12 January 2012

The Oceanic in Helsinki, 11 September 2011

The Oceanic

IMO 5260679
Former names: Oceanic, StarShip Oceanic, Big Red Boat I, Oceanic
Built 1965, Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico Monfalcone, Italy
Tonnage 37 772 GT
Length 238,44 m
Width 29,42 m
Draft 8,60 m
1 550 passengers
2 CRDA-Del Laval steam turbines, combined 39 279 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
Speed 26,5 knots

Ah, The Oceanic, a classic if there ever was one! For a history of the ship, see the first entry on her. Since that entry was written, the ship has been re-registered into Panama (in place of Valletta) and at the same time the "The" was added in front of the name. Which is perhaps a bit silly.

Anyway, the photographs below show The Oceanic arriving into Helsinki West Harbour in the morning of 11 September 2011, photographed from Hernesaari. I apologise for the fact there are so many images - the ship simply looks so good it was too hard to cut down the number of shots to feature in this entry. Additional images from this date (and from my previous rendez-vous with the Oceanic on 8 June 2009) can be seen at Simplon Postcards' page for the ship.

Click on the images to see in larger size.

Annoyingly I had forgotten the ISO settings on my camera to 800 after the previous photo session and did not realise it at first when taking these photos. Hence the first images here are a bit grainier than normally.
The tugs assisting The Oceanic were Atlas (forward) and Artemis (aft). Fortunately it was a fairly calm morning.
Preparing to turn around to back into quay.
Fortunately in the current livery the too forward placement of the Peace Boat -text is balanced with the End Poverty 2015 logo.
I decided to skip the rest of the process of turning, as the ship was in the shade most of the time and didn't really look that good (there is one at Simplon Postcards though).
As usual, panoramic framing makes everything better.
So much better, in fact, that I had to use it twice in a row.
The ship looks particularly awesome from this point of view, IMO.
It's a good cause.
To be fair, I think the funnel is a bit boring compared to the awesome design of the rest of the ship (and the funnel designs on other Italian-designed ships of the time, like the brilliant Michelangelo and Raffaello, or the Guglielmo Marconi and Galileo Galilei).
A not-so-subliminal Russian flag on the bow. Timo Soini disapproves of this.

4 comments:

  1. Without a a doubt the most beautiful pics I have seen of this fantastic ship, for me one of the best came out of the 60's, we're so lucky she is still around, I completely agree with your comments about the funnel, the MARCONI's design would fit nicely, after all the hull's design is the same, MICHELANGELO's don't think so, still today ultra modern conception, mote to do with a FERRARI ship

    All the best
    Vitor

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  2. Many thanks for the positive words. I think the photos could have been better, but maybe that's just me being very critical of myself. The Oceanic is indeed one of the best-looking ships of that time - or any time for that matter.

    I agree that the Michelangelo's funnel would not have suited the ship, my point was more that since they created to many different but beautiful designs at the time, perhaps yet another different-built-beautiful desing could have been created for the Oceanic.

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  3. Very appealing photos and excellent info, nice looking site too.

    SpannerMonkey

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  4. Hello there! I was wondering who was the visitor originating from Cimexchange, I should have guessed it would be you. ;) I'm glad you enjoy the site.

    ReplyDelete