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E NEWS SUPPLEMENT...by Bill Miller
Week of October 7, 2013
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Our new Facebook page is booming with interest. This past week our reach increased over 5000% (yes 5000). If you haven't joined us on Facebook yet please give us a try and like. We post some extra news, some great photos from our cruises and some beautiful picture of Stephen Card's work there, so why not pay us a visit? You will be glad you did.
Holland America has provided us once again with Shipboard Credit coupons good for sailing through 2014. These are available to members in good standing. They will be shipped with the next issue after your renewal has been received. If you have already renewed, just send us an email at membership@wocls.org and we will ship them to you. If you haven't yet renewed you may do so online here..
You May Renew Your Membership Here
PS If your schedule permits, please consider joining our group, hosted by maritime artist Stephen Card aboard Holland America's Nieuw Amsterdam this December.
Full details can be found in the flyer attached below
A Flyer On the Nieuw Amsterdam Cruise Can Be Found Here. Please Invite Your Family & Friends!
For more information please
call (800) 229-2542
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Steam whistles!
It is a short trip, but I will be giving a talk (on Oct 27th) during the High Society Cruise aboard the atmospheric American Queen. Sailing from St Louis to Memphis, I'm aboard for only two days - Oct 26th-28th.
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 Brooklyn - Fewer & Fewer!
Next year will see less arrivals & departures at Brooklyn's Red Hook cruise terminal. Alone, Cunard's Queen Mary 2 is down from 22-24 to 14 calls and Princess has reduced its calls as well.
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Facelift!
The 85,000-ton Carnival Legend, dating from 2002, will get a full makeover next year. There will be new restaurants, shops & Water Works Aqua Park before the 2,667-bed ship heads for Australian cruise deployment. |
Upright!
The capsized, 114,000-ton Costa Concordia was finally righted on Sep 16-17th. Overall, it was the largest, most expensive, most complicated salvage job of its kind. The price tag: $800,000,000. And just in case you are interested in details, righting the 950-footer required 56 enormous cables, 58 pulling machines, 11 multi-story flotation tanks, 6 undersea platforms and 1,180 grout bags full of cement. 500 workers were involved on 24-hr a day shifts The ship sank 20 months before while salvage took 16 months. 32 died in the accident off the Italian coast (30 were recovered and the remaining 2 bodies were missing until a few days ago). Raising the wreck was actually four months behind schedule - it was initially due to be righted last May. |
Seagoing treat!
I was aboard the wonderful Queen Mary 2 in August for 29 days - New York to Southampton, then a cruise to Norway & stopping at Hamburg in each direction and then home from Southampton to New York. It was glorious! A sample entry from my Journal during the westbound crossing: Idyllic day with nothing more to do than attending 3 talks, having a chatty breakfast and later long lunch. Three excellent lecturers by three excellent speakers: Irving Berlin - His Life & Music, The Art of Central Park and Rogers & Hammerstein: The Conscience of America. Crossing on the Queen Mary 2 is like sailing on a moving city - there's just about everything onboard! Dinner in La Piazza restaurant (gorgeous Italian cuisine) with Christine Roussel, a friend from New York & a lady of many talents, interests & skills and a fellow speaker this trip. The meal consists of a six-part Antipasti and an absolutely magical soup: Chilled Vine Ripened Tomato Soup with Water Melon & Basil Sorbet. Talk about going to Heaven - but not having to die first! But the great highlight: Specially prepared, homemade spaghetti in tomato sauce spiced with baby shrimps, Bell peppers, onions & mushrooms. Alone, the sauce was spectacular. The pasta was prepared by a South African-born restaurant manager named Lennox. The meal finished with a Chocolate-Vanilla Tiramisu. Well, back to Heaven! Reggie, a huge, towering guy & chef that has been with Cunard since QE2 days, stopped-by. "I am proud that you enjoy my food & my recipes!" |
 Germany - Threesome!
Last summer, at Bremerhaven, all three of Phoenix Reisen's fleet were in port together - Amadea, Albatros & Artania. The trio meant that over 5000 passengers were handled. They are also three interesting ships: the 29,000-ton Amadea (1991) is the former Japanese Asuka; the 28,000-ton Albatros (1973) was the Royal Viking Sea, Royal Odyssey & Norwegian Star; and finally the 44,500-ton Artania is the ex-Royal Princess and ex-Artemis. |
Cruising history!
