A painting from the Wallace collection in London photographed on 24 October 2017.
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The picture is called 'Dutch Man Of War Saluting' and was painted by Willem Van De Velde in circa 1665.

​Willem van de Velde lived from 1633 to 1707 and was one of the leading Dutch maritime painters of the later 17th Century.  A son of Willem van De Velde the Elder who was also a painter of sea-pieces, Willem van de Velde, the younger, was instructed by his father, and afterwards by Simon de Vlieger a marine painter of repute at the time. By 1673 he had moved to England, where he was engaged by Charles II on a salary of £100, to aid his father in "taking and making draughts of sea-fights", his part of the work being to reproduce in colour the drawings of the elder Van de Velde. He was also patronized by the Duke of York and by various members of the English nobility.

He died on 6 April 1707 in London and was buried at St. James's Church. Most of Van de Velde's finest works represent views off the coast of Holland with Dutch shipping. It is said that the ships are portrayed with almost photographic accuracy and are the most precise guides available to the appearance of 17th-century ships.

HMS Victory photographed in Portsmouth on 7 April 2015. She has had her upper masts removed for maintenance. I have toured the ship and it is a fantastic experience. On 7th May 1765 HMS Victory was floated out of the Old Single Dock in Chatham's Royal Dockyard. In the years to come, over an unusually long service, she would gain renown leading fleets in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic War. In 1805 she achieved lasting fame as the flagship of Vice-Admiral Nelson in Britain's greatest naval victory, the defeat of the French and Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar. For Victory, however, active service did not end with the loss of Nelson. In 1808 she was re-commissioned to lead the fleet in the Baltic, but four years later she was no longer needed in this role, and she was relegated to harbour service - serving as  a residence, flagship and tender providing accommodation. In 1922 she was saved for the nation and placed permanently into dry dock where she remains today, visited by 25 million visitors as a museum of the sailing navy and the oldest commissioned warship in the world.

Port of Cirkewwa on Malta photographed on 3 April 2017. We walked here from our hotel early evening. Ċirkewwa Harbour, situated at the northernmost part of Malta, is vital for the economic development of Gozo, the second largest island in the Maltese archipelago. It is the site of the Ċirkewwa Ferry Terminal, where regular car ferries operate to the port of Mġarr, Gozo.

Grande Detroit photographed from East Cowes on its way into Southampton.

She was built in 2005 and is 176.6m long with a 31.1m beam, service speed is  21 knots and she can carry 4,300 cars.

Passenger accommodation (air-conditioned with private facilities) includes two outside cabins with low beds, three outside cabins with two low beds and passengers sharing the dining room and lounge with the ships officers.
 
The vessel is operated by Grimaldi Lines which dates back to 1947, the company has been involved in the transportation of vehicles since 1969.

MMSI - 247186300
REG - IT, Palermo
IMO - 9293272
Call Sign - ICCK
Vehicles Carrier
Built - Uljanik' Pula, HU
Yard No.454
L 176.6m x W 31.1m
GT -38651
Year - 2005
East Cowes - 2 November 2013

Malta Freeport photographed as we came in to land on 4 April 2017.

​Malta Freeport was established in 1988 and is now a major maritime transhipment logistic centre in the Mediterranean region.

Malta Freeport focuses on the ‘hub' concept, whereby cargo is discharged from large mother vessels and relayed to a network of regional ports by regular and frequent feeder vessels. Around 96 per cent of Malta Freeport's container traffic is transhipment business. In 2016 Malta Freeport Terminals  handled 3.08 million TEUs.

Malta Freeport Terminals offers a total operational deep water quay of 2,463 metres, a total area of 771,000 square metres, 15,290 container ground slots and a total number of 1,077 reefer points. All the mainline berths have a water depth of 17 metres. Malta Freeport Terminals is currently equipped with twenty-one super post-Panamx Quayside Cranes. The Yard Cranes serving both Terminals include 2 Rail-Mounted Gantry Cranes (RMGs) and 50 Rubber-Tyred Gantry Cranes (RTGs). Forty of these RTGs have twin-lift spreader capability.

Container Terminals are now fully equipped to handle 18,000 TEU containerships and larger. Malta Freeport is taking other investment initiatives to further increase its current capacity to 4.5 million TEUs in the coming years.

Thai Police vessel 1011 photographed 26 August 2016 in Hua Hin Thailand. Sadly I cant find any details about her. She was one of a number of Thai Navy and police vessels stationed just off shore on guard duty during our stay

Mgarr  harbour photographed late afternoon on 6 April 2017 during my day trip from Malta to explore the island.

