The demise of a sister to the Queen of the North

[markkarj]

Here's a fairly close sister to the Stena Danica/Queen of Surrey/Queen of the North... www.faktaomfartyg.com/stena_germanica_1967.htm

Looks like this ship's demise was due to an untimely run-in with a reef near Puerto Rico in 1985. If the translator software worked correctly, the ship was beached for four years before being dismantled.

I just thought the pictures were kinda interesting, and that you'd all like to see it.

[Low Light Mike]

Thanks for posting that.....very interesting.

I always find pictures of listing / partially-submerged ships to be creepy.....is that just me? 4 Years is a long time to be beaten up on the reef.

The solarium glass on the deck in front of the funnel is very similar to that of Stena Danica / Q-North........which makes sense because of the common Stena roots.


And now, some humour for you NFL fans out there:
(ps: is it true that "Stena Gramatica" went on to become a placekicker in the NFL??)

[Political Incorrectness]

www.faktaomfartyg.com/wickersham_1967_bild_1.htm this picture of her sister ship looks like she is going under the Lions Gate bridge. The picture is back from 1967 when she became an alaskan ferry. The front of the ships look very familiar and the windows on the sides nearest to the car deck.

[Low Light Mike]

ferrymaniac101 said:

www.faktaomfartyg.com/wickersham_1967_bild_1.htm this picture of her sister ship looks like she is going under the Lions Gate bridge. The picture is back from 1967 when she became an alaskan ferry. The front of the ships look very familiar and the windows on the sides nearest to the car deck.

Mugwamp (Dan): this vessel was purchased by Alaska Marine Highway System, for use on their mainline route from Seattle to Ketchikan (or somewhere on the panhandle). The Wick was used by AMHS until MV Columbia was built. There was a Jones-Act issue with using the Wick by Alaska.

Here's a link to some AMHS history....check San Mateo's link in the first post of this thread:
ferriesbc.proboards20.com/index.cgi?board=nwf&action=display&thread=1154026158


I find it interesting that Stena had so many ships which were sold many times over......and that some of them ended up on our west coast.

[markkarj]

Found some more info on this ship from the company that broke it apart... www.titansalvage.com/

---
February 1990-Standard Steamship-"A. REGINA"-3900 light weight ton Ro-Ro Ferry grounded at Mona Island, Puerto Rico. Very political and environmentally sensitive job as the ferry was not a hazard to navigation, but was endangering the food chain of a species of turtle. Removal was mandated by a congressional act. Titan acquired a U.S. Army C.O.E. jack up barge through a separate Act of Congress in order to have the proper platform for the job.
---

I haven't been able to find an explanation on why it was there for four to five years before being broken up.

HMCS Nanaimo noted some interest in how a few Stena ships wound up on our coast. In general, it seemed for a time that many of the Scandinavian companies (Stena, Silja, Viking) would run their ships only for a few years, replace them with new liners, and sell the old ones.

Recently, all of the big Scandinavian companies seem to have been running their ships for much, much longer and not adding new ones.

It's probably doubtful that any of the recent ships will end up on the west coast, due to most of them being considerably larger than anything we use here now.

[Curtis]

The Germanica and the Wickersham are obviously sisters. And has anyone ever noticed that almost all the Stena Ships have the light up sign with the name of the ship

flugelhorn said:

I find it interesting that Stena had so many ships which were sold many times over......and that some of them ended up on our west coast.

It's not just the West Coast don't forget it's happend on the East Coast of Canada as well the original Stena Danica I sailed on that side of the country under the Name Lucy Maud Montgomery

[markkarj]

Looks like the Wickersham/Stena Britannica met her end about five years ago at the hands of ship-breakers.

[Curtis]

Also looks like the Stena Germanica found her end capsized close to land
www.faktaomfartyg.com/a_regina_1967_b_6.htm

[Low Light Mike]

The pic that PR Teen referenced, sure makes her look like our old Queen of the North......the sibling relation is sure noticeable in the bridge structure, and the solarium behind the bridge.

The Stena - Canada connection that we've talked about in this thread & elsewhere is pretty neat.

It's hard to believe that Germanica lay on that reef for 4 years....but the mucky look in those photos I guess shows what 4 years of pounding sea can do.


ps: Mark Karj, please feel free to tell us a bit about yourself....we have a thread for this in the "non-ferries" section of the board.

pps: Are you expecting a prize for tripling your post-count in the space of 12 hours? We invite you to choose a prize from our virtual giftshop.......

Welcome aboard, good to have you here.

[poeticlives]

Has anyone seen the Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong Harbour before?

That was my first thought upon seeing the beached M/S A Regina in the photos provided by markkarj.

[markkarj]

flugelhorn said:

ps: Mark Karj, please feel free to tell us a bit about yourself....we have a thread for this in the "non-ferries" section of the board.

pps: Are you expecting a prize for tripling your post-count in the space of 12 hours? We invite you to choose a prize from our virtual giftshop.......