Looking ahead, I will be giving a talk on Fri Nov 22nd to the World Ship Society's Port of New York Branch. Been a member for 47 years & my talk will cover the great evolution of cruising to the massive, booming industry it is today. Cruising is different than crossing -- the ports are really forms of entertainment rather than destinations ... the sense of purpose for the voyage is different -- more recreation for cruising. Bill Miller will tell us that the cruise industry, especially here in the USA and in places like Germany, the UK & Australia, is booming & the future is not just bright but very bright.
More people are traveling on ships than ever before. But where did it all begin? Over 150 years ago, P&O is credited with offering the first cruise, a voyage offered for those of "scientific persuasion" ... and so it began, slowly at first. We'll hear of the very first World Cruises in the 1920s, big liners like the Mauretania & Aquitania going off on long winter cruises and the creation of the small, luxury cruise ship Stella Polaris. The Depression of the 1930s brought cruising to the masses -- even $10 a night "booze cruises" were forms of escapism from tough financial times at home. Growth & expansion continued: the Wilhelm Gustloff & Nazi "Strength Through Joy" cruising, the high luxuries of the Caronia and the growth of mass market cruise lines such as Norwegian Cruise Lines & Royal Caribbean in the late 1960s. Today, expansion and growth are beyond even the wildest expectation with the likes of the biggest liner of all time, the 6,400-passenger, 225,000-ton Allure of the Seas, sailing tropic waters. Yes, cruising is the best vacation on earth! See www.worldshipny.com.
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Ocean Liner Collectibles - France afloat!
A leather club chair from the Smoking Room aboard the legendary Ile de France (1927-58) recently fetched $900 in a sale. The chair was said to have been placed aboard the 43,500-ton liner some 80 years ago, during a refit in 1933.
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Growing larger!
The 83,800-ton Arcadia will go into dry dock this fall for some enlarging - the addition of 23 cabins and one suite. The work will take 3 weeks and include other improvement, renewals & repairs.
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 Success!
With three new ships of the boutique class, Ponant - still French in tone & style, but now British owned - has ordered a fourth 11,000, 250-bed ship from Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri.
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Portugal - Assignments!
Newly created Portuscale Cruises has made schedules for its four upgraded if older ships - the Porto (ex-Arion, ex-Istra) is going to the Greek isles; the Funchal spent the summer in Norway; the Lisboa (ex-Princess Danae) is under charter to the French; and the Azores (ex-Stockholm, etc) is heading for Australia.
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 Another refit!
The 1995-built Sun Princess is getting a makeover, to the tune of $30 million, out in a Singapore shipyard. She'll get more Asian in tone & style, all preliminary to the 77,000-tonner's entry into the booming Australian cruise market.
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Ocean & Cruise News
Current & Past Issues Members can download a PDF of current and past issues using the following links
Past Issues of this "new" Email Supplement beginning with the Feb. 21, 2011 issue can be found by clicking our logo below
The above listed items are copyrighted material and are for the exclusive use of paid members in good standing. Any unauthorized duplication, transmission or distribution of this material without the written permission of The World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society is strictly prohibited.
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The Sands of Alang - Peter Knego
DVD Video All regions
Running time: 60 minutes
$30.00 USD + 6.95 priority mail shipping in the U.S. ($8.00 airmail for overseas) and 7.5% sales tax for California residents
The follow up to my first Alang documentary, ON THE ROAD TO ALANG, THE SANDS OF ALANG is about my second and third pilgrimages to the shipbreaking yards of Alang, India in the summer of 2005. The impetus for these treks were visits to the former EUGENIO C and former RMS WINDSOR CASTLE (which will be featured in the next volume). The video takes you on board the ex-EUGENIO while still intact and then a couple months later as demolition was well underway. It tells her story from cradle to grave with archival images and footage as well as the guest appearance of historian Maurizio Eliseo, whom I was able to film in the shipyard at Monfalcone where EUGENIO C was realized and built.
