Cruise industry records broken again (From Daily Echo)

On the Cunard web page, spectacular image of QM2 berthed in Liverpool at night.
First offering of berths from Liverpool to Norway and Hamburg in May, this info left out of recent Southern Echo story.

arizonan wrote:
On the Cunard web page, spectacular image of QM2 berthed in Liverpool at night.
First offering of berths from Liverpool to Norway and Hamburg in May, this info left out of recent Southern Echo story.

Please...dont mention Liverpool on this site..its a 'very' touchy subject..especially on slow news day's..thank you xx

They just can't get enough of that Norovirus !

If they getting these number now, just imagine how many people pass though the docks back in the mid 50's to early 70's, must of been millions passing though each year, the ships might of been a lot smaller, there was a lot more ships about back then, there was not a day went pass when a ship did not call in or leave, and very unlikely you would see an empty berth that stayed empty for more than 24 hours.
late 50's to early 70's was the years when immergration took place on a very large scale, people heading of to South Africa, Canada, Austrailia and New Zealand

Southy,
If you pop along to Soton Central Library there is plenty of archive information relating to port statistics.
So you don't have to 'imagine' (your favoured pastime of course) you can actually research FACTS!!
According to details of the time the record year for passenger traffic was in the mid 50's, prior to the growth of jet travel, when over 500,000 passengers moved through the port.
Todays cruise passenger figure is well in excess of that figure.
Also the reason the port looked a lot busier was that ships stayed in port far longer.
A typical Union Castle ship would arrive on a Monday and depart on a Friday.
So between 5-10,000 tonnes of cargo handled in 5 days.
Modern container ships have the capability to move this amount of cargo in less than a day shift!!!

Phil your forgetting there was a union castle ship arriving and leaving every day, but yes they did sort of stayed for about 3 to 5 days depending on which run it was on, in those days Union Castle was the biggest liner company calling into southampton, and it was not unusal to see them 2 to 3 abrest along side the quay wall, then you had P&O and Cunard plus Europeans shipping companys calling in, there was very few cruise runs leaving Southampton most was regular runs, these ships back then many of them use to be pack full with passengers going out but coming back there was a lot less, so your not double counting the same people like they are now

southy wrote:
Phil your forgetting there was a union castle ship arriving and leaving every day, but yes they did sort of stayed for about 3 to 5 days depending on which run it was on, in those days Union Castle was the biggest liner company calling into southampton, and it was not unusal to see them 2 to 3 abrest along side the quay wall, then you had P&O and Cunard plus Europeans shipping companys calling in, there was very few cruise runs leaving Southampton most was regular runs, these ships back then many of them use to be pack full with passengers going out but coming back there was a lot less, so your not double counting the same people like they are now

Southy
I am sure there are many ex Union Castle employees around who are better placed than me to correct yet more of your errors.
The Union Castle (or Safmarine)ships never 'arrived and left' every day.
The main mail ship would arrive from South Africa at 0600hrs on a Monday to discharge and then move to the load berth, departing 1600hrs on the following Thursday or Friday. So for most of the year there were only 2 'Lavender ladies' in port at one time, occupying berths 102 and 104.
In the summer months the Cape fruit boats (commonly called 'R' boats because most of their names started with the letter 'R') would call to discharge Cape Fruit.
The only time vessels would be berthed 2-3 abreast was if they were on 'lay up' for example during the Seamens strike in June 1966 when the Seamens Union caused a catastrophic strike from which the UK seaman never recovered.
To ensure you are better informed I recommend you read a copy of 'A Pictorial History of Southampton Docks', or any other similar book by Bert Moody a very well respected local historian. There are plenty of pictures to look at if the facts overwhelm you!!

georgetheseventh wrote:

arizonan wrote:
On the Cunard web page, spectacular image of QM2 berthed in Liverpool at night.
First offering of berths from Liverpool to Norway and Hamburg in May, this info left out of recent Southern Echo story.

