Wow! Another gorgeous and informative encapsulation by the brilliant Peter Knego of some wonderful ships, including one of my favorites, the 1959 Rotterdam.. I would have loved to see the entire presentation.
The "NIeuw Amsterdam" was probably the most beautifully proportioned of the great Atlantic liners from an exterior perspective. Loved her. Interiors were great, too!
An excellent point made in your video, I agree i don't like "floating blocks," the ships you talked about are just perfect. They were built to be pleasing to the eyes, inside and out. You scored 100 out of 10. 😊😊
Awww, thanks so much! Yes, those MidCentury ships may not have pleased everyone but they had style and distinction. No "flats". Thanks for watching. :)
WOW another great video on Ocean Liners here's an update on the two actresses who were onboard the SS Andrea Doria: In July 1956, actress Ruth Roman was just finishing a trip to Europe with her son Richard nicknamed Dickie, who was three years old at the time as well as their traveling companion, Janet Stewart, and Dickie’s nanny. At the port of Cannes, all four boarded the Italian passenger liner SS Andrea Doria as First Class passengers for their return trip home to the United States. Another Hollywood actress also onboard that fateful voyage was Betsy Drake who joined the voyage at Gibraltar, where she left her husband Cary Grant filming The Pride And The Passion (1957, United Artists) on location in Spain. On the night of July 26, 1956, many passengers would cut their evening short to get some sleep before the early morning docking in New York City. Betsy Drake turned in early too, never being much for socializing, she preferred to climb into her bunk in her cabin to read. Ruth Roman and traveling companion Janet Stewart enjoyed a last drink in the Belvedere Observation Lounge, her son slept in the cabin a deck lower with his nanny minding him. At 11:10 PM that night the MS Stockholm leaving New York for Sweden, accidentally rammed the Andrea Doria. To some passengers it seemed like a dull thud, to others a great jolt, depending on where they were on ship, and then the screeching sound of ripping metal was heard. Betsy Drake’s cabin located on the Boat Deck shook violently which woke her up and she immediately put her stylish traveling suit that she'd been wearing earlier back on, grabbed a life vest, and headed for her lifeboat station on the upper deck. Her jewels, and a semi-autobiographic novel on which she’d been working, went down with the ship. Right after the collision happened Ruth Roman immediately took off her high heel shoes and scrambled back to her cabin barefoot to retrieve her sleeping son. Roman had to rip her form-fitting gown up the back so she could move faster on the stairs that were already tilting at a treacherous angle due to the listing of the ship on its side. She took son, his nanny, meeting up with Janet Stewart at their lifeboat station. Roman had found a deflated balloon left over from a party blew it up to amuse and distract her son telling him that they were going on a picnic. At around 2 AM, Roman, her son and the two other woman slid down from the higher end of the deck to the lower side where they hoped to catch a rope to a lifeboat below. A young cadet sailor from the SS Andrea Doria took her son and strapped Dickie to himself and climbed down a rope ladder to a waiting lifeboat. Then all of a sudden the lifeboat pulled away before Ruth Roman could climb aboard. The boy disappeared in the fog with a group of strangers. She, the nanny, and the traveling companion, waited for another lifeboat to escape. All three women were taken in a lifeboat to the famous French liner the Ile de France but her son was not there and she could not find out to which ship among the seven rescue ships he had been taken. Betsy Drake was also taken to the Ile de France, since so many survivors were trying to send cablegrams from the ship to loved ones, that she was unable to send one to Cary Grant. Many passengers onboard the Ile de France donated clothing to the Doria's rescued passengers which included tennis player named Eddie Hand who gave Ruth Roman a pair of trousers, a white polo shirt, and woolen socks. A Life magazine photographer who happened to be traveling with his family, brought her to his cabin to rest. Just a little after 5 PM on the 26th, the Ile de France docked at Pier 88 off West 48th Street. Betsy Drake was met at the pier by a friend, still wearing her traveling suit but also a pair of white sweat socks a sailor had given her. Ruth Roman finally learned that her son had been taken to the MS Stockholm, which initially had trouble leaving the scene of the collision because her anchor chains had become entangled. She was still at sea when Ruth Roman arrived at the pier with the other Ile de France passengers. Late the next morning, on July 27th, Ruth Roman was finally reunited with her son she than picked up her son and hustled him through a mob of reporters and cameramen. For both Hollywood actresses, their connection to the sinking of the SS Andrea Doria would become a footnote in their lives, though Betsy Drake was reportedly traumatized by the incident for months. She ultimately left acting, and divorcing husband Cary Grant, for a career in psychotherapy, particularly in the treatment of children and adolescents. Betsy Drake died on October 27, 2015 at the age of 92, in London, United Kingdom. While Ruth Roman continued her career successfully until she passed away on September 9, 1999 a the age of 76, in Laguna Beach, California.
