Empress in Helsinki, 21 May 2013

First off, I would like to start by apologising for the lack of updates during this month. As noted in an earlier entry, I have spent most of this month working on my upcoming book Silja Line from De Samseglande to Tallink. This has included editing A LOT of photos - and I'm sure you can understand that when I've first spent 6-8 hours in editing ship photos in my "day job", doing some more photo editing for my blog on top of that does not strike my fancy. Today, however, is different, as I took a day off for ship photography and afterwards I felt sufficiently rejuvenated to work a bit on non-Silja/Tallink related photos. As is the tradition, we continue in chronological order from where we left off - in other words, Pullmantur Cruises' Empress.

Empress

IMO 8716899
Name history: Nordic Empress, Empress of the Seas, Empress
Built 1990, Chantiers de l'Atlantique, St. Nazaire, France
Tonnage 48 563 GT
Length 210,81 m
Width 30,70 m
Draft 7,10 m
2 020 passengers
2 Wärtsilä-Duvant Crepelle diesels, combined 16 200 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
1 stern thruster
Speed 19,5 knots

Obviously, the weather was not entirelty collaborative on the day I took these photos, but they are my first (and only) photos of any Pullmantur Cruises' ship in their new, blue-hulled livery. With regards to Pullmantur's new livery, I have to say I like that they have tried to do something different from the run-of-the-mill white-hulled cruise ship livery. But having said that, the new livery is terrible. Sure it's nice they did something different, but did they have to choose the other boring stereotypical hull colour besides white? And who did they have design this thing? I could come up with a better livery for crying out loud! (It's easy, actually. Just swap the dark and light blue in the current livery).

For a very short history of the Empress (as well as photos of her in Pullmantur's earlier livery), see the first entry on her.

So anyway, the photos below show the Empress departing Helsinki West Harbour on the afternoon of 21 May 2013. Photographed, as per the usual, from Sisä-Hattu. Click on the images to see them in larger size.

Unusually, the Empress departed at exactly the same moment as the Star. Usually, the Star & Superstar are very punctual (they have to be, with such tight schedules) and never let other ships sail on their slot. This time however, the Empress did and the Star yielded.

The wind whipped up impressive waves... but unfortunately the sky didn't quite cooperate for best possible photos.

The bad weather being one of the reasons why I'm only showing you three photos today. Well, that and the fact the others were just more of the same.

Next time: Baltic Queen