR thinner, they would have looked much better. The MV Georgic was able to pull off the short funnels surprisingly well, and here's a pic for reference.

Now, my second point, her bow. I think this picture says it all.

It just looks so ugly to me. I think if the white part had continued all the way forward instead of like, swooping down and stopping, she would have looked fine. I think without the issues with her funnels, and without the weird bow shape, she'd be one of my favorites (at least externally).

Before this ends, I should admit some bias. In the Ocean Liner community, there is a Neverending Twilight esque battle between Normandie fans and Queen Mary fans. This is because the two ships traded the speed record back and forth several times, and were both being regularly being refit to be bigger than the other. I don't think competition between liners has existed like this before or since. Personally, I'm team Queen Mary, which I'd rather dedicate a separate post to, because there's a lot to go over. So, with all that being said, I MAY have a slight bias against the Normandie. With that being said, I'm still just not a fan of the way she looks.

#ocean liner #ocean liners #oceanliner #cunard #cruise ship #rms queen mary #ss Normandie #ss Johan Van Oldenbarnavelt

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

what is it about cruise ships that you find ugly? like are there any specific ones you hate or is it just all of them?

okay so ive been puzzling over to how to answer this for A While™ because:

theres so many ugly cruise ships i would love to roast, and theres a part of me that wants to make a sideblog about it a la @mcmansionhell but for cruise ships

i am autistic and this is my special interest and i also want to infodump about ship design conventions

theres also really pretty oceanliners like the ss france that got converted into cruise ships where the magical girl transformation sequence malfunctioned badly.

its not always just like the exterior thats badly designed, theres both Awful design inside the ship like the disney wish, and Awful business plans and conduct like the epirotiki lines

...but, thats a lot.

so instead, ive settled on four exterior design issues that i think you can see in a lot of cruise ships even if you dont know shit about ships.

this is by no means an exhaustive list but just some common observations that you will see in 97% of cruise ships.

im also gonna include an example ship for each and also further examples when needed.

so without further ado:

1. your ship looks like a bus and a ferry had an unholy love affair that ended with a baby neither wanted.

as an example of this anchor-christ, may i introduce you to the celebrity edge

something about the stern (back) just reminds me of diamond busses here in the uk while the bow (front) has a distinctly ferry-like look.

the super-structure that you see peaking above the spaceship-bridge on the bow is giving me double-decker bus energy.

the orange viewing box elevator thingy gives construction site energy, but also gives me public transport vibes? like i can just see something similar being added on buses with no explanation and we'd all just be like i guess buses are getting the budget silicon valley treatment.

further, celebrity edge has relatively sharp angles at the stern and bow. if you look at a lot of ocean liners, youll see shallower sweeping angles curving down, while a lot of cruise ships will have these sharper angles (though by angles, i mean curves still) or just will stop at the stern:

[Image ID: collage with five ships. In the top left corner, there are two images with the profiles of the SS France and the SS Andrea Doria. In the top right, there is the stern of the MSC Meraviglia. Bottom left: the stern of the Costa Deliziosa. Bottom right: stern of the Norwegian Epic]

though not pictured above, the rms queen mary actually earned her title at the miss pacific ocean competition where a cruise ship will never win because theyre just too ugly.

but my point is that the abrupt ending of superstructure and ship at the stern looks like a bus. it just does.

there is also like "this is just a block of flats" energy with the costa deliziosa, but thats getting into the next point:

-

2. oh no gang, billy bear misplaced his msc seaside hotel and now its floating out to sea on a barge! can you help him?

yes this is a butlins reference, what are you gonna do about it? call a red coat on me?

the msc seaside is one of many cruise ships where it looks like someone put a hotel on a barge... which is what a cruise ship actually is.

like, they are barely ships. anyone who says theyre going on a cruise to explore the ocean is trying to buff out their tinder bio. while cruise ships technically can sail across oceans, they dont. their journeys are incredibly short they sail very close to land, avoid any rough weather and its mandatory for all of their captains to have a north american blue grouse fursona.

