Honosuseri
New Member
You don't sound cynical Lloyd, you come across as jealous. You've asked for photos and Capital_R has kindly provided a link to Marine traffic. There are some nice semi-recent photos uploaded by Kenneth Fiskerstrand and Per Inge Dragen. I have many more photos and even videos walking around, covering every inch of the boat. My family and friends have seen them but I will NOT upload them without consent from the OP.
Some fun facts for those of you following this genuine thread with interest...
In Kenneth's photo on Marine traffic, I zoomed in (a lot) and can make out MY silhouette! I'm standing on deck midships, just right of the blue bulwark. I had spotted Kenneth from the Bridge, eyeing up the boat from starboard through binoculars. I waved and he moved off, only to return later, circling with another man taking photos. I informed the Master of the boat of this "fishy" behaviour, we both watched them from the deck of the boat and they eventually pulled along side.
The man taking photos was indeed Per Inge Dragen. He had a lot of interest in the boat as he had actually once owned one of the sister ships. He was absolutely delighted to be invited on board and we enjoyed both Kenneth and Per Inge's company. Originally cargo wessels (that's not a typo, he really did sound like Chekov from Star Trek!), this boat was converted into a supply/support vessel. He was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge, informing us of literally everything that had been changed, the most obvious being the wheel house/bridge brought forward from the stern to midships.
Per inge maintains a website keeping track of these vessels. We heard stories of how many have been lost and he thought this boat was amongst the missing, having been converted it had stayed "under the radar". So he was delighted when his mate Kenneth spotted her and he had to come out and see for himself. I took a photo of him on the Bridge with the Master of the boat and one of him on shore with the bow and name of the boat behind him for his personal photo collection. He was delighted to come away with far more than he'd ever hoped for and we were just as happy to make a new friend.
The main engine is an 81L turbo diesel Grenaa. The thrusters (or shottels) are actually powered by 16 cylinder Deutz engines, the Volvo engines are for powering the generators. Easy mistake for Capital_R to make, there are two engine rooms and there's an awful lot to get our heads around! On the run to Riga, we were cruising at 7-8 knots and roughly getting through a tonne of fuel per day. We had incredibly good weather for the most part, fuel consumption did increase once we were taking some wind on the nose.
I just want to personally thank all of you who were following us online from the AIS system. It's an old bit of kit and "plumbing" it into the Navigational software was not the most fun I've ever had BUT it put the crew at ease knowing we could see vessels 40nm around us on the chart software. Roughly a day away from Riga we encountered 8 military vessels from a number of countries (France, Sweden etc.) conducting under water explosions. I have a cool video of the warning broadcasted over the VHF radio by Swedish Warship Mike 73.
The crew thoroughly enjoyed the trip, she might not look like much now but we had a great time onboard. Capital_R was sorely missed on this trip but we know this is only the very start of the adventure! I fear I've waffled on enough for my first post, thanks again to all those who are following this thread and have offered kind words of support to the OP and the crew.
Ciao for now
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