THE SANDS OF ALANG also tells the story of the EXPLORER, which was built in 1944 as the P2 troopship GENERAL W.P. RICHARDSON and went on to become LA GUARDIA, LEILANI, PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, ATLANTIS, EMERALD SEAS and OCEAN EXPLORER I. There is a visit to the half demolished ship and guest historian Gordon Ghareeb, who is penning a book on her, tells of her varied careers with a special emphasis on her oft-overlooked time as LEILANI.
Soundtracks by the EUGENIO C's and LEILANI's onboard orchestras add poignance to the footage. Covered as well are the Danish train ferry KONG FREDERIK IX and the Kay Korbing-designed ferry PRINSESSE MARGRETHE, which were both ending their lives at the same time on the Indian beach.
Some of the footage is shocking and sad but unavoidably fascinating as the video chronicles the end of these ships' varied careers. Here is but one of many scenarios depicted in the film:
"When we were finally granted permission to visit the BIG RED BOAT II (ex EUGENIO C), the monsoon was in full swing. During the low tide, we took off our shoes and hiked out into the knee deep mud. At the water≠s edge, I climbed into a tiny dinghy with the foreman of the scrapyard -- only two of us could fit in the craft, holding on tightly as two men towed us out to the ship. For several minutes, while a squall passed through, we clung to the anchor chain (where I took the cover shot), then passed under the ship≠s mighty starboard bow, ribbons of water plunging through the openings in her bulwarks. Somehow, my drenched video camera kept running and I was able to record our approach to the Jacob≠s ladder, which dangled an intimidating height from the shell door entry. The foreman went before me, getting momentarily stuck half-way up the ladder, much to the amusement of the two men who towed us out there. As soon as I began my climb, they returned to the embankment to get the other people in our group..."
The order page also contains a link to a short trailer on YouTube:
http://www.midshipcentury.com/#!the-sands-of-alang/ckv
For those without computer access, please contact us at: PK Productions, 15485 Mallory Court, Moorpark, CA 93021
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WORLD OCEAN & CRUISE LINER SOCIETY'S
HOSTED CRUISES
One of the great things about being a World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society member is joining us aboard one of our "Hosted" member cruises. Each cruise features low group rates, special amenities plus onboard lectures and events
Crystal Symphony
New York to Miami (14-Nights)
Visiting Baltimore,MD; Charleston, SC; Savannah, GA; Jacksonville, FL; Turks & Caicos, Grand Turk; Curacao/Willemstad;Oranjestad, Aruba, Miami, FL
Sailing: November 2, 2013
Exclusive WOCLS Events with Bill Miller
- Special WOCLS Q&A with Bill Miller
- Welcome cocktail reception with Bill Miller for our guests
- Bill Miller will host a dinner in a specialty restaurant with our group
Special Book Now Fares (book by 4/30/13):
You will receive a shipboard credit of $250.00 per person
Outside Stateroom from - $4450*
Balcony Stateroom from - $6060*
Suitex from - $9700*
*Rates are cruise only, per person, based on double occupancy. Government Fees of $685 are not included
* * * * * * *
Oceania Riviera
Sailing roundtrip from Miami and visiting Tortola; St. John's; Bridgetown, Barbados; Castries, St. Lucia; Gustavia and Miami March 28, 2014 (10-Nights)
Exclusive WOCLS Events with Host Art Sbarksy
Special WOCLS Q&A with Art Sbarsky as he takes you through his career in the cruise industry.
This is a Fundraising Cruise for Art's favorite charity.
The American Cancer Society.
- Welcome cocktail reception with Art Sbarsky for our guests
- Art Sbarsky will host a dinner in a specialty restaurant with our group
- Includes airfare from most Oceania gateways or an air credit
- Includes a special $150 per cabin shipboard credit
Inside cabin from - $2899*
Window cabin from - $3199*
Balcony cabin from - $3499
Suite cabin from - $4999*
*Rates are cruise only, per person, based on double occupancy. Includes government fees
CRUISES MUST BE BOOKED WITH THE WOCLS GROUP
COORDINATOR TO PARTICIPATE IN WOCLS EVENTS!!
