[pompeyfan]

ARCADIA THE FIRST 21 YEARS

PART ONE

The following informaton is from the Special Commemorative Issue of ARCADUS the ships crew newspaper on her 21st birthday published on board on Sunday 12th May 1974. I took part in compiling this edition along with other crew. I was the shipping correspondent using the name Medic. So this series will be extracts from the Commemorative Issue, as well as my own articles known as ‘Ship Talk’.

When I realised that Arcadia was soon to be 21, I suggested to her master, Captain A.H.W Dallas that we have a party. He had not realised she was soon to be 21, and thought it a great idea, putting the wheels in motion, causing myself and a few others a lot of writing and research.

The word Arcadia comes from the Greek Arkadia, a region of the Peloponnese, which as a place of simple pleasure and quiet, the ideal of rural felicity and pastoral simplicity. The Arcadia of the Ancient Greece was often chosen as the background for pastoral poetry. The native of Arcadia was known to be the one who led a quiet and simple life.

Fred the Bread, who many former Arcadia crew members may remember, produced a birthday cake which was displayed in the forward Library on the Promenade Deck on the day of her birthday. The cake represented about forty hours work. It was made up of marzipan, flour, sugar, mixed fruits and spices, eggs, brown almonds, Fred the Breads secret, plus half a bottle of rum, which totalled 55 pounds of material.

On Tuesday 14th May 1974, passengers were given a special menu.

THE BUILDING STORY

Arcadia built by John Brown and Co Clydebank at an estimated cost of £5 million on 14th May 1953, was launched by Mrs D.F. Anderson, wife of one of P&O’s Deputy Chairman.

Ships under construction at shipyards are seldom known by name, but from their works number, which simplifies the supply of parts and prevents confusion. Arcadia was 697.

She shared her birthplace with the Royal Yacht Britannia launched almost exactly a month earlier than Arcadia by Her Majesty The Queen.

Arcadia was designed for the United Kingdom/India/Ceylon/Australia service, with a passenger capacity of 670 first-class and 735 tourist-class (though these figures may vary slightly from different sources). That was 455 passengers over her total as of May 1974. Her crew totalled 778 in the beginning with 558 in May 1974.

Her original crew total included 12 Deck Cadets, 2 in May 1974. 38 Bell Boys was reduced to 16. But musicians, comprising the Entertainment Staff increased from four to about 40 confirming that cruise ships employed a far larger compliment of entertainers than ships plying line voyages.

On the same day at Barrow-in-Furness the opposition; Orient Lines Orsova was launched also bound for the UK/Australia service.

Arcadia’s gross tonnage was 29,871, 271ft long and 91ft breadth. Her single reduction turbines developing a maximum of 42,500 shaft horse power giving Arcadia a service speed of 22knots. The fresh water distilling plant was able to produce 500 tons of water daily. The hold carried a measurement of 153.813 cubic feet of refrigerated cargo space. It was estimated that as of her coming of age, Arcadia in excess of a quarter of a million passengers over a distance of two million miles.

Great efforts were made with Arcadia to incorporate into her design all the latest ideas and improvements. Her funnel, known as the ‘Clydebank’ funnel was designed especially by John Brown the builders and Thermotank Ltd, in who’s wind tunnel the smoke tests were carried out to carry the fumes well aft of the ship and prevent them falling on the after open decks. Arcadia’s funnel at the time of building and launching was something of a revolutionary design and it excited a good deal of comment.

If the funnel casing were empty three double deck busses could be driven through abreast. The casing itself weighed forty tons, and was measured together with the uptakes and all the fittings the weight was increased to 85 tons. New metals were also introduced in her building. All the ship’s ladders were constructed from an alloy which proved as strong as the old metal ladders in previous ships. Arcadia being the first P&O ship to try this new alloy material.

A waterline model of her hull was built for experiments on upper deck arrangements and how she would look at sea. A set of cabins were built ashore where various fittings, furniture and colour schemes were tried out, and the same model ideas were used on a mock up bathroom and shower.