A regular ferry service from Mgarr to Malta was first recorded in 1241. At that time Mgarr was a shallow harbour affording anchorage to small craft and quite exposed from the south west to the south east. It did not have a breakwater but only a small jetty used by passengers to board and descend from the boats and by the fishermen to unload their catches. The jetty is still there just below the Gleneagles bar where I had a beer and took this picture whilst waiting for my ferry to arrive. This bar, once a landmark of the harbour recognisable with its unique sloping roof, was originally the harbour's barrakka, a cabin for the shelter of passengers waiting for the passage boats. It was raised next to a still standing osteria, a tavern, by Grandmaster Antonio Manuel de Vilhena in 1732.

The problem of a more sheltered port was first taken under serious consideration in 1841. In April of that year, the Government began the construction of a small breakwater some hundred meters to the west of the existing jetty. During the following decades it was lengthened several times and it was last extended in 1906 although it still offered little shelter and could not be used by steamers.

The problem was finally tackled in the late 1920's and on the 23rd June 1929, the official launching of the first caisson for a proper breakwater took place. Construction went until 1935 although steamers were in 1932 able to berth alongside for the first time and to discharge passengers and cargo directly onto the quay that extended 137m into the sea.

In 1969, the Government authorised the extension of the existing 137m breakwater and the building of two modern breakwaters. The new facilities also included a ro-ro berth. The main south breakwater extends about 490m into the sea and from the north it extends 175m. This project enlarged the Mgarr Harbour to an area of over 121,400 square metres (30 acres).

In the early 1990's a small yacht marina was established .

The harbour has seen its share of tragedies. During the second World War, German planes destroyed the bar known as 'Il-Barraka'. The 'Royal Lady' ferry was also sunk in the harbour.

One of the worst tragedies occurred on 30th October 1948 when 23 men lost their lives in the channel between the two islands when the vessel they were travelling gave way to the turbulent sea and was overturned.

In 1957 one of the heaviest storms to hit the island resulted in  the shipwreck of the Ferry 'Bancinu' which broke off from its moorings and was wrecked.  The night-watchman trapped on the ship sadly drowned when caught below deck,

​Mgarr now has a new Harbour Terminal which includes underground parking and new berthing facilities and there are also plans to offer berthing facility for Cruise Liners near the south breakwater. The  number of passengers passing through Mgarr has increased from a few thousands a year in mid-1950s to over three million during the beginning of the twenty first century.

HTMS Pin Klao (413) photographed in Hua Hin Thailand on 1 August 2016.

​She was originally built for the US Navy as the USS Hemminger (DE 746) a Cannon Class Escort Destroyer built during World War II. She was launched on 12 September 1943 by the Western Pipe & Steel Company in San Francisco, California and commissioned into the fleet on 30 May 1944.

She reached Pearl Harbour in August 1944 to train submarines, patrol between Pearl and Eniwetok and undertake hunter killer and anti-submarine operations.

​In April 1945 she escorted a resupply convoy to Okinawa and during May and June 1945 she acted as a screen for a carrier group. In September 1945 she was detatched from the Pacific Fleet and undertook training operations out of Green Cove Florida before being put into reserve on 17 June 1946.​Recomissioned on 1 December 1950 she undertook local operations along the US coastline with reserve training visits to Europe and South America.

​She we decommissioned at New York Naval Shipyard on 21 February 1959 and then loaned to the Royal Thai Navy on 22 July 1959. 

​Displacement  is 1,260t and she is 93m long with a 11.23m beam and 3.56m draft.

Propulsion =4 × GM Mod. 16-278A diesel engines with electric drive, 6,000 shp (4,474 kW), 2 screws.

Speed =21 knots and a range of 10,800 nm at 12 kn. 

Complement = 15 officers and 201 enlisted.

Armament was originally

• 3 × single Mk.22 3"/50 calibre guns 
• 3 × twin 40mm Mk 1 AA guns
• 8 × 20mm Mk 4 AA gunss
• 3 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
• 1 × hedgehog Mk 10 anti-submarine mortar
• 8 × Mk.6 depth charge projectors
• 2 × Mk.9 depth charge tracks

Pin Klao leads four other Royal Thai Naval Vessels during a training exercise

An assortment of fishing vessels photographed in Ban Phe, Thailand on 21 August 2015.

​Ban Phe is about 126 miles South of Bangkok and is Rayong’s major fishing community and offers a wide range of fresh and preserved seafood.

We took a very slow tourist ferry from here to Ko Samet where we spent the day.

The ferry had two decks and initially I sat upstairs but even though the sea was calm the vessel wallowed at the slightest wave, seemed top heavy and about to capsize at any moment.

It didn't and at no time did the crew seems alarmed but I was glad to get back to dry land.

Padgate Station photographed on a cold 13 January 2017.

​It is located close to the village of Padgate on the line between Warrington and Manchester.

It was built by the Cheshire Lines Railway Company to their traditional design and was opened on 1 September 1873, today it is unmanned although still in use.