Welcome aboard, good to have you here.

Hey:

Thank you very much. There seems to be a real appreciation for members of this group, which is very cool.

I couldn't find the members' description in the non-ferries section (maybe buzzed through too quickly), so here goes:

Mark Karjaluoto, 31, resident of Prince George BC, former radio news reporter (last job was at CKNW), now working in communications/public affairs, general transportation junkie (mostly around passenger aircraft and ferries). Was on board BC Ferries a lot from 1993 to 1997 while doing my undergrad at UVic.

As for the prize from the virtual gift-shop, I'd like the Spirit of British Columbia for a day... with Pearl Jam doing a live show on the overheight car deck, and a few thousand of my closest personal friends (including all the folks from this board) out for a cruise! Is that possible?

M

[Low Light Mike]

Mark, welcome aboard. I remember your name from various CKNW newscasts.

Re your request for the SOBC for a day, with Pearl Jam, we can try our best.

We can also try to get the BC Ferries media spokesperson to make an appearance, serving cheesy-poofs and Fresca.

[Neil]

Failing that, we could perhaps offer up the 'HMCS Nanaimo One Man Band' on a not too busy sailing of the Quinsam, with his flugelhorn rendition of "Ferry Cross the Mersey", by Gerry and the Pacemakers...

[NMcKay]

or a ride on the lynx, with the horn

[Low Light Mike]

hornbyguy said:

Failing that, we could perhaps offer up the 'HMCS Nanaimo One Man Band' on a not too busy sailing of the Quinsam, with his flugelhorn rendition of "Ferry Cross the Mersey", by Gerry and the Pacemakers...

I'll check my schedule......

ps: looking at the title of this thread, the first 8 words remind me of the former Margaret Armstrong-Jones. I think her maiden-name was Windsor??

Sorry for the riff-raff........is there anything more to discuss about Britanica? (the ship, not the encyclopaedia)

[markkarj]

flugelhorn said:

Sorry for the riff-raff........is there anything more to discuss about Britanica? (the ship, not the encyclopaedia)

I've found it interesting that QOTN/Stena Danica seemed to last the longest of all of her sister ships. Stena Germanica only made it to the mid-80s... Stena Britannica had that unfortunate date with the ship-breakers in 2001. It seems as the west coast definitely keeps a much older fleet than many of the Scandinavian outfits.

I suppose one question is: does BC Ferries do more extensive maintenance to keep the local ships running longer, and how so?

[Low Light Mike]

I don't know if BC Ferries does "more" maintenance work, but they definitely do lots.

An aquaintance of mine is a fellow who worked for BCF from 1978-2005. (I see him every week at my church). He was an electrical engineer (officer position), serving first on the QPR, and then on the Queen of the North from her 1980 refit, until he retired last year. He had his hand in most of the systems that operated on the ship.

During the annual off-season, he would still be working his standard "2 weeks off, 2 weeks on" shift, doing maintenance projects at Deas, or Ogden Point, or wherever the Q-North was "resting". So there was maintenance done every year.

We talked today, and he recalled a couple of interesting stories about Queen of the North and the QPR:

- He was aboard both times that the QPR sailed thru Gunboat Passage: once sucessfully, and once not. During the grounding, we was at or near the bridge.

- He was on the Q-North in the early 80's when she started out for northern service. He said that the old route of Tsawwassen-P.Rupert was great to work on, as it was a nice long multi-day voyage.

- He recalled a story that in the early days the MV Malaspina was the established ship on the inside passage, and the Q-North was the new kid on the block. He said that one time the Q-North was sailing behind MV Malaspina, and the Q-North decided to increase speed and overtake the Malaspina. He says that the Q-North got up to 23 knots and overtook Malaspina....establishing bragging rights.

Anyways, from my numerous talks with this fellow over the years, it appears to me that there was lots of regular maintenance done on Q-North over the years.

[Retrovision]

markkarj said:

Here's a fairly close sister to the Stena Danica/Queen of Surrey/Queen of the North... www.faktaomfartyg.com/stena_germanica_1967.htm

Looks like this ship's demise was due to an untimely run-in with a reef near Puerto Rico in 1985. If the translator software worked correctly, the ship was beached for four years before being dismantled.

I just thought the pictures were kinda interesting, and that you'd all like to see it.

Thank you, and welcome, Mark.
________________________

...If we only still had the Queen of the North today, BCFerries could retrofit her to continue BC's current ingenious concept of turning accessible-to-the-common-person transportation into arm-and-a-leg priced luxury services (I'm thinking of BC Rail passenger services as the best example) by converting her into a premium Cruise and Fly vessel; maybe resembling something like the Stena Germanica when she had a helipad...

(Photo Credit: Micke Asklander)


(Photo Credit: Andreas Wörteler)

Or how about the economy version - No helipad, and the ship only slows to half speed


(Photo Credit: Micke Asklander)