Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/12/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Greg J. Lorenzo said Subject: Re: [Leica] OT - Queen Mary 2 > The down side to an old sea salt (not me) is the new Queen Mary cannot > be considered a "lucky ship" given the gangway collapse that killed 15 > or 16 people in France last month.<<< I've not much sea time but have been on a few ships, destroyers, a few deep sea fishing trawlers, the Arctic Ocean on a huge ice breaker for a month, and on the worlds biggest at the time, off shore oil drilling rig, Ocean Ranger. It was a massive rig standing up out of the Atlantic that I spent a documentary on it's operation. Flew on and off in big helicopters and had to wear bright orange survival suits just in case. "I thought gee thanks guys that's like handing parachutes to passengers... just in case." :-( After we were back on shore I wondered if it were possible it could sink as I couldn't figure out how this huge monster could sit out a North Atlantic storm without going down. I mean they're not boats that can run with a heavy sea or storm. An old-time sailor answered my question, "Anything built to float can sink!" At that moment I felt very good I was on shore at a warm pub in Newfoundland. I said, "Surely they'd never build a rig like the Ocean Ranger if there were any danger it would sink?" "Yep because anything built to float can sink under the right-wrong circumstances." he says. Some time later he was right on the mark as this huge monster of the sea went down in a major storm and I believe a 100 plus crew with it. So when I see pictures of the Queen Mary 11 and it's size I think back to the Ocean Ranger and the old sailor's re-mark, "anything built to float can sink!" And that QM 11 is one big ship! So? On the Ocean Ranger I worked M & R cameras, colour film and meself very hard, as crew shifts where 12 on 12 off and it ran 24 hour non-stop, so I didn't need to stop when the whistle blew the shift was over, so I could keep right on shooting as long as I wanted. I was one tired puppy after that shoot but it wasn't over as I had to fly to the west coast for one day, dump film and the next flew east back to Calgary for another ten days of oil rigs. Best part of the shoot, .... they were on land! ;-) Sorry kind of got off the topic, but could the QM 11 sink? Or have I answered the question? ted - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html