For more information please
call (800) 229-2542
cruises@wocls.org
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 WOCLS E News & Renewals
If you've been receiving this E-news but not the monthly print publication chances are your subscription has expired. Please renew now as your E-news will stop shortly. Please renew online using the following link
Join or Renew Here
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In either case you may join or renew securely using your Visa or MasterCard. This form features VeriSign's Secure processing so you know your vital information is secure. You may also mail your check to The World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society - P.O. Box 329 - Northport NY 11768. A renewal ($30/year domestic -or- $36/ year foreign) will extend your existing subscription to both this "E-News" Supplement and Ocean Cruise News a full 12 months from the end of your current subscription
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About Bill Miller 
Bill Miller is an international authority on the subject of ocean liners & cruise ships --- from those "floating palaces" of yesteryear to the current generation of cruise ships, the "floating resorts". Called "Mr. Ocean Liner," he has written some 80 books on the subject: from early steamers, immigrant ships and liners at war to other titles on their fabulous interiors, in post card form and about the highly collectible artifacts from them. He has done specific histories of such celebrated passenger ships as the United States, Queen Mary, Rotterdam, France, Queen Elizabeth 2 and Crystal Serenity.
In all, he has also written over 1,000 articles for newspapers, magazines and nautical journals & newsletters. He even had his very own ocean liner quarterly, the Millergram. He has made nearly 450 voyages to date: Atlantic crossings, tropical cruises, coastal runs and even trips on container cargo ships and exotic banana boats. He has appeared in some three dozen video & television series, both in the USA, Britain, Europe and Australia, including Castles of the Sea, The Floating Palaces, The Super Liners, Inside the World of a Cruise Ship, Disasters at Sea, Deco: Age of Glamour, and Lady in Waiting: The Story of the SS United States. He has also appeared on The Today Show, CBS Evening News, CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, NBC Evening News and many other news broadcasts. He has been guest lecturer aboard over 50 different liners, sailing with the likes of Crystal Cruises, Cunard, Carnival, Holland America, Princess, Radisson-Seven Seas, Saga Cruises and others. Miller was a public school teacher, in middle school and for social studies, for 32 years. He was named "Teacher of the Year" in 2002.
A native of Hoboken, New Jersey, the once busy port just across the Hudson River from New York City, Miller was named Outstanding American Maritime Scholar in 1994, received the United States Maritime Preservation Award and also the Ocean Liner Council's Silver Riband Award, both in 2004. Also, he has been chairman of the Port of New York Branch of the World Ship Society, deputy director of the New York Harbor Festival, served on the selection committee for the American Maritime Hall of Fame, created the passenger ship database for the Ellis Island Museum and currently serves as Curator of 20th Century Maritime History at Manhattan's South Street Seaport Museum. He has also organized a 14-week college course on liners, and helped to create & then served as historian at the US Merchant Marine Museum. His private collection includes 4,000 books on ships, over 15,000 photos and some 1,500 miniature ship models, most of them being passenger ships.
By 2011, Miller had 10 new books in the works, was curator to Decodence (an exhibit at the South St Seaport on the design & décor of the grand French liner Normandie) and himself was the subject of a one-hour film documentary aptly titled Mr Ocean Liner. In 2011, he hosted Cinematic Crossings: Ocean Liners on the Big Screen, a 5-day film festival at Manhattan's Lincoln Center. Currently, he spends some 200 days a year lecturing onboard ocean liners & cruise ships.
Follow Bill's look back at ship's of yesteryear..
Heard Along the Boat Deck
And his current and past cruise experiences...
Scribblings
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William Miller Books!
 Union Castle Liners - From Great Britain to Africa 1946-1977 - William H. Miller
It was one of the most important British liner routes of all - the express run from Southampton to the South African Cape. Carrying passengers as well as cargo, including the all-important mail, it was a byword in travel - 'every Thursday at 4', as one of the big Union-Castle liners set off for Cape Town and beyond. By the late 1950s, these mail ships included the Arundel Castle, Carnarvon Castle, Winchester Castle, Athlone Castle, Stirling Castle, Capetown Castle and two post-war sensations, the Edinburgh Castle and Pretoria Castle. Three new liners arrived in 1959, the last great ships built for Union-Castle. They were Pendennis Castle, Windsor Castle and Transvaal Castle.
