Great Western Coffee Shop

A ten car IET is 260 metres long ... and the ship we are on - the "Aurora" is 270 metres long.

Melksham to London is 100 miles and costs up to 88p per mile in the peak, down to 28p per mile super off peak.  Our round trip from Southampton to New York is around 8000 miles and is costing us about 60p per mile, but that does include food, limited drinks (tea, coffee, water) and sleeper service.

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/trainandship.jpg)

As an alternative comparison, if the train averages 80 m.p.h and the boat averages 25 m.p.h., the train costs 70p per minute (peak), 22p per minute super off peak, and the boat is costing us 15p per minute ... but then our time in 10 ports is gratis.

The length may be similar, but the width and height vary. Aurora has a 32 metre beam, whereas an IET has a beam of 2.7 metres - so 12 trains would fit across the ship. The height of a train is 3.8 metres, but Aurora is some 60 metres tall - 8 metres of that below the water line - so you could stack 15 IETs (in diesel mode) on top of each other.  In other words, Aurora is the volume of 180 IETs.

A ten car IET is staffed by perhaps 4 or 5 team members (bare minimum 3), to which we should add engineers, cleaners, etc, who do not travel with the train. Crew on the Aurora is 850 including those engineers and cleaners who in this case travel "with". Our IET has a seated capacity of 630; Aurora takes 1850.  However, comparing an IET staff to passenger ratio of 1 to 125 to Aurora's staff to passenger ratio of 1 to 2.4 is misleading - cut the 1 to 125 to (say) 1 to 60 to allow for the none-travelling staff, and then again by a factor of 2.5 (making it 1 to 24) to allow for shifts - bearing in mind that ship's staff work very long hours.    So we still have 10 times the staff per passenger on the boat than we have on the train; many of them are low paid and it would be interesting to factor in average hourly pay rates too ... if any members would care to develop this I would be very interested.   We also need to consider shore and station staff, etc.

I know that some forum members are not thrilled by having diesel engines under the passenger accommodations of trains - I have seen them described as "unsuitable for long distance travel".  And I muse that our ship is powered by diesel engines underneath the passenger accommodation.

With the different volumetric characteristics of the boat, catering can be somewhat more that a trolley.   Let me share a buffet breakfast with you

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek00.jpg)

Perhaps that's not your choice?   Let's have a look at just some of the counters:

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek01.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek02.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek03.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek04.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek05.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek06.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek07.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek08.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/shipbrek09.jpg)

How was Dorian?

Hello, and welcome to the forum.    I understand she was vicious within her circle of influence ... however, after our first port of call we headed back out 500 miles into the Atlantic to let her pass, which she has now done.  Apparently a lot of passengers on the ship found last night a bit rough.

My one dread of cruises.  No sea legs.  Remember being very ill going to Lundy Island! Or joining Paul Daniels on a Townsend Thoresen ferry where neither of us were very well.

You're gonna like this crossing. Not a lot. There must be more to this anecdote. Was the lovely Debbie McGee also aboard?

The one and only time I was unwell on a boat was a Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire night crossing. I'd had a few drinks on the train to Holyhead. Then a couple more on board. It wasn't a particularly rough crossing, just a heavy swell. Enough though for the drinks to put in a repeat appearance.

Oh i did that crossing in rough seas too, mostly lorry drivers so very quiet, lots of space, bar may even have been closed, a time before discovering drink, we had missed the daytime public crossing due to inter city cross country being late, and were put on what must have been a freight only service. was rough, but we were all fine, its when people arround you are being 'unwell' tends to kick off a chain reaction, particully when visiting the toilets...

I was on a Hook of Holland to Harwich ferry one stormy night in October 1976, when we started pitching the moment we cast off the moorings. I was IK - many passengers weren't.

I was on a Seaspeed hovercraft from Boulogne to Dover back in the 90s when it got rough after we set off. The craft turned into a vomitarium but I was OK

The only time I have ever been seasick was one day in 1966 on the Portsmouth to Ryde ferry...

I get sick of the slow isle of wight ferrys too. always now do the fastcat or hover craft, though not a SRN4....sad to go on one at Gosport in such a state, know they try at the museum, should be in the national collection like certain steam locomotives.

I have stories to cap most of you folks ... crossing the North Sea on board the SS Nevasa in a force 10 gale; a much smaller ship than the Aurora.   Taking a ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg on which the bow thrusters failed and we spent 24 hours chugging up and down in a force 9 gale until it subsided enough for tugs to assist us. Sadly, I can't report being ill on either of those, nor or trips to Ireland which have been more than a little choppy but I can report plenty of food and no queues for it.

Good to see you're enjoying the onboard nourishment.....have you done an afternoon tea yet?

According to Wikipedia he met Debbie some three months before the crossing in question, but I don't remember her being on board.   Although frankly I have tried very hard to forget the crossing!

Apologies Justin, it's a ship  ;)

I used 'boat' as a catch all to refer to all the types of watercraft and vessels I've been on in my lifetime. Inflatable dinghies, canoes, kayaks, pedalos, rowing boats, narrowboats, barges, cabin cruisers, river cruisers, fishing boats, catamarans, hovercraft, ferries.

Only sunk twice. Once on a coracle on the River Dart. More of a scuttling actually. I got frustrated going round in circles so deliberately tipped the coracle. The other time in a homemade craft (beer/cider kegs, planks, rope etc) in an annual competition called the 'Tone Struggle' on the River Tone in Somerset. The event was sponsored by Taunton Cider and I once
entered with colleagues from Booker Cash & Carry. Our knots holding the craft together weren't up to scratch.

Not me. Now, when I was on the RMS Titanic...

My late mother was one for being sea-sick. She got sea-sick even stepping into a rowing boat on the local parks boating lake.

The funniest recollection to me was when we went mackeral fishing off Weymouth in a friends cabin cruiser. She was OK until we started back to harbour when she regurgitated breakfast for the fishes and we all watched as her false teeth, top and bottom jaw, sink to the sea bed of Weymouth Bay. That was funny but even funnier was that when we got back to harbour and mum and our friends mum/wife went into Boots to see if they sold emergency false teeth. We said mum what did you think of, she replied that, you never know they might have sold a strip of false teeth that you could bend into the shape of your gum in an emergency !!! Needless to say, mother was confined to a diet of Porridge, Mash Potato and Ice Cream for the rest of that LONG Bank Holiday Weekend. 

Regarding the old "boat or ship" arguments, I have heard two sensible ways to determine if a craft is a boat or a ship. There are exceptions of course, but in general;

"A boat can be picked up, by a derrick or crane if need be, and placed on the deck of a ship"

"If the craft lists noticeably when a person moves from one side to the other, then it is a boat and not a ship"

Just to confuse the discussion a bit more .......submarines are always "boats" ! Nothing annoys me more than to hear a submarine called a "sub"  >:(

I have also had the freedom of the cafeteria on a North Sea crossing. I was asked by someone who looked more than a bit green around the gills "Is there no cure for sea-sickness?". I gave him Spike Milligan's answer: "Yes! Stand under a tree!". To see hope flicker in the man's eyes, then die away so quickly was cruel.

I have been around Cape Horn on a cruise ship. I felt cheated because it was like a millpond. My wife took a picture of me with the Horn.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48722264277_1f60433d2f_c.jpg)

Me with the Horn. Oooh, Matron!