and thats all because a cruise ship is hotel complex on a barge. its purpose is not to sail far because its just a hotel. there are multiple swimming pools and restaurants and night clubs and fucking rollercoasters on some of them. you can buy souvenirs, you can go do yoga, you can get a massage and as long as your surname doesnt end with a double n, you can put your kid into the available childcare.

forget sending the british army to pontins during covid, lets send them to pontoons!

hotels on barges are the most common version youll see, but there are other variations which include:

chopping mall 2: carnivore cruises

the 2006 remake of the anchor-christ: abargements/if youre renting in a block of flats on a barge, do you pay rent to a waterlord or is your landlord firmly stood on ground?

the happiest place on earth: disneywater!

the entire shenanigans going on with the freedom ship which i do not have time or energy to get into right now, so lets all just calm and down and take a breath and...

-

...3. close your eyes, imagine, feel it. youre on a cruise ship, the ovation of the seas; its an early august night and petrichor deluges the air. the skies above you glisten, a whirlpool of colour illuminated by hundreds of tiny flecks of light. youre alone on the deck, standing at the stern with your arms precariously balanced on the barrier as you turn your attention to the ocean below. its dark, the gentle waves nearly imperceptible yet bar the bone-white crests against the hull. you watch, captivated, listening to the ocean sing its terrible song. yet then somewhere behind you, the mellow thud of hoofs on the wooden deck weaves between the waves and the melody. you look up, lock eyes, feel a hurricane surround you as he stares back, do you remember to count his fingers?

so, you might have noticed that a lot of modern cruise ships, especially the bigger ones, look like some check-mark tech-bro on the bird app used an ai to steal the work of naval architects, photographers, artists, etc. to generate "their own design" for a cruise ship.

the example i chose for this was the ovation of the seas:

the super-structure has copy and paste vibes. the ship also looks like its lurching forward to attack me but thats beside the point.

one of the issues the designers for these ships - i would say naval architects but cruise lines sometimes choose someone for head of design who is not a naval architect and has never been on a ship before for shits, giggles and profits- run into is that its really difficult to make a long blank wall look good.

if youve ever made a house in the sims, youve probably ran into this yourself. youre happily building your house and it looks really good at the front and the back, but the side of it is just a wall and adding windows is giving copy and paste vibes.

my trick for this is either fake chimney, add an extra small popout, vines everywhere or hide it with trees, but these are not viable options for a cruise ship.

trust me, i checked:

hence, we end up with very long ships where its just ctrl c ctrl v for 300+ metres.

so how do you fix this?

well, idk maybe you could take notes from any of the longer ocean liners built in recent history.

you know, like the ss united states or the rms queen mary 2 or the ss michelangelo or the ss normandie or the mv kungsholm or the ss principe perfeito:

now im not saying all of these liners are the most beautiful boats ever; theyre not. as much as i adore her, queen mary 2 is a little ugly. most of them even have an element of copy and paste.

but none of them feel ai-generated. and a lot of them look really really pretty. you can tell that they were designed by human beings.

because the naval architects and naval designers who knew what they were doing. weve got clever use of colours, gorgeous use of curves and sweeping lines that balance out all the design elements. the sameness is broken up when possible, and the ship has focal points designed within to catch your eye.

and all of them have beautiful bows. most ocean liners had/have noticeable bows due to functionality; they needed sharp bows to cut through waves because they were crossing the ocean every week. and so extra care would be taken to both make the bow work for its function and also, look really fucking cool.

the ss normandie specifically has a unique bow shape and structure designed by vladimir yourkevitch, a russian naval architect who had emigrated to france after the russian revolution.

the bow is slanted and looks almost clipper-like. theres this clear bulbous bulb (thats the wrong term but the bit at the bottom) beneath the waterline. this design is matched with a slim hull designed to be hydrodynamic, which made her a very fast ship.

she and the rms queen mary fought over the blue ribband for several years before ww2 broke out. [x][x]

its a little wibbly-wobbly-looking but it gives her a very distinct profile and she just looks really cool. you dont notice the repeating pattern of windows on the super structure because of how striking her entire design is.

and well, there has been attempts to capture this with cruise ships.

they run into problems with it though because their bows are not designed the way ocean liners' bows were because a cruise ship does not need to cut through waves. itd be really weird if you were in a fancy restaurant and you were giving a steak knife for your caesar salad.

so what else can you do to make your bow look so beautiful her kissing booth would be sold out all weekend?