Incredible info and a wonderful post. I did mentionn Betsy and Cary in this video but in my full ANDREA DORIA presentation (which I was able to do on board the ASTORIA on one of her final voyages), I mention Ruth Roman. Such a rich story. Thank you so much for watching and taking the time to share all that you have here. :)
Muito obrigado peter eu entendi seu ponto de vista, os navios perderam bastante a característica de oceanliners e para mim o navio perfeito foi o ss normandie 🎉
Obrigado Cyro! NORMANDIE was the ultimate but for some reason, I love the mid-sized liners most like NA, AMERICA, CARONIA and the slightly modern ships. Thanks for posting.
That was a very superficial talk, without even mentioning WHY ship styles evolved. Besides the broad stylistic changes from classic to art deco to modernist (etc.) occurring in all facets of design (clothing, architecture, automobiles, and yes ... ships too ) there was a fundamental change during the post-war decades of liners being used for trans-oceanic transportation to instead serve the cruise trade. Long-haul aircraft almost entirely replaced ocean liners in that respect by the mid-1960s. The old liners took up the cruise trade, but they were inefficient in terms of running costs and utilization of internal space, so the configuration began to be optimized for this new purpose. At the same time, ship construction techniques and methodologies were advancing, so that today's cruise ships are now assembled in pre-manufactured blocks and super-blocks. Space is optimized for maximum capacity and onboard entertainment, as well as for efficient assembly. Form follows function. Horses for courses.
Thank you. This was not a talk for ship enthusiasts nor was it intended to be about the evolution of cruising, where much of that information would be of interest. It was for fans of MidCentury design and focused on the designers and the aesthetics. So, yes, shallow but a means to bring ships to an audience who might otherwise not have any interest. Even so, these were random excerpts from a much larger presentation that did include other ships like CANBERRA, OCEANIC and SEA/ISLAND VENTURE that represented some of the design evolutions you mention, including engines aft, fire safety and the materials used. I also included several images of buildings that were constructed during this era so viewers could see what was trending on land. This was 13 minutes excerpted from a 50 minute presentation, so you are judging random tips of the iceberg, although I will concede, you probably would still not be satisfied. This was definitely not intended to be a collegiate course in the evolution of passenger ship design, which I actually have done in other lectures. Thanks for taking the time to post.
