Post by Dave on Oct 1, 2019 14:20:18 GMT
MS Rotterdam In Torbay 1st October 2019
A few weeks ago a post appeared on one of our local facebook groups stating the MS Rotterdam would be in the Bay the next day. She was meant to be docking at Plymouth that day, but due to the weather was supposable docking in the Bay instead.
I got rather excited as I had the next day off work and so in the evening got the camera batteries all charged up and ready. But the next morning another post appeared that said MS Rotterdam had sailed right past the Bay and was on her way to Manchester.
Yesterday I read a post that once again said MS Rotterdam would be in the Bay on Tuesday and as luck would have it I was also off work that day. I knew it was not going to be a nice day weather wise, but still decided it was worth going out to take a look at her.
I drove over to Torquay and parked on the seafront and fed some money into the meter and walked up to Corbyn Head and had to witness and elderly gentleman having to relieve himself next to the closed up toilet block. I felt rather sorry for him to be honest and just hoped he was not a visitor to the Bay as what would he have thought about the lack of public toilets open these days in the Bay.
MS Rotterdam did not look so imposing as some of the other cruise ships we have had on the Bay and with the sky so grey, getting the sorts of shots I would like to have got were near impossible. I took the opportunity to take a few other shots in the area which came out rather well considering the conditions.
MS Rotterdam is the lead cruise ship of the Rotterdam class (R class) in the Holland America Line. Built in Italy in 1997, she is the sixth Holland America vessel to bear the name Rotterdam carries an art collection onboard worth over 2 million US$ that features fine art and also antiques.
On September 24, 2004, the ship was on a Transatlantic repositioning cruise from Europe to Canada and the USA. The Atlantic Ocean crossing coincided with Hurricane Karl (category 4 storm) that formed right in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, then turned north. The vessel had numerous encounters with huge rogue waves (up to 30 ft / 9 m) and sustained serious damages. The ship lost power for ~3 hours right in the middle of the Atlantic.
A total of 85 passengers and 5 crew suffered injuries. The most seriously injured were 2 passengers with fractures – a woman with broken femur (thigh bone) and a man with broken collarbone. The rest sustained bruises and minor contusions. all lower ships portholes (cabins with non-opening windows) were completely underwater.