Please...dont mention Liverpool on this site..its a 'very' touchy subject..especially on slow news day's..thank you xx

Ha ha maybe you should check this out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk
/news/uk-england-mer
seyside-21658084

phil maccavity wrote:

southy wrote:
Phil your forgetting there was a union castle ship arriving and leaving every day, but yes they did sort of stayed for about 3 to 5 days depending on which run it was on, in those days Union Castle was the biggest liner company calling into southampton, and it was not unusal to see them 2 to 3 abrest along side the quay wall, then you had P&O and Cunard plus Europeans shipping companys calling in, there was very few cruise runs leaving Southampton most was regular runs, these ships back then many of them use to be pack full with passengers going out but coming back there was a lot less, so your not double counting the same people like they are now

Southy
I am sure there are many ex Union Castle employees around who are better placed than me to correct yet more of your errors.
The Union Castle (or Safmarine)ships never 'arrived and left' every day.
The main mail ship would arrive from South Africa at 0600hrs on a Monday to discharge and then move to the load berth, departing 1600hrs on the following Thursday or Friday. So for most of the year there were only 2 'Lavender ladies' in port at one time, occupying berths 102 and 104.
In the summer months the Cape fruit boats (commonly called 'R' boats because most of their names started with the letter 'R') would call to discharge Cape Fruit.
The only time vessels would be berthed 2-3 abreast was if they were on 'lay up' for example during the Seamens strike in June 1966 when the Seamens Union caused a catastrophic strike from which the UK seaman never recovered.
To ensure you are better informed I recommend you read a copy of 'A Pictorial History of Southampton Docks', or any other similar book by Bert Moody a very well respected local historian. There are plenty of pictures to look at if the facts overwhelm you!!

Yes they did Phil, my middle brother work on Union Castle, and about 200 people in my area work for them as well, and what about when they was laying abreast of each other when there was no strike going on. and the strike in 66 was not catastrophic at all, done no damage what so ever to the seamen, the damage was planes taking over the regular sea routes

southy wrote:

phil maccavity wrote:

southy wrote:
Phil your forgetting there was a union castle ship arriving and leaving every day, but yes they did sort of stayed for about 3 to 5 days depending on which run it was on, in those days Union Castle was the biggest liner company calling into southampton, and it was not unusal to see them 2 to 3 abrest along side the quay wall, then you had P&O and Cunard plus Europeans shipping companys calling in, there was very few cruise runs leaving Southampton most was regular runs, these ships back then many of them use to be pack full with passengers going out but coming back there was a lot less, so your not double counting the same people like they are now

Southy
I am sure there are many ex Union Castle employees around who are better placed than me to correct yet more of your errors.
The Union Castle (or Safmarine)ships never 'arrived and left' every day.
The main mail ship would arrive from South Africa at 0600hrs on a Monday to discharge and then move to the load berth, departing 1600hrs on the following Thursday or Friday. So for most of the year there were only 2 'Lavender ladies' in port at one time, occupying berths 102 and 104.
In the summer months the Cape fruit boats (commonly called 'R' boats because most of their names started with the letter 'R') would call to discharge Cape Fruit.
The only time vessels would be berthed 2-3 abreast was if they were on 'lay up' for example during the Seamens strike in June 1966 when the Seamens Union caused a catastrophic strike from which the UK seaman never recovered.
To ensure you are better informed I recommend you read a copy of 'A Pictorial History of Southampton Docks', or any other similar book by Bert Moody a very well respected local historian. There are plenty of pictures to look at if the facts overwhelm you!!

Yes they did Phil, my middle brother work on Union Castle, and about 200 people in my area work for them as well, and what about when they was laying abreast of each other when there was no strike going on. and the strike in 66 was not catastrophic at all, done no damage what so ever to the seamen, the damage was planes taking over the regular sea routes

So, apart from the passenger liner service to and from the Cape, what were all these Union Castle ships doing? And according to Dr Nick Robins in his book 'The Decline and Revivial of the British Passenger Fleet', "(As well as competition from air) ... There were five principal factors which conspired towards massively reduced profits ... spiralling costs of fuel; ever stricter maritime safety rules; the onset of containerisation; the National Seaman's Union strike of 1966 and the Dock strike of 1967 and the closure of the Suez Canal from June 1967 ..."

So you can't simply airbrush out the effect of the strikes. It was a factor.

So if the ships were laying abreast of one another when they were not laid up how did the Dockers work the cargo holds and how did passengers access the outside ships?

And no damage was done by the 1966 seamens strike. Really??

Read the official history of Cunard Line.
The 1966 Seamens strike was described as catastrophic.
As a consequence four of their main line ships ie Saxonia Carinthia, Sylvania and Irvinia, were axed in 1967.
More or less all the crew who served on these ships were British ratings.
In addition other British companies reduced their fleet and when the new container and cruise ships were introduced the owners elected to use foreign labour.
For those interested in labour history the involvement of the now Lord Prescott as a militant seamen's shop steward is worthy of note.