Shipcards

This postcard depicts Messoudie', an Ottoman Turkish warship. It was postmarked CONSTANTINOPLE on 2 December 1908 through the German post office there. Written on 2nd December in Cospoli, and sent to Mms. H. Herrmann in Immenstadt, Bavaria. The writer says they passed without quarantine, and he hopes to be home before the new year.

Here are a few more, mostly of Great Lakes steamers. I've got some battleships I'd like to post next, once I can get back to scanning.

Here's a French battleship (I think) in a Brest shipyard, either being built or repaired. This would be WWI era -- can anyone identify her?

Okay, some more battleships! A couple of these are from the Great White Fleet, I believe.

The USS Massachusetts, USS Topeka, USS Arkansas, and the USS Ranger.

Here are 3 ship postcards free to anyone who is interested. The back side of the "3 ship" card is also posted. If you want them, just send me your snail mail address.

Time to bump this topic. Here are some riverboats!

A favorite thread.. Lots of shipping of lumber in the early day of logging the redwood empire. It was in fact the only way the get the redwood lumber form the north coast to San Francisco. No train connection until 1911. Millions of board feet of lumber were shipped to San Francisco. But I've already shown most of the working ships, these are just ships. Although the first card is the Ferry Mendocino.




























And lastly, two ships in fresh water, one at Lake Tahoe and the last at Crater Lake, Ore.

Now you have me wondering about the term "Tramp steamer" -- any idea what it means?

Possibly steamers with out contracts, sent into Eureka with a shipment, looking to pick up additional cargo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramp_trade

I found this postcard of the RMS Aquitania on eBay. Despite the poor condition of the stamp, I had to buy it for reasons of family history. Like the writer of this postcard, my maternal grandmother was an Armenian immigrant who came to America on the Aquitania in 1924.

In Phil's cards, RE: Noyo River, Ft. Bragg, Ca
There's a working ship. The structure on the bluff had a line run out to the ship offshore. Bundles of cut lumber (or logs) were what was being shipped out. They were hung from the line and gravity took it to the ship. Tedious and slow, but if there's no place to land and no railroad access close by, that's how it was done. Note the foreground beach where the cut lumber that was lost washed up.

Good eye hy-brasil. This was called a wire trapeze , they are using steam to power and control the fall of the load of milled lumber, and stop the load above the deck of the anchored ship.
They also loaded passengers using a similar method.




Here is another card showing a better view of the wire rope and the empty trapeze coming back up to get another unit of lumber.




In this photo the ship is being loaded with slide chutes, a very dangerous method! A man sat on the end of that chute and operated a hinged board to slow the decent of the pieces of lumber coming down the chute.




This last photo shows the SS Pomona tied up between the Point Arena pier and Baker's slide chute. Shows the construction of the chute.

Hi all,

I found these 2 today....




And....



I hope they are OK!

Cheers

Those are both great cards, Laurie! What makes them even more interesting is they have Seapost cancellations and they are both Private Mailing Cards, printed before the term "postcard" was officialized by the U.S. Post Office.

I have a few more battleships to add ...