The Mystery of the MV Lyubov Orlova

In my last blog post concerning a ship I stated that she reminded me of a film star, well the vessel in the card below was named after a movie star, the Soviet Union's Lyubov Orlova.

You may not have heard of the actress, but you have probably heard of the vessel as she is the so called cannibal rat ghost ship that certain tabloids wanted us to believe was headed our way back in 2014.  This turned out to be false but it's not known what actually did happen to her.
MV Lyubov Orlova was built in 1976, a year after her namesake had died. She was built in Kraljevica, the oldest shipyard in the Adriatic which was then in Yugoslavia now Croatia. She was owned by the Far Eastern Shipping Company based in Vladivostok and was used for Antarctic cruises which she carried out without incident until 2006 when she ran aground at Deception Island, which itself is  home to abandoned scientific bases and might be of interest to some of you. 
The ship was taken out of service in 2010 and effectively placed under arrest. She was seized following a suit by a haulage contractor over a $251,000 debt. The 51 strong crew had not been paid for 5 months.
She was impounded at St John's in Newfoundland becoming gradually more derelict until she was sold for scrap in 2013. It was  when she was being towed away that her status as a ghost ship started. The tow line broke and the ship started to drift. As she was in international waters, there was some dispute as to whose jurisdiction she fell under and with no-one claiming responsibility the vessel continued to drift. She was sighted a couple of times in early 2013 the last time being on 12th March that year. It's not known what happened to her after that but she is believed to have sunk.
You may wonder how we can lose a 300 ft. ocean liner but she is not the only ship to have disappeared, though she is the only one, as far as I know, to have created such headline grabbing stories.
I've been searching for a card of the Lyubov Orlova since I first read those stories two years ago and I finally found one on ebay a couple of years ago. It's not the best quality but for me it's the "holy grail" of cards.
I'm not sure when it dates from but it's from the Soviet Era and published by Morflot.
    

The MV Kalakala - From Icon to Embarrassment

I've mentioned before that I particularly like Art Deco related cards so when I heard about the MV Kalakala I just had to find a postcard of her.
This wasn't too difficult considering that she was once the second most photographed item in the world, with only the Eiffel Tower beating her. Not bad for what is basically a car ferry.
She was also one of the most popular exhibits at the 1962 Seattle World fair. The postcard below was sent from Seattle but many years earlier in 1946.

She was launched in 1926 as the Peralta but a fire 7 years later destroyed her superstructure. The brief for the redesign was to be distinctive and modernistic and eventually it was decided she should modelled on contemporary aircraft. The publicity was also intriguing, billboards were commissioned with simply Kalakala written on them in large letters.
The unusual design was a case of style over substance. The narrow car deck meant that she could carry less vehicles than other vessels and there were difficulties with docking due to the setback of the wheelhouse. Still, she remained popular with tourists who enjoyed moonlight cruises on the ferry.
The design faults didn't stop her from seeing heavy service in WWII where she was used to transport shipyard workers and Navy personelle. Her popularity as a vehicle  had waned by the 1950s and she gained unflattering nicknames such as the Silver Slug and Galloping Ghost.
She was retired from service in 1967 but was used as a factory ship until she was beached in 1970 and used to process shrimp. In 2004 she was sold to a private investor as her previous owners couldn't afford the upkeep. However she was evicted from her new home Neah Bay that year and the Macah people who had provided the anchorage sued the owners. I do not know the outcome of this but she was moved to Tacoma Washington.
By 2011 she was very frail and would up being sold for a nominal fee of a dollar with the understanding that the purchaser would renovate her. This did not happen and she was scrapped in early 2015.
When writing about the Kalakala I can't help picturing her as a tragic movie star, tragic beginnings,  good looks and publicity helping her get noticed  followed by rising and falling popularity. She has a brief moment in the sun again before retirement followed by lawsuits and eviction and finally ending up on the scrap heap unloved and largely unmourned apart from by those of us with a cult interest in these things. Kind of sad  really.     
If you are wondering about the unusual name she is from the Chinook Jargon trade language and means "bird". The Chinook Jargon, unlike the Kalakala, is still being used but with less than 650 speakers who knows for how much longer.
 
 

SS Andrea Doria

Sorry I am rather late with my most recent blog post. As mentioned on Wednesday, today's blog post is in very questionable taste and I've been putting off writing about it.
The below is probably the most controversial card I own, not just because of the subject matter but because I bought the card knowing the history of the subject matter. I have other cards in my collection featuring controversial subjects but which were purchased in a job lot and I didn't realise the significance of the cards.

It's not the New York skyline which is the  problem here, this card is from the 1950s, long before the World Trade Centre was built and I would not feature that on the blog anyway.
The ship featured on the card is the Andrea Doria, which sank almost 60 years ago today on 25th/26th July 1956 (again the  date is a coincidence) with the loss of 46 lives.
The ship, built in 1951, was famed for it luxury and beauty and boasted three outdoor swimming pools and expensive artwork and décor throughout the ship.
It was also considered one of the safest ships ever built, with early warning radar and plenty of lifeboats no-one expected another Titanic. However there were flaws and its tendency to list when hit by heavy force was a contributing factor to its sinking. It also made it impossible to reach half of the lifeboats.
On 25th July, 9 days into a routine crossing, The Andrea Doria collided with the MS Stockholm after misinterpreting each others courses. I don't want to dwell too much on the accident itself, there are plenty of places you can read about that. I will say that 51 people lost their lives, including 5 from the SS Stockholm, but considering there were over 1700 people on board the Andrea Doria and a further 742 on the Stockholm, the loss of life could have been much greater. Survivors of the crash included Hollywood actresses Ruth Roman and Betsy Drake. Sadly, many of those killed were young families.
The fate of the two ships involved was very different, The Stockholm was repaired and is still in service as the MV Astoria, the Andrea Doria remained afloat for 11 hours after the collision before sinking into the North Atlantic Ocean. The wreck remains there to this day and 16 divers have lost their lives diving wreck giving it the nickname the Mount Everest of Scuba Diving.

The QEII

I'm going to start today's post by showing something I don't usually post in the blog. The postmark.
While the blog is described as being postcards you can't send anymore there isn't actually anything to stop you posting these, you're just not likely to be able to visit them.
This post mark on the hand is obsolete.

Also, in a first for this blog I can tell you exactly who sent it. It was my dad on our first trip on the ship in 1988. It was a memorable experience not least because there was a none fatal stabbing on board among the kitchen staff. Our second trip  a few years later was no less eventful with rumours of yellow fever on board and a BBC helicopter overhead filming segments for Good Morning with Anne and Nick. Despite all of that, I did have a lovely time on board.

The QE2 was in service from 1969 to 2008 , most of this time as an ocean liner, the flag ship of the Cunard line but she did also serve in Falklands War.  
She had everything a passenger could need including 5 restaurants,  a number of swimming pools, a cinema, casino and hospital. In her 40 year service history she carried over 2.5 million passenger, logged over 5 million miles,  rescued passengers from Antilles which had run aground, received a bomb threat and encountered a hurricane.
Her farewell voyage was in 2008, during which time she met with the two other Cunard Queens, The Queen Victoria and the Queen Mary this being the last time this would happen.  Unsurprisingly, I have a postcard of the occasion.

Her final voyage was on 26th November 2008 after which she was handed over to her new owners Istithmar in Dubai. 
Today, despite campaigns to bring her back to the UK, she is still docked in Dubai with a question mark over her future.