Thanks for responding@@midshipcinema and fair enough. I could only assess based on what was posted. As a marine professional of 39 years whose career included seagoing time, fleet management, and shipbuilding, I get frustrated with the ignorance and misinformation that is spread too often about ocean liners and cruise ships. I feel like any discussion that omits the context of WHY changes occur is a missed opportunity. I'm not personally a fan of today's super-sized cruise ships, but I acknowledge that they exist to serve a demand ... a market that no longer exists for classic liners ... not since 60 or more years ago. Absent that context (again, based on what was posted), this clip feels more like pandering to the dilettantes rather than an educational piece. But hey, perhaps that was the intended objective for that particular venue. I wonder if your talk touched upon the QM2, which is essentially a functioning modernized replica of the classic/Mid-Century liners. I have enjoyed trans-Atlantic voyages aboard the QM2 with its consciously-anachronistic (and much over-hyped) charms accomplished using modern technologies ... which (I feel) most effectively illustrates the contrast between 1950s Mid-Century Modernism and 21st-century expediency. Or the SS United States, which serves more as a cautionary tale. Of course, all the "Modernist" liners were largely intended to evoke the earlier "glamour" aesthetic of classic pre-war liners with a veneer of Modernist appearance and fittings ... that too might make for an interesting discussion. Perhaps you have indeed addressed all this elsewhere. I just get mildly frustrated by yet another excuse for the mob to get all triggered by "liners-good / cruise-ships-bad" which seems to be the extent of their take-away. Anyway, cheers and thanks for responding.
Thanks so much for this@@vintageccg8692. I was asked by the people at Modernism to please keep my presentation geared towards a crowd who was not interested in ships. My goal was to lure some landlubbers into the glamor and aesthetics of these ships and definitely not to give a full history of the evolution of passenger ship design. On the rare occasions I lecture aboard cruise ships, I actually have a talk that covers everything from Edwardian to Post Modern and Contemporary but incorporating even that into a 45 to 50 minute presentation that would be interesting to anyone other than die hards is tough. Like you, I am dismayed at all the self-proclaimed historians out there who steal content from others and get hundreds of thousands of TH-cam views. If you delve into this channel, you will see many tours I have made of ships that no longer exist, ships I documented on video long before the era of influencers with i-Phones. I have spent the greater part of 50 years documenting ships in various ways and put a lot of effort into salvaging art and artifacts from numerous ships. There are others who I would credit as better historians like Peter Kohler, Bruce Peter and Maurizio Eliseo but I bring a lot of experience, some great adventures and my own passion to the subject. Again, thanks for your post, which I took in a good way and appreciated. I wish I had my bits about SSUS, NS SAVANNAH, CANBERRA and a few others to balance the presentation out but am glad my partner took what he did as it was a great and receptive crowd and I hope a few of them may have walked away with some curiosity and respect for these wonderful creations.
PS. I also featured pure cruise ships like Incres VICTORIA and Sun Lines STELLA SOLARIS to show how nice cruise ships from the era actually were. As a cruise writer, I certainly do not hate cruise ships but I am definitely not a fan of the massive mass market ships of today (although I respect their technology). As for QM2, I share many of your views but she is so well covered by so many (good and bad), I'm not compelled to spend a lot of time making videos about her. Plus, she wouldn't have fit well into this particular presentation, although I did cover QE2 as built and not after all the modifications that diminished her Modern appeal.
Actually Mr. Knego@@midshipcinema I'd had a quick look at your work at Aliaga and it's clear that your 'bona fides' exceed mine in this field, so I'll step down off my soapbox and apologize for my presumptions of your work. You are to be commended for your work in salvaging those aspects of maritime history ... albeit just setting foot on that vile toxic beach likely shortened your life by several years. Nice to see that you captured some shots of the Newfoundland ferries at the breakers ... I have some friends who will be particularly interested in those. Any time you've got some more scholarly-level posts I'd be glad to tune in, and maybe I'll learn something.
Thanks Peter! As always, a great job!!!
Thanks so much for watching, Ray! Appreciate your taking the time to post. :)
I would love to see the whole presentation .Thank you for posting these excerpts Peter .
Thank you, Richard. Hopefully, I will be able to an encore performance. :)
Oh how I wish I was there for the whole talk!!
Wish you were, too. I may do it again for the national meeting of the SSHSA in November on the QUEEN MARY. :)
Wow! Another gorgeous and informative encapsulation by the brilliant Peter Knego of some wonderful ships, including one of my favorites, the 1959 Rotterdam.. I would have loved to see the entire presentation.
Wish you were there! Thank you, dear, esteemed Anne Kalosh!