-

4. your bow art is ugly. it is ugly. it is really ugly. please stop putting art on your bow. it is all ugly.

yeah.

take a moment .

.

its okay.

i promise

,

.

shes not real.

.

you can breathe.

take another breath.

.

.

youre okay.

.

.

.

are you scrolled far down enough that you cant see her anymore?

yeah so that was the aidanova. probably the worst bow art i have ever encountered but im yet to encounter any bow art that isnt awful.

pride of america is terrible; caribbean princess' is just completely out of place; norwegian prima is the epitome of "what the fuck?"; majestic princess' makes the ship look naked somehow.

now i will concede that a lot of bow art is probably aimed at children because family cruises are a thing, but i wont concede that it changes anything.

the bow art is still ugly and i struggle to see how it would be appealing to a child. like engaging children is more than just throwing some bright colours and patterns on a canvas? children are smarter than that and even in my joking post making fun of cruise ships, im not gonna stand for the way we invalidate the personhood of children. theyre not things to be distracted with simple solutions.

weirdly the aidanovas is the one id be less harsh about in terms of engaging children because there is more to dig into like a boat version of thomas the tank engine or like how do boat body work? the art isnt surface level.

but its still just ugly. the shape of the bow does not compliment the face and the change in colour in the eyes is very distracting.

tbh, if youre gonna do bow art, youve got two options that arent awful:

actually aim it at kids in a way thats not just surface level look at bright colour braxter. have focus groups with kids, gets their feedback, have kids contribute. respect the intelligence and personhood of kids.

just go all out. balls to the fucking wall, just break every damn rule in the book and apply every technique your art teacher hated. the ship is gonna be ugly anyway, make it fun ugly. camp is in. pantomime it up in this bitch!

-

and anyway, that concludes my "brief" answer to this question 👍

btw if you would follow a blog that just trashes cruise ships because of how ugly they are, please tell me because like, if enough people would enjoy it to make the effort worth it, i Will do it.

#anon #aimed for short and ended up not short #again #long post #i tried but i just #cruise ships are so ugly #cruise ships #ocean liners #shipping history #ss normandie #vladimir yourkevitch #ovation of the seas #aidanova #msc seaside #butlins #pontins #celebrity edge #norwegian epic #ss hellenic prince #billy bear #freedom ship #shipposting

[rmsfranconia]

#ocean liners #ocean liner #SS Normandie

[esqapevelocity]

#ocean liners #ss united states #rms queen mary #ss normandie #blue riband #ship illustrations

[gundamcalibarney]

Get Boat’d

(reference pic credit to oceanliner designs)

#core’s art #re:t0ld #locomotion #ocean liners #QM2 #RMS Mauretania #RMS Aquitania #RMS Olympic #SS United States #RMS Queen Elizabeth #SS Nomadic #SS Normandie #RMS Carpathia #RMS Queen Mary #cameo from Concorde

[guy60660]

SS Normandie | © MCNY

#ss normandie #mcny #design

[rms-mauretanic]

Maybe it's because I'm a bad person, but every time I'm reminded what happened to SS Normandie all I can I think about is this vine:

"You lit our fancy art deco ocean liner on fire?????"

