Ship spotting

[pyro-manic]

Some recent visitors to Weymouth:


HMC Valiant by pyro-manic, on Flickr


HMS Defender by pyro-manic, on Flickr


PS Waverley by pyro-manic, on Flickr


HMC Sentinel by pyro-manic, on Flickr

As always, click through for bigger images.

[PR19_Kit]

Doesn't the Waverley look great in that pic? 

I've taken a few voyages aboard her, usually down the Bristol Channel and she's always impressed. HMS Defender looks like she's beamend in from another planet in contrast! 

[pyro-manic]

She comes in to Weymouth every so often, but I've missed her up 'til now. I came home from work and saw the bright red stacks in the harbour, thought "oh-ho, what's that?" and went over for a look. The light was all wrong, unfortunately - you can see she's pretty much back-lit - but she's certainly a beauty, and this quarter-view let her catch at least a bit of the sun.

Defender was skulking about for a day or two, anchored out in the bay. Spotted her in the dark one evening (that SAMPSON mast is tall enough that she carries red warning lights to ward off low-flyers!) and got a couple of photos the next day. She's still on sea trials, so not even in service yet.

[pyro-manic]

This is an interesting one I spotted recently:


Corvette by pyro-manic, on Flickr

A Khareef-class corvette, built by BAE at Portsmouth for the Omani navy. 76mm Oto, Exocets, MICA-VL SAMs, etc. Nice looking little ships. I spotted this one as it was about to enter Portland Harbour a few weeks ago.

[Captain Canada]

Forgot to add this one from our trip to Mackinac Island this summer. This old LCM must be used to ferry hehicles and supplies over. There are no private autos on the island, just essential services. All other transport is horse, bike or foot powered !

[pyro-manic]

Another Duke in today, this time Somerset:


HMS Somerset (F82) by pyro-manic, on Flickr

[Captain Canada]

Beauty shot. I need to plan some ship visits into our trip as well.

[pyro-manic]

Thanks! There's a bigger version available on the Flickr page: Click Actions and then "View all sizes" and choose the mahoosive one. You can see lots of detail on the ship then. For ship visits, obviously there's HMS Belfast in London, the museum/dockyard at Portsmouth, and there's Chatham historic dockyard too. Also the SS Great Britain at Bristol is very good.

[Captain Canada]

I'd love to see the Belfast and go to portsmouth. Gonna have to start mapping stuff out and checking trip times. Looked into a rail pass, a little too pricy for a family of 4 ! Be cheaper to hire a car

[Nick]

Car hire will be cheaper if you plan lots of side trips out of London. Do consider this, a full petrol tank will be about £75 and take you approx 400 miles. Parking fees in London will rack up unless you have a hotel parking space.

Hurry up and set some dates so we can all arrange meetings! 

[Captain Canada]

We're looking at travelling out of Canada on the first or second of July. Not sure how we're going to arrange it, straight to Scotland then down, or London and up ?

[NARSES2]

Don't forget that you can travel at a reasonable rate on the train as long as you book up in advance. The train service is generally very good and reliable. Overseas visitors used to be able to get exceptional value on special tourist tickets bought in advance. Not sure if they are still available but your travel agent should know.

As for London or Scotland first ? Probability your flight will be into London. Remember that it's probably easier to get into Central London from Gatwick then Heathrow. Train's to Scotland are very good, dependent on where you will be going. The scenery on the journey is superb 

[Captain Canada]

I replied over in the original thread so this one could get back to boats. But I'm very grateful for the advice here, thanks guys !

[scooter]

Danish maritime ambulance.  Didn't see it, was posted on a FB page I follow

[Mossie]

You can't miss that one coming, I can still see that one when I close my eyes!  Nice livery, thanks for sharing.