The "NIeuw Amsterdam" was probably the most beautifully proportioned of the great Atlantic liners from an exterior perspective. Loved her. Interiors were great, too!
So agree. In the hereafter, I hope I finally get a chance to walk those decks. Perfect ship in every way.
An excellent point made in your video, I agree i don't like "floating blocks," the ships you talked about are just perfect. They were built to be pleasing to the eyes, inside and out. You scored 100 out of 10. 😊😊
Awww, thanks so much! Yes, those MidCentury ships may not have pleased everyone but they had style and distinction. No "flats". Thanks for watching. :)
Great presentation, love your excellent taste, knowledge and sense of humor 😁👍🏼👌🏼
Thank you. You are very kind. :)
The Italians certainly had a flare for modern design and colour. Thank you, Peter, for such an amazing presentation.
They were the best as far as art and unique design are concerned. Thanks for watching and commenting. :)
Such a fancy intro.... wouldn't expect any less in PSP... OMG.. so lovely... I would love to see the whole thing evenutually!!! Well Done!!!
I'll try and do one next year. Thanks for watching. :)
I would love to see more stage lectures like this from you too. Really great I enjoyed it! I would like to see the full lecture one day.
Thanks so much, Justin! I hope to do it for the SSHSA on Zoom or maybe on board the QUEEN MARY. Very kind of you to post. :)
WOW another great video on Ocean Liners here's an update on the two actresses who were onboard the SS Andrea Doria: In July 1956, actress Ruth Roman was just finishing a trip to Europe with her son Richard nicknamed Dickie, who was three years old at the time as well as their traveling companion, Janet Stewart, and Dickie’s nanny. At the port of Cannes, all four boarded the Italian passenger liner SS Andrea Doria as First Class passengers for their return trip home to the United States. Another Hollywood actress also onboard that fateful voyage was Betsy Drake who joined the voyage at Gibraltar, where she left her husband Cary Grant filming The Pride And The Passion (1957, United Artists) on location in Spain.
On the night of July 26, 1956, many passengers would cut their evening short to get some sleep before the early morning docking in New York City. Betsy Drake turned in early too, never being much for socializing, she preferred to climb into her bunk in her cabin to read.
Ruth Roman and traveling companion Janet Stewart enjoyed a last drink in the Belvedere Observation Lounge, her son slept in the cabin a deck lower with his nanny minding him. At 11:10 PM that night the MS Stockholm leaving New York for Sweden, accidentally rammed the Andrea Doria. To some passengers it seemed like a dull thud, to others a great jolt, depending on where they were on ship, and then the screeching sound of ripping metal was heard. Betsy Drake’s cabin located on the Boat Deck shook violently which woke her up and she immediately put her stylish traveling suit that she'd been wearing earlier back on, grabbed a life vest, and headed for her lifeboat station on the upper deck. Her jewels, and a semi-autobiographic novel on which she’d been working, went down with the ship.
Right after the collision happened Ruth Roman immediately took off her high heel shoes and scrambled back to her cabin barefoot to retrieve her sleeping son. Roman had to rip her form-fitting gown up the back so she could move faster on the stairs that were already tilting at a treacherous angle due to the listing of the ship on its side. She took son, his nanny, meeting up with Janet Stewart at their lifeboat station. Roman had found a deflated balloon left over from a party blew it up to amuse and distract her son telling him that they were going on a picnic. At around 2 AM, Roman, her son and the two other woman slid down from the higher end of the deck to the lower side where they hoped to catch a rope to a lifeboat below. A young cadet sailor from the SS Andrea Doria took her son and strapped Dickie to himself and climbed down a rope ladder to a waiting lifeboat. Then all of a sudden the lifeboat pulled away before Ruth Roman could climb aboard. The boy disappeared in the fog with a group of strangers. She, the nanny, and the traveling companion, waited for another lifeboat to escape. All three women were taken in a lifeboat to the famous French liner the Ile de France but her son was not there and she could not find out to which ship among the seven rescue ships he had been taken. Betsy Drake was also taken to the Ile de France, since so many survivors were trying to send cablegrams from the ship to loved ones, that she was unable to send one to Cary Grant.