#ss normandie #ocean liners #Youtube

[alightinthelantern]

February 9, 1942: The French ocean liner Normandie, docked beside pier 88 in Manhattan, NYC, catches fire while being converted into the troopship USS Lafayette. A pile of highly flammable kapok life preservers were improperly stored near a working acetylene torch in the ship's grand salon, and a stray spark caused a blaze quickly got out of control. The ship's onboard telephone system had been disabled days prior along with most of the ship's advanced fire suppression system, and the sprinkler system was improperly activated at all of its control stations simultaneously, dropping the water pressure within it to useless levels. It took twelve minutes for the NY Fire Department to respond to the emergency, by which time the fire had been fanned by a strong wind to become an inferno sweeping through the Normandie's upper decks, and 2,000 Navy men and civilians working aboard were streaming out of the ship through a limited number of entry points, preventing firefighters from getting aboard the vessel. When they finally could get aboard, they found their hoses incompatible with the firefighting inlets on the French ship, meaning they could only fight the fire from outside the ship.

For several hours firetrucks on land shot water on the Normandie's starboard landside while fireboats poured water onto the Normandie's seaward port side, but the fireboats poured significantly more water into the giant ship than the trucks did, causing an imbalance of water in the ship's upper decks and a dangerous list to port. The Normandie's designer ‎Vladimir Yourkevitch was in NYC, and when he heard his ship was on fire he rushed to the site and begged to be let aboard so he could open the . "I designed the ship!" he said, "I can find my way through it with my eyes closed! I'll open the sea-cocks [valves], the ship's belly will fill with water, the ship will sink six inches and settle on the bottom, and it will be safe!" The Navy administrators at the conversion site were unmoved. "This is a Navy job," they said brusquely.

By evening the fire had been brought under control, but the ship was listing about thirty degrees to its seaward side. Thinking the Normandie no longer in danger, the Navy and Fire Department abandoned the ship for the night, not realizing only the ship's mooring ropes were keeping it from capsizing. In the night the ropes snapped, and the ship rolled over onto its side, wallowing in the mud at the bottom of the river. There the ship lay for eighteen months, no one sure what to do with the wreck.

In August 1943 it was decided to raise the ship and convert it into an aircraft carrier. The superstructure was cut away and then the hull was pumped free of water, and it slowly emerged from the river and returned to an even keel. But it was found the fire had damaged the hull too severely and the ship's machinery had deteriorated too much for the ship to be of further use. The hulk sat idly until the end of the war, when it was decided to scrap it after both the US Navy and the French Line expressed no interest in salvaging the ship. The remains of the Normandie were scrapped in Newark, New Jersey in 1946.

Photo taken by Harry Warnecke for the New York Daily News. It is unclear if this photo is a real color photo or a digital colorization. I found this photo on a Facebook group dedicated to the Normandie claiming the color photo is real. This photo has been published before only in black-and-white, and Getty Images features the photo in B&W, but Getty's version of the photo is slightly cropped on the right edge compared to the color photo (look closely and you'll see the space between the second funnel and the right edge of the photo is wider in the color image), meaning Getty's version of the photo is not necessarily from the original negatives, but could be an early reproduction. Interestingly, Harry Warnecke actually owned a color film studio and took color press photos of celebrities for the NY Daily News during this time period, so it's indeed possible that this is a genuine color photo. If anyone can provide any information one way or the other, I would be quite grateful.

#ocean liners #ocean liner #SS Normandie #Normandie #Harry Warnecke #NY Daily News #photography #1940s #WWII #WW2 #historical #vintage #NYC #New York City #Hudson River #early color photography #early color film #French Line

[lonestarbattleship]

SS Normandie laying on her side after an accidental fire destroyed the ship, circa June 1942.

Photographed by Ralph Morse for LIFE Magazine.

LIFE Magazine Archives: 1267482

#SS Normandie #Normandie #French line #Ocean Liner #Liner #June #1942 #New York City #New York #united states navy #us navy #navy #usn #u.s. navy #color photo #wreck #capsized #World War II #World War 2 #WWII #WW2 #WWII History #History #my post

[man-of-kent]

SS Normandie (1935) - The Grand Salon

#ss normandie #ocean liner

[postingcards]

french liner normandie linen. ca. 1930s

#postcard #postcards #ocean liners #ss normandie #french line #linen #1930s

[your-resident-boat-person]

What is it about the RMS Olympic that makes it stand out from other ocean liners?