For many weeks, prior to the launching of Arcadia special work gangs were called in to build the cradle on the sliding ways. One of the tasks of this work gang was the shoring up with great bulks of timber of the fore part of the ship to take the tremendous strain that it placed on the hull when the after end first becomes waterborne and the forward end is still pressing on the launch way.

After launching on 14th May 1953, Arcadia was fitted out at a berth in John Brown’s Clydebank yard, alongside the Royal Yacht Britannia. Arcadia’s internal work was behind schedule supposedly because of the direction of labour to the Royal Yacht as the priority job. Ultimately, Arcadia sailed on her maiden voyage to Australia carrying some 50 workmen, carpenters and plumbers, to complete her internal works. These workmen were paid for 24 hours, 7 days a week for the duration of the voyage.

On 20th January 1954, under the command of Commodore G C Forrest (who was her captain for the maiden voyage, and who remained in command until his retirement some two years later) she sailed to Liverpool where, in dry dock at Gladstone Dock, her Denny Brown stabilizers were fitted. She was the second P&O ship to be fitted with these fins, Chusan being the first.

From Liverpool, Arcadia returned once more to the Clyde where, off the famous Tail Of The Bank, she ran her acceptance trials.

Arcadia sailed on her maiden voyage from the Tilbury Landing stage on 22nd February 1954, bound for Port Said, Aden, Bombay, Colombo, Fremantle, Melbourne and Sydney, arriving in Sydney on 27th March, and later returning to England by the same route. Immigrants to Australia filled the Tourist Section of the ship.



THE COTSWOLD RESTAURANT

The mural decoration of classical subjects at the after end of the forward restaurant was entitled ‘Arcadia’ and represented the following:

1. Hercules decoration the Erymanthian Boar
2. Hercules and his friend the Centaur Chiron whom he accidentally shot.
3. Pan and the Nymphs
4. Artemis Goddess of Naples
5. Hercules subduing Mares of the Thracian Diomedes
6. Hercules capturing the Arcadian stag
7. Hercules destroying the Stymphalian Birds

Even in those days, P&O featured Artemis Goddess of Naples, now one of their cruise ships heading off on her first world cruise under her new name.

The painting on five sheets of glass at the forward end of the same restaurant depicted Hermes arriving at the town of Megaloppolis in the country of Arcadia. These paintings were by John Churchill.

Written at the time of cruising in 1974, this is what I wrote:. The public rooms have changed since her maiden voyage. To start with there was a Cinema on the starboard side of the (now) Camelot Room. The projection room was directly above on the Boat Deck. The Dorchester Room was known as the Verandah Café, and the Pool Bar, not so differently as the Pool Café. There was a dance space on the port side of the Cinema. The rest of the public lounges were named by function – Tourist Gallery, and Smoking Lounge – rather than the more evocative (now) Bell Inn and Raleigh Room respectively. Some things that stayed the same: Commodore Forrest, a sailing enthusiast, had a sailing dinghy manufactured in fibreglass on board. He allowed his officers to sail it. The dinghy was launched from the Captain’s Deck by hooks under the starboard Bridge wing being used as davits. One of the officers who doubtless took his turn at sailing Commodore Forrest’s boat was Deck Apprentice Foster – now Harbour Pilot at Fiji. It was he who piloted the ship in and out on our call on May 2nd this month, and he mentioned that he has been a cadet under Commodore Forest on her maiden voyage. Captain Dallas now has his own boat on board of course.

Another field where Arcadia has changed little is the cricket pitch. Our very active cricket teams on board at the moment are by no means a new thing. In July 1954 a ship’s team under the captaincy of First Officer J.M Chester played against Warsash School of Navigation. Our team reached the venue in one of the ships launches, and won the match by nine wickets. Whereupon the ‘Victory Carriage’, a 1925 Rolls Royce, drew up and bore away and assortment of 18 team and Warsash cadets – four of them on the roof – to sherry and dinner as guests of the College. The triumphal return to Arcadia at Southampton was once again by ships’ launch.