Many passengers onboard the Ile de France donated clothing to the Doria's rescued passengers which included tennis player named Eddie Hand who gave Ruth Roman a pair of trousers, a white polo shirt, and woolen socks. A Life magazine photographer who happened to be traveling with his family, brought her to his cabin to rest.
Just a little after 5 PM on the 26th, the Ile de France docked at Pier 88 off West 48th Street. Betsy Drake was met at the pier by a friend, still wearing her traveling suit but also a pair of white sweat socks a sailor had given her. Ruth Roman finally learned that her son had been taken to the MS Stockholm, which initially had trouble leaving the scene of the collision because her anchor chains had become entangled. She was still at sea when Ruth Roman arrived at the pier with the other Ile de France passengers.
Late the next morning, on July 27th, Ruth Roman was finally reunited with her son she than picked up her son and hustled him through a mob of reporters and cameramen. For both Hollywood actresses, their connection to the sinking of the SS Andrea Doria would become a footnote in their lives, though Betsy Drake was reportedly traumatized by the incident for months. She ultimately left acting, and divorcing husband Cary Grant, for a career in psychotherapy, particularly in the treatment of children and adolescents. Betsy Drake died on October 27, 2015 at the age of 92, in London, United Kingdom. While Ruth Roman continued her career successfully until she passed away on September 9, 1999 a the age of 76, in Laguna Beach, California.
Incredible info and a wonderful post. I did mentionn Betsy and Cary in this video but in my full ANDREA DORIA presentation (which I was able to do on board the ASTORIA on one of her final voyages), I mention Ruth Roman. Such a rich story. Thank you so much for watching and taking the time to share all that you have here. :)
i adore could joke along with the croud like that, a flawless presentation!
Great crowd that day. Thank you.
Muito obrigado peter eu entendi seu ponto de vista, os navios perderam bastante a característica de oceanliners e para mim o navio perfeito foi o ss normandie 🎉
Obrigado Cyro! NORMANDIE was the ultimate but for some reason, I love the mid-sized liners most like NA, AMERICA, CARONIA and the slightly modern ships. Thanks for posting.
That was a very superficial talk, without even mentioning WHY ship styles evolved.
Besides the broad stylistic changes from classic to art deco to modernist (etc.) occurring in all facets of design (clothing, architecture, automobiles, and yes ... ships too ) there was a fundamental change during the post-war decades of liners being used for trans-oceanic transportation to instead serve the cruise trade.
Long-haul aircraft almost entirely replaced ocean liners in that respect by the mid-1960s. The old liners took up the cruise trade, but they were inefficient in terms of running costs and utilization of internal space, so the configuration began to be optimized for this new purpose. At the same time, ship construction techniques and methodologies were advancing, so that today's cruise ships are now assembled in pre-manufactured blocks and super-blocks. Space is optimized for maximum capacity and onboard entertainment, as well as for efficient assembly.
Form follows function.
Horses for courses.
Thank you. This was not a talk for ship enthusiasts nor was it intended to be about the evolution of cruising, where much of that information would be of interest. It was for fans of MidCentury design and focused on the designers and the aesthetics. So, yes, shallow but a means to bring ships to an audience who might otherwise not have any interest. Even so, these were random excerpts from a much larger presentation that did include other ships like CANBERRA, OCEANIC and SEA/ISLAND VENTURE that represented some of the design evolutions you mention, including engines aft, fire safety and the materials used. I also included several images of buildings that were constructed during this era so viewers could see what was trending on land. This was 13 minutes excerpted from a 50 minute presentation, so you are judging random tips of the iceberg, although I will concede, you probably would still not be satisfied. This was definitely not intended to be a collegiate course in the evolution of passenger ship design, which I actually have done in other lectures. Thanks for taking the time to post.
Thanks for responding@@midshipcinema and fair enough.