For me it's a lot of things. I'm going to start with a weird one. Her engines.

The RMS Mauretania was the biggest ship in the world until the Olympic was completed in 1911, and the fastest until 1927. She was designed for speed first and foremost. She had 4 propellers powered by steam turbines, which were the new hot thing at the time. Cunard built 2 "test ships," the Carmania and the Caronia. Carmania had steam turbines, and Caronia had traditional triple expansion steam engines. Carmania was faster, so Cunard used turbines. Mauretania had a top speed (at the time) of about 27.75 knots. Which is impressive. However, her service speed, the speed she went at when she crossed the ocean, was 23.69 knots. Mauretania was designed for speed. This was an impressive speed. The fastest way to cross the ocean for 20 years.

Meanwhile, Olympic was built with comfort in mind. Steam turbines were a relatively new technology and not well understood. Ships that had them had really bad vibration issues, and White Star didn't care about speed. They weren't looking to compete with Cunard on that front. So, they equipped the Olympic with traditional triple expansion steam engines. However, after the steam was exhausted from the final cylinder, it was redirected into a low-pressure turbine. This strange combination engine system gave the Olympic 3 Propellers. Without the turbine, she probably wouldn't have gone above 18 knots. But with that little extra push, her top speed became competitive with Cunard. Her top speed was 21.75 knots. So even without the new fancy turbines, she was effectively only 2 knots slower. But that's not the impressive part about all of this.

In a single day, the Mauretania burned on average 1,000 tons of coal to go 23.69 knots. Meanwhile, Olympic, with her weird engine Mish mash, only consumed 650 tons in a day. And she was only 2 knots slower! And with the turbine propeller right behind her (comparatively) large rudder, she was a really good turner for a ship of her size. I just love the engineering here.

Anyway, that's only one reason I love her so much. Her career was another great thing about her. After Titanic sank, White Star refitted Olympic to make her even safer (she was objectively the safest ship in the world both before and after this refit) and White Star pulled the biggest PR comeback in history. Her return to service in 1913 was widely celebrated. During World War 1, she served as a troop ship, and she is the only Ocean Liner to have ever sunk enemy tonnage in either World Wars. A German U-Boat was trying to torpedo her, but because she could turn so well, they were actually able to swing her around, ram the U-Boat and sink it! She also survived a separate torpedo attack because it failed to detonate when it struck. After the war, when they put her in dry dock, they found the hole. They didn't even know they were hit! The double hull contained the flooding. After the war, she returned to passenger service and became extremely popular with the rich and famous, earning herself the nickname of "the movie star liner." By the 1930s, White Star's new flagship, the Majestic, was having some extreme problems. She was a German ship given to them as compensation for the loss of Britannic. She began having some electrical problems that caused frequent fires, and her hull plates were tearing. Even though she was 10,000 tons bigger than Olympic, and she was a newer and safer ship, Olympic was still in fantastic shape, suffering from none of these problems.

Next, is her interiors. I love the Edwardian wood paneling. Ships before Olympic like the Adriatic are a bit too sparse for my taste, and ships like the Aquitania just don't look comfortable to me. Her interiors are gorgeous, but it's kind of imposing. I wouldn't want to sit on the furniture or get close to the walls. It's like a work of art, but that doesn't make her comfortable. I have the same problem with the Normandie. Beautiful, but not comfortable. People nowadays forget that you actually had to live inside these ships for about a week at a time. We can only look. Occupying these interiors is very different. Meanwhile, I feel like the Olympic gets that perfect balance between looking gorgeous, but not being imposing. I can imagine myself sitting comfortably on a chair in the grand staircase and watching the people go by. I like the pseudo art deco of the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Mauretania 2, but I just prefer the Edwardian decor of the Olympic.

Next is her exterior. She's not my favorite in this regard, that title goes to the SS United States. But the Olympic is still gorgeous. I like the height to width ratio of her funnels, I think they're a good size relative to the rest of her. For an example of funnels I don't like, I think the Normandies funnels are way too thick and tall. The Olympics superstructure is appealing and isn't too tall. The rounded bridge atop the flatter lower decks has just an incredible effect. The Big 4 had the bridge separate from the rest of the superstructure, and it looked kinda goofy to me. Olympic is just all around really good in this regard. Not the best, but really good.