The route was not just to the Cape - for Union-Castle also offered a service down the East coast of Africa and a round-Africa route too. In 1977, with the mail contract and passengers lost to the jet and cargo to container ships, the service ceased in October that year and Union-Castle was no more. Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK. $29.95
Great Atlantic Liners of the 20th Century in Color (co-authored with Anton Logvinenko; Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK. $29.95
 Ile de France And Liberte - France's Premier Post War Liners The latest in the Classic Liners series evokes the glamour and ambience of two of the most beloved liners of the 1950s Île de France, completed in 1927, was a hugely famous prewar liner, a ship with unique style and character. She was said to offer "the cheeriest way to cross the Atlantic." After wartime service as a valiant troopship, she was restored with what Paris fashion calls a "new look," relaunched in 1949. The Liberté was built in 1930, originally the German Europa, but ceded to France as reparations in 1946. She was de-Germanized and restyled in French Line luxury as the Liberté, recommissioned in 1950. The Île de France sailed until 1958; the Liberté until 1961, and this illustrated book concentrates on their heydays in the glorious, post-World War II years, when they were the largest and grandest liners under the French flag. Both ships were famed for their service and onboard ambience, but most especially for their cooking, and they were said to be the best-fed liners on the Atlantic...$25.00
 Along the Hudson - luxury Liner Row in the 50's & 60's
In the 1950s and '60s, countless passenger liners called at New York and usually berthed at Luxury Liner Row along the City's West Side. The cast includes the Cunard Queens, the Ile de France & Liberte, United States, Independence, Gripsholm & Queen of Bermuda. It is a grand assemblage of great ships -- both large & small. $29.95
Great American Passenger Ships 
The story of American passenger ships over the 20th century -- from the Leviathan to the Lurline, Santa Rosa & America to the brilliant United States. Interesting text accompanied by lots of black & white photos as well as color. $29.95.
Great Liners Story
A fascinating "little book" about the great liners, those floating palaces, of the 20th century -- from the grand German four-stackers to the age of the Oasis of the Seas. Mostly color in this hardcover book. $15.00.
Great Passenger Ships 1910-1920
It was an age of evolution, when size and speed were almost the ultimate considerations. 'Bigger was said to be better' and ship owners were not exempted from the prevailing mood. While the German four-stackers of 1897-06 and then Cunard's brilliant Mauretania & Lusitania of 1907 led the way to larger and grander liners. White Star Line countered by 1911 with the Olympic, her sister Titanic and a near-sister, the Britannic. The French added the France while Cunard took delivery of the beloved Aquitania. But the Germans won out -- they produced the 52,000-ton Imperator and a near-sister, the Vaterland, the last word in shipbuilding and engineering prior to the First World War. They and their sister, the Bismarck, remained the biggest ships in the world until 1935.
But other passenger ships appear in this decade --- other Atlantic liners, but also ships serving on more diverse routes: Union Castle to Africa, P&O to India and beyond, the Empress liners on the trans-Pacific run. We look at a grand age of maritime creation, ocean-going superlative, but also sad destruction in the dark days of the First War. It was, in all ways, a fascinating period.
Last Atlantic Liners: Getting There is Half the Fun (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2011
RMS Caronia: Cunard's Green Goddess
(co-authored with Brian Hawley) The History Press Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2011
Floating Palaces: The Great Atlantic Liners(Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2011
Great British Passenger Ships (The History Press Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2010)
SS Nieuw Amsterdam: The Darling of the Dutch (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2010)
Cunard's Three Queens: A Celebration (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2009)
Under the Red Ensign: British Passenger Liners of the '50s & '60s (The History Press, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2009)
SS United States: Speed Queen of the Seas (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2009)
And yet to come.....
I Was Born in Hoboken: Memories of the 1950s & '60s (Hoboken Historical Museum, Hoboken, NJ, due fall 2011)
The Last Great Dynasty: The Royal House of Windsor (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, due 2012)
The Cunard Yanks (co-authored with Ian Wright; pending but due 2012)
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