I could only assess based on what was posted.
As a marine professional of 39 years whose career included seagoing time, fleet management, and shipbuilding, I get frustrated with the ignorance and misinformation that is spread too often about ocean liners and cruise ships. I feel like any discussion that omits the context of WHY changes occur is a missed opportunity.
I'm not personally a fan of today's super-sized cruise ships, but I acknowledge that they exist to serve a demand ... a market that no longer exists for classic liners ... not since 60 or more years ago. Absent that context (again, based on what was posted), this clip feels more like pandering to the dilettantes rather than an educational piece.
But hey, perhaps that was the intended objective for that particular venue.
I wonder if your talk touched upon the QM2, which is essentially a functioning modernized replica of the classic/Mid-Century liners. I have enjoyed trans-Atlantic voyages aboard the QM2 with its consciously-anachronistic (and much over-hyped) charms accomplished using modern technologies ... which (I feel) most effectively illustrates the contrast between 1950s Mid-Century Modernism and 21st-century expediency. Or the SS United States, which serves more as a cautionary tale.
Of course, all the "Modernist" liners were largely intended to evoke the earlier "glamour" aesthetic of classic pre-war liners with a veneer of Modernist appearance and fittings ... that too might make for an interesting discussion.
Perhaps you have indeed addressed all this elsewhere. I just get mildly frustrated by yet another excuse for the mob to get all triggered by "liners-good / cruise-ships-bad" which seems to be the extent of their take-away.
Anyway, cheers and thanks for responding.
Thanks so much for this@@vintageccg8692. I was asked by the people at Modernism to please keep my presentation geared towards a crowd who was not interested in ships. My goal was to lure some landlubbers into the glamor and aesthetics of these ships and definitely not to give a full history of the evolution of passenger ship design. On the rare occasions I lecture aboard cruise ships, I actually have a talk that covers everything from Edwardian to Post Modern and Contemporary but incorporating even that into a 45 to 50 minute presentation that would be interesting to anyone other than die hards is tough. Like you, I am dismayed at all the self-proclaimed historians out there who steal content from others and get hundreds of thousands of TH-cam views. If you delve into this channel, you will see many tours I have made of ships that no longer exist, ships I documented on video long before the era of influencers with i-Phones. I have spent the greater part of 50 years documenting ships in various ways and put a lot of effort into salvaging art and artifacts from numerous ships. There are others who I would credit as better historians like Peter Kohler, Bruce Peter and Maurizio Eliseo but I bring a lot of experience, some great adventures and my own passion to the subject. Again, thanks for your post, which I took in a good way and appreciated. I wish I had my bits about SSUS, NS SAVANNAH, CANBERRA and a few others to balance the presentation out but am glad my partner took what he did as it was a great and receptive crowd and I hope a few of them may have walked away with some curiosity and respect for these wonderful creations.
PS. I also featured pure cruise ships like Incres VICTORIA and Sun Lines STELLA SOLARIS to show how nice cruise ships from the era actually were. As a cruise writer, I certainly do not hate cruise ships but I am definitely not a fan of the massive mass market ships of today (although I respect their technology). As for QM2, I share many of your views but she is so well covered by so many (good and bad), I'm not compelled to spend a lot of time making videos about her. Plus, she wouldn't have fit well into this particular presentation, although I did cover QE2 as built and not after all the modifications that diminished her Modern appeal.
Actually Mr. Knego@@midshipcinema I'd had a quick look at your work at Aliaga and it's clear that your 'bona fides' exceed mine in this field, so I'll step down off my soapbox and apologize for my presumptions of your work.
You are to be commended for your work in salvaging those aspects of maritime history ... albeit just setting foot on that vile toxic beach likely shortened your life by several years.
Nice to see that you captured some shots of the Newfoundland ferries at the breakers ... I have some friends who will be particularly interested in those.
Any time you've got some more scholarly-level posts I'd be glad to tune in, and maybe I'll learn something.