I think it's such a shame that she's been reduced to "Titanic's sister." She was so much more than that. I can talk about the Olympic for hours, but this post is too long already.

#ocean liner #ocean liners #oceanliner #rms titanic #titanic #cunard #rms queen mary #rms olympic #olympic #ss normandie #rms majestic #ss united states #world war 1 #rms mauretania #mauretania

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

so i have a soft spot for the 2006 film poseidon which is a film i reckon about 24 other people remember existing since warner bros lost like $70million on it, and i just like, need to talk about it.

its a loose remake of a 1972 film, and overall, its a very silly film, however its also connected to massive advancements in oceanography, and through that connection, also connected to an incident that could have killed around 10000 american recruits during ww2 in less than an hour.

and i cannot stop thinking about this stupid film so please enjoy this stupidly long post no one is going to read because I Need To Infodump.

so poseidon (2006)...

it's a very of its time disaster film with your group of plucky survivors trying to overcome more and more obstacles as they desperately fight for safety. among them, youve got kurt russell as an ex nyc firefighter and mayor because its 2006, of course you do. emmy rossums here because of course she is (again, its 2006), and surprise richard dreyfus is here as a gay naval architect who survives the film. fergie even has a cameo and its honestly a crime that the song she sings for it is not on spotify.

but the film is also very much not a of its time disaster film, because production decided to not update the setting. and i have absolutely no idea why. and its confused me for years now because its an easy fix.

see the 1972 film (the poseidon adventure) and the book its based on, both take place on an ocean liner, and that makes sense for that time.

contrary to popular beliefs, ocean liners =/= cruise ships.

during the late 19th century and most of the 20th century, ocean liners were all the rage, because if you wanted to go from liverpool to new york, they were your best bet.

with the invention of steam engines, they were no longer dependent on weather, and once wood was swapped for steel, they were at serious less risk of sinking. this meant they could run reliable trips from point a to point b and back again. they were essentially buses for the ocean. thats what titanic was btw.

while less popular due to jet travel in the 70s, people were still using them. the ss michelangelo sailed her maiden voyage in 1965, and ran for ten years still. it does make sense for both the book and film to take place on an ocean liner.

it does not make sense for the 2006 iteration to take place on an ocean liner, but it does. and its not even an ocean liner turned cruise ship like the rms queen mary 2 or the ss france/ss norway. there were no ocean liner only businesses operating in 2006 because you can now take a plane rather than a five day trip across the atlantic.

but in poseidon (2006), the rms poseidon is not a cruise ship. it is an ocean liner, and designating it as rms means it is also delivering international royal mail. theres even a plot about a stowaway aboard the ship which is just a tad bit bizarre. its such an odd choice not to simply update it so its a cruise ship. most people dont know the difference between them, theres no reason to specify that it is an ocean liner.

(its especially odd because the gay naval architect apparently knows the vessel very well which, sir, who is paying you to draft up ocean liner designs in 2006??)

weirdly enough though, the film does decide to update the actual cause for the disaster, which will bring us back to the ww2 point.

the general gist of the story is that some environmental event causes the ship to capsize (turn upside down in the water), and our heroes have to escape the ship.

i have attempted to read the book, but i didnt enjoy it and i was getting a feeling that the author, paul gallico, was antisemitic. he was. he specifically expressed it by saying jewish folks love basketball because its a game specialised for tricky characters, to paraphrase. yeah no theres also basketball antisemitism going on.

in the book, its an underwater earthquake that causes the ship to capsize. the quake created a 90ft wave (put a pin in that, we'll get back to it) which i believe hit the ship side-on, after the ship fell into a deep trough.

i have no idea if this is possible irl as im just an autistic with a special interest in ocean liners.

