20 September 2012

Queen Victoria in Helsinki, 6 July 2012

Queen Victoria

IMO 9320556
Built 2007, Fincantieri Maghera, Italy
Tonnage 90 049 GT
Length 297,00 m
Width 32,20 m
Draugth 7,80 m
2 014 passengers
2 014 berths
6 Sulzer diesels, combined 63 360 kW
2 azipods
3 bow thrusters
1 stern thruster
Speed 22 knots

The Queen Victoria was the second newbuilt ship delivered to the new Carnival Corporation -owned Cunard Line and (I'm sorry, this is going to be a bit of a rant, feel free to skip directly to the images) exemplifies just about everything that is wrong with the new Cunard. The ship itself is one of the numerous Vista-class ships used across various Carnival brands. It has an ahistorical name probably chosen by corporate executives with little to no understanding about the history and traditions of the company. That's really what is wrong with today's Cunard: it's a company run by people who wish to exploit the company's history to commercial ends without understanding it, aimed at people who do not understand the company's history either. The result is a pastiche - no, a parody - of the once proud Cunard Line.

The photographs below show the Queen Victoria departing from Helsinki's West Harbour on 6 July 2012, photographed from Sisä-Hattu. Click on the individual images to see them in larger size.

Just away from the quay and framed by leaves.
The twisted tree gives a bit of a Mediterranean vibe, but the Baltic Princess in the background proves that we are in fact in Helsinki.
Lovely foreground crap reeds.
Upright photo, not even a too badly distorted one thing time. This is probably my personal favourite of this batch.
Warm (I think it was, anyway) July afternoon with flowers, sunshine and ships - what more could a man ask for?
Pihlajasaari in the background, Sisä-Hattu in the foreground.
Um, yes. This doesn't really require a caption, does it?
For the record, I hate the new Blogger user interface and I'm extremely disappointed in Google for not letting us have the option of continuing to use the old interface if we wanted.

Next time: Thomson Spirit

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