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Island Life-line.
28 Nov 2009 02:39 pmOver on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fenchurche's journal she posted a picture of one of the ferries in the Puget Sound, which led to a thread about ferries. I commented that a ferry with an open car deck seemingly only 2 or 3 metres above the waterline scared me, even though I realised that it was not a problem in the Puget Sound.
The Herald of Free Enterprise left any of us in Britain, who use car ferries, with a horror of water on the car deck - especially as she sailed in a calm sea, and it was her own bow-wave that sank her after her bow car-deck door was left open.
I shared some pictures of our own boat (yes - we Manx are weird - only come-overs call her a ferry, locals call her 'the boat' - we go on 'the boat' whichever of the vessels it is!) leaving Douglas on Wednesday.
Please note that these are not mine - they are from Isle-of-Man on line and are credited to Mike Proudfoot.
( The Ben-my-Chree is nose up... )
( The Ben-my-Chree is nose down... )
The pictures, however, give the impression that she is only quite small. The Ben is actually 414ft long and 77.5 feet wide... that's 125.2m x 23.5m. It is just that she has to deal with VERY heavy seas!
( This is a picture I took of her, closer up, a few weeks ago. )
You can maybe get a better idea of size from that one. Which gives you a better idea of what the sea was like on Wednesday. On Tuesday it was even worse - the Ben didn't sail at all.
She is our life-line - she carries our freight all year round, and if the Ben doesn't sail for 24 hours (2 complete round trips) the shops begin to have a few gaps - 48 hours and there are distinct gaps on the shelves in some places, and there will be a knock on effect for days, as non-perishables will just have to sit at Heysham until there is room for them. We once had a complete container full of incontinence pads that ended up about ten days late - which did cause a few problems!
Mind you - it would have taken an awful lot to have tempted me out there on the boat on Wednesday. And you'd probably have needed to sedate me...!
fenchurche's journal she posted a picture of one of the ferries in the Puget Sound, which led to a thread about ferries. I commented that a ferry with an open car deck seemingly only 2 or 3 metres above the waterline scared me, even though I realised that it was not a problem in the Puget Sound. The Herald of Free Enterprise left any of us in Britain, who use car ferries, with a horror of water on the car deck - especially as she sailed in a calm sea, and it was her own bow-wave that sank her after her bow car-deck door was left open.
I shared some pictures of our own boat (yes - we Manx are weird - only come-overs call her a ferry, locals call her 'the boat' - we go on 'the boat' whichever of the vessels it is!) leaving Douglas on Wednesday.
Please note that these are not mine - they are from Isle-of-Man on line and are credited to Mike Proudfoot.
( The Ben-my-Chree is nose up... )
( The Ben-my-Chree is nose down... )
The pictures, however, give the impression that she is only quite small. The Ben is actually 414ft long and 77.5 feet wide... that's 125.2m x 23.5m. It is just that she has to deal with VERY heavy seas!
( This is a picture I took of her, closer up, a few weeks ago. )
You can maybe get a better idea of size from that one. Which gives you a better idea of what the sea was like on Wednesday. On Tuesday it was even worse - the Ben didn't sail at all.
She is our life-line - she carries our freight all year round, and if the Ben doesn't sail for 24 hours (2 complete round trips) the shops begin to have a few gaps - 48 hours and there are distinct gaps on the shelves in some places, and there will be a knock on effect for days, as non-perishables will just have to sit at Heysham until there is room for them. We once had a complete container full of incontinence pads that ended up about ten days late - which did cause a few problems!
Mind you - it would have taken an awful lot to have tempted me out there on the boat on Wednesday. And you'd probably have needed to sedate me...!