in the 1972 film, its a tsunami that hits the ship. i believe the tsunami is also caused by an underwater earthquake (again, put a pin in that) which would hit the ship on the side and cause it to roll right over (put a pin in this too btw).

again, i dont know about the veracity of this happening irl. i know tsunamis are related to underwater earthquakes, but as far as i know, they dont form into the massive wave until the wave is closer to shore?

but anyway, in the 2006 film, the capsizing is caused by a rogue wave.

as aforementioned, my special interest is ocean liners so i know quite a lot about rogue waves and i dont know how much of that is common knowledge so time for another abrupt explanation of niche topics.

so rogue waves, what are they? well, theyre big fuck off waves. descriptions tend to put them anywhere from 50ft high to 100ft (10 stories high).

for a wave to be considered a rogue wave, it needs to be more than twice the height of any other wave in that region. theyre unpredictable and often occur out of nowhere. theyre more common in some specific regions like off the coast of south africa, and are distinct from tsunamis. they can occur both in the ocean and on the great lakes.

for centuries, sailors have told tales of them but like krakens and sea monsters, they werent believed. this is partly due to survivorship bias because if youre in a wooden sailboat and get hit by a rogue wave, youre not going to survive. it was only after advancements in ship building that people began to survive them. and even then, its not guaranteed.

some theorise rogue waves were responsible for the sinking of both the ss munich/munchen and the edmund fitzgerald.

still, it wasnt until one was recorded by a research post in 1995 that rogue waves genuinely became a serious topic within oceanography.

however, we did have credible reports of them hitting ocean liners long before then. both the rms lusitania (in 1910) and the ss michelangelo (in 1966) were badly damaged when they ran into rogue waves bow first (head-on). they both fell into deep troughs before the wave hit and both of their bows sustained serious damage. three people lost their lives on the ss michelangelo.

(damage done to ss michelangelo)

despite this, it was preferable for both vessels to hit the wave head-on. both were ocean liners with bows designed to break through waves, and designed to be able to keep sailing even if the bow was caved in.

(fun fact: if titanic had hit the iceberg head on, there was a very good chance she wouldnt have sunk)

now you might want to know why we know it was preferable to be hit head-on, and why i specified the ship would have been hit side-on. this is how the ship was hit in the 2006 film also. and well, this is when were getting into ww2 territory.

the lusitania and michelangelo are not the only ocean liners to encounter a rogue wave. this also happened to the rms queen mary in 1942.

just some quick background on the queen mary; she was launched in 1936 and built with the goal of stealing the blue riband (the record for fastest journey for a passenger line from southampton to new york) from the ss normandie, owned by french line. queen mary was owned by the cunard line whose reputation partly rested on speed. both the lusitania and mauritania (both cunard ships) had won the blue riband at some point. in 1942, queen mary held the blue riband and was considered the fastest passenger liner in the world.

at that point though, she has been requisitioned by the admiralty for the war effort and was acting as a troop ship. a very effective troop ship as she averaged 28 knots in speed and they managed to up her capacity from around 3300 (including crew) to 16000.

she also was owned by cunard line who have a long history of conferring with the admiralty during peacetimes. their ships were designed with spaces left for guns and weapons. part of why the lusitania was sunk by a u-boat in ww1 was her secretly carrying firearms back from the "neutral" america to the uk despite it still being a passenger ship. the admiralty knew queen mary would be a massive benefit in a war.

this isnt to say that she was perfect, however. she was a famous roller. see, when youre building a ship, you expect it to roll somewhat on any difficult seas. to combat extreme rolling (which can be fatal), ships are built with their centres of buoyancy and gravity close together. this reduces rolling, but can cause very sudden lists (tilts). as queen mary was a big fuck off ship, it was assumed she wouldnt roll badly, so she was designed with a slightly bigger gap between those centres which caused very slow rolling from side to side. this often felt like the ship would never right itself, and as handrails were not considered necessary at first, passengers had to shuffle down hallways.

cunard took her in for repairs and added stabilisers to lessen the roll. they also added handrails. it didnt fix the rolling, but it was bearable and not considered dangerous. she soon became a superstar liner, and again, a very good troop ship.

hitler had even put a monetary bounty specifically on the queen mary for whichever submarine could shoot her, with the iron cross promised also. this did not come to pass.

