The Royal Yacht Dannebrog

22 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Superyachts Reading Time:  6 minutes

Royal Yacht Dannebrog in Sønderborg © Erik Christensen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Royal Yacht Dannebrog in Sønderborg © Erik Christensen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Her Danish Majesty’s Yacht Dannebrog (A540) was launched by Queen Alexandrine at Copenhagen in 1931, and commissioned on 26 May 1932. The yacht now serves as the official and private residence for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, the Prince Consort, and members of the Royal Family when they are on official visits overseas and on summer cruises in Danish waters. When at sea, the Royal Yacht also participates in surveillance and sea-rescue services.   read more…

The Midnatsol

18 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Cruise Ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Shisha-Tom/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Shisha-Tom/cc-by-sa-3.0

MS Midnatsol (Norwegian for is Midnight sun) a Hurtigruten vessel built by Fosen mekaniske verksteder in Rissa, Norway in 2003. It is the fourth ship to sail for Hurtigruten to bear this name. She has a sister ship, MS Trollfjord which also sails for Hurtigruten.   read more…

The Quantum of the Seas

14 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Cruise Ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  8 minutes

© royalcaribbean.de

© royalcaribbean.de

Quantum class is an upcoming class of cruise ships from Royal Caribbean International. On February 11, 2011, Royal Caribbean announced that they had ordered the first of a new class of ships from the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg scheduled to be delivered by Fall 2014. At the time, the project was code-named “Project Sunshine”. The Quantum-class ships will surpass the earlier Freedom-class ships by over 14,000 GT, becoming the second largest class of passenger ships behind Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis class ships on a gross tonnage basis. The first three ships of this class, Quantum of the Seas, delivered in November 2014, Anthem of the Seas, expected to be delivered in November 2014, and Ovation of the Seas, expected to be delivered in Fall 2016. Quantum of the Seas will spend its inaugural 2014-2015 season sailing from Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey, before repositioning to China in May 2015. Beginning late June 2015, the ship will sail three- to eight-night itineraries year-round from Shanghai to Japan and Korea. Anthem of the Seas will spend its inaugural 2015 season sailing from Southampton, Hampshire, before repositioning to Cape Liberty in November 2015. As of April 2014, no ports or itineraries have been announced for Ovation of the Seas.   read more…

The hostel Af Chapman

1 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Hotels, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Holger.Ellgaard/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Holger.Ellgaard/cc-by-sa-3.0

The af Chapman, formerly the Dunboyne (1888–1915) and the G.D. Kennedy (−1923), is a full-rigged steel ship moored on the western shore of the islet Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, Sweden, now serving as a youth hostel.   read more…

The Royal Clipper

25 March 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Tall ships, Cruise Ships Reading Time:  4 minutes

© Monique Allard Jobe / www.Instant-MAJ.com

© Monique Allard Jobe / www.Instant-MAJ.com

Royal Clipper is a steel-hulled five masted fully rigged tall ship used as a cruise ship. She was designed by Zygmunt Choreń, and built using an existing steel hull that was modified by the Gdańsk Shipyard, and the Merwede shipyard completed the ship’s interior in July 2000. The renovations included frescography murals by Rainer Maria Latzke completing the ships’ Mediterranean interior. Her design was based on Preussen, a famous German five-mast Flying P-Liner windjammer built in 1902.   read more…

The frigate A.R.A. Presidente Sarmiento

1 March 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Museums, Exhibitions, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Rodrigo Menezes/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Rodrigo Menezes/cc-by-sa-3.0

ARA Presidente Sarmiento is a museum ship in Argentina, originally built as a training ship for the Argentine Navy and named after Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the seventh President of Argentina. She is considered to be the last intact cruising training ship from the 1890s. She is now maintained in her original 1898 appearance as a museum ship in Puerto Madero near downtown Buenos Aires.   read more…

FLIP, the FLoating Instrument Platform

25 February 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  6 minutes

FLoating Instrument Platform seen from USNS Navajo © Military Sealift Command

FLoating Instrument Platform seen from USNS Navajo © Military Sealift Command

RP FLIP (FLoating Instrument Platform) is an open ocean research vessel owned by the Office of Naval Research and operated by the Marine Physical Laboratory of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The ship is a 355 feet (108 meters) long vessel designed to partially flood and pitch backward 90 degrees, resulting in only the front 55 feet (17 meters) of the vessel pointing up out of the water, with bulkheads becoming decks. When flipped, most of the buoyancy for the platform is provided by water at depths below the influence of surface waves, hence FLIP is a stable platform mostly immune to wave action, like a spar buoy. At the end of a mission, compressed air is pumped into the ballast tanks in the flooded section and the vessel returns to its horizontal position so it can be towed to a new location. The ship is frequently mistaken for a capsized ocean transport ship.   read more…

The trimaran Hydroptère

17 February 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  5 minutes

© hydroptere.com

© hydroptere.com

The Hydroptère is an experimental sailing hydrofoil designed by French yachtsman Alain Thébault. Her multihull hydrofoil design allows the sail-powered vessel to reach high speeds on water. The design is based on experience from a range of hydrofoil sailcraft that Thébault built in cooperation with Éric Tabarly since the 1990s. On October 5, 2008 she reached a record speed of 52.86 knots (97.90 km/h; 60.83 mph), however this was over a shorter distance than the 500m necessary to qualify for an official world record. On December 21, 2008, the Hydroptère briefly reached 56.3 knots (104.3 km/h; 64.8 mph), but capsized shortly thereafter.   read more…

The barque Europa

3 February 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  4 minutes

Figurehead © flickr.com - Jose Luis Cernadas Iglesias

Figurehead © flickr.com – Jose Luis Cernadas Iglesias

Sailing ship Europa is a steel-hulled barque from in the Netherlands. Originally it was a German lightship, named Senator Brockes and built in 1911 at the H.C. Stülcken & Sohn shipyard in Hamburg. Until 1977, it was in use by the German Federal Coast Guard as a lightship on the river Elbe. In 1985 a Dutchman bought the vessel (or what was left of it), and in 1994 she was fully restored as a barque, a three mast rigged ship, and retrofitted as a special-purpose sail-training ship.  read more…

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