(rms queen mary as a troopship)

what did come to pass, however, was a 92ft high rogue wave smashing into her portside (left). this is the absolute opposite of what you want to happen.

there was an attempt to steer her head-on into the wave but ocean liners that size take two miles to stop moving. they also couldnt risk too sudden of a turn because they were in the atlantic in a storm. this attempt to change course is repeated in the 2006 film and is also unsuccessful.

so now when the wave hit queen mary, it caused her to begin listing to starboard (right side) because a 90ft ocean wave just smashed into her. and she began to list. the portholes broke and wager poured in, making the list worst.

at first, it was 15°, then 20°, then 25°, 30°, 40°, 50°, 52°

then she stopped. and she stayed there, listing 52° to starboard. she was nearly capsized. and what must have felt like hours for those 11000 recruits and crew, she just stayed there, nearly on her side in the atlantic ocean.

and then finally, she began to right herself, one degree at a time, until she was back steady as if nothing had happened.

the technicians had later examined the ship and estimated that if shed listed just 3° extra, they would have capsized and sank, taking 11000 men with her.

so i imagine at this point, if youre even reading this anymore, youre like okay, kai, we get it, you dont wanna get hit broadside by a rogue wave, do we need all this detail?

and well, no. you dont need to know it and i dont need to tell it but here i am, telling you so.

but it is very relevant to poseidon (2006) because remember how its a remake of a film based on a book? and that book was written by the basketball antisemite? yeah, so paul gallico was on board the queen mary when this happened.

and this is what inspired him to write the book.

obviously, at the time, we didnt fully understand rogue waves so gallico explained it as an underwater earthquake, but we know now it was a rogue wave.

and so the 2006 film honours that and makes it a rogue wave. they never really explain it so unless youre insufferable like me, you might just be like what the fuck? is that poseidon (god) doing that?

but im gonna redirect your attention to the fact that the queen mary was 3° away from capsizing and that 3° could have caused an entirely different outcome to the war.

if she had capsized, she would have taken 10000 recruits with her and the allies would have lost their best troop ship. morale would have been affected because back then, ocean liners were household celebrities. they were adored by residents.

im not a historian, and especially not a war historian, so im not gonna be like oh look alternate history where the nazis won oooh how edgy?

but like, just a few more feet of water on that wave and parts of ww2 would be so different.

it also would have affected the cunard line massively after the war, and the white star line (titanics owners) as well. i believe their merger was after ww2.

also, gallico would have died so his book wouldnt have existed, neither would the film adaptation or the remake. it all just comes back around like a never ending carousel of feral seahorses.

but anyway, away from all the existential crises. i wanted to actually address what made me want to write this stupidly long post in the first place:

an article i skim read that addressed the veracity of the inciting event in the 2006 film, aka the rogue wave.

after a mostly accurate explanation of rogue waves and at least one misuse of cruise ship for ocean liner, the article concluded that a rogue wave hitting an ocean liner like that was simply so unlikely, it was basically impossible.

and if youve got this far in my ramblings, you might be able to understand the level of bafflement i felt reading that.

because while it is a fair conclusion as it is a very unlikely thing to happen. but THIS FILM EXISTS BECAUSE A ROGUE WAVE SMASHED INTO AN OCEAN LINER AND NEARLY CAPSIZED IT

#kai rambles #a lot #long post #very long post #this is just me infodumping into the void #poseidon (2006) #the poseidon adventure #tw antisemitism #rms queen mary #ss normandie #ss michelangelo #rms lusitania #rms mauritania #rms titanic #titanic #ocean liners #SpIns #ww2 #rogue waves #tw adolf hitler #tw nazis #tw ww2 #ss munich #edmund fitzgerald #my autism is singing sea shanties tonight lads #anyway #im glad the gay survived the action film in 2006 #shipposting

[msantoniagraza]

#ss normandie