I’ve been asked, I would paint the BI ship “Chintala”. ~ Chantala ~ I have a phone call coming in later today asking ?

I have painted quite a few BI ships including one for Robin Knox-Johnston who started his amazing career and adventures on Dumra.

You can see examples of my merchant ship marine paintings on web page

http://www.frickers.co.uk/marine-art/shipping.html

This page includes Dumra painted for Robin Knox-Johnston who said after commissioning the now famous painting Roaring Forties, “I’d love another Frickers painting ” and bless him was true to his word hence Dumra and The Clipper Way.

Do you think this enquirer means the BI ship Chantala or Chintala?

This gentleman wrote that his father sailed with the British India Steam Navigation Company Ltd.

I have 2 good books on BI, one book  book lists:

1. Chantala 1920 – 1941 – P.26, 149

2. Chantala, 0950 – 1971 P. 26, 190 ~ carried 31 cadets ands deck crew, 12 passengers,

Built Barclay Curle, launched Sept 49, delivered as a cadet ship with her sister Chandpara, she was intended to vary her routes so had only had 13,000 c f of refrigerated space.

Chantala introduced the Company Britannia badge on her soft stem which became traditional to the last BI  ships.

There was great rivalry between the 2 cadet ships so the company took care that they never berthed in the same port together.. Stories and anecdotes of the cadets are legion, mostly growing with time and watering.

Chantala was in her early years employed Britain – Australia

In ‘59 both ships were altered to carry 52 cadets.

And employed on the East and South Africa and Indian routes

Both sister ships were sold Apr ‘71 to Pacific International Lines Ltd of Singapore Chantala became Kota Sentosa, scrapped 1974 by China National Metals.

Related web sites include:

http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/bisn.html

http://www.biship.com/

http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=1071623

http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/allbi.html

http://www.rakaia.co.uk/downloads/chantala-data.pdf

If you know any other good related sites kindly let me know, thanks, Gordon.

I am a marine artist who at one time worked for for several years to help raise funds and interest HMS Victory, hence the link.
I carried a letter of introduction from the then commander of HMS Victory, Michael Cheshire and worked closely with Peter Goodwin the keeper and curator of HMS Victory.

You can see my work at www.frickers.co.uk including much on the battle of Trafalgar and Admiral Nelson themes.

In particular see pages related to http://www.frickers.co.uk/marine-art/war_ships.html

A mate in the Royal Naval Air Service forwarded this email to me:
Michael Ellis <slovpro@hotmail.com>

A message from Nipper Ellis (64 / 67) For the past 4 yrs my retired neighbour, Bob Pearce, has been making a scaled down model of HMS VICTORY.
Sadly, due to personal circumstances he needs to sell it on.

This ship model of HMS Victory is a wonderful model that would adorn any study / sitting room, indeed, form a backdrop to a restaurant, pub or similar establishment.

Dimensions: Actual Ship: 51ins x 35ins x 17ins.

The Display Case with hood and internal lighting: 52.5ins x 42.5 inchs x 19ins
He is asking £1200 ovno.

If you are interested either send me an email or call Bob on 020 8580 4543.
Thans
(Nipper Ellis)

Anytime you spot a problem with this site, please be kind enough to report the issue to us, thank you. info@frickers.co.uk should do the trick.

We listen to and value your experience and feed back.

The “further reading”  pages share with you some of the notes from Gordon Frickers often extensive research and additional info sent to us by visitors to this site many of whom become  our friends.

In turn this makes our site more interesting and helpful to mother people, a resource.

This all be it modest form of net working has seen several worth while achievements including playing a role in saving the Sail Training ketch Tectona from dereliction http://www.frickers.co.uk/marine-art/tectona_bolt_head.html and bringing together scattered relations and people of similar interests as in the case of Waterwitch off Gribben Head http://www.frickers.co.uk/marine-art/waterwitch.html which in turn has resulted in one of our best selling Prestige Editions.

Have you relevant facts and or stories to contribute?

Problems encountered when  trying to upgrade the image quality of this picture on the web site.

I have been unable to save larger images than about 22KB.  Anything larger crashes both my PC’s

This web site page file (http://www.frickers.co.uk/marine-art/mauretania.html) has it’s origins in 1999, not long after we started building my original web site.

I have also added  re written, improved title, nugget etc. to our database for my web master to upload as soon as he can.

The reason for our image download problems  might be poor down loading by Itzac wifi during periods of high pressure. What do you think please?
Are the attached images of sufficient quality for the website, scale of 1 t0 10, 10 being best?
What image size is prefered for the web site?
Ref: pc screens, I am getting a very significant difference between my old PC with a 17″ old style monitor and the new PC with a new 22″ flatscreen.

Who knows a way to have all our screens compatable?
We have also learnt to beware  image quality deteriorating in M/S Paint or similar popular programs.

For the moment we can  work on a copy, keeping the original.
At least until we find some soft wear that can match our screens but where the what the who the???
It must exist, we can’t be the first with this problem?

This is a very common web site problem if one is to judge by the poor image quality of many other pictorial web sites.

By the way, there are at least 2 “official” spellings of Mauretania / Mauritania. I hope I have chosen the same one Cunard Line usually use?

This is a site one can still visit.

While there is next to nothing left of the yard proper, one can still plainly see outlines of the old quays, docks and dry docks, saw pits etc.
A remarkable relic of pre industrial revolution merchant ship building.
Does this make this site unique in Britain?
Should the site have a conservation order placed on it and if so by whom?

Our interest in the site stems from a long and treasured friendship with Geoff Trebilcock the history of which included his late father commissioning me to paint research and paint
<”Rhoda Mary” and “Katie Cluett”>
A Dispute Settled
You can visit our Print Gallery to see this painting at www.frickers.co.uk/prints

You can  add this remarkable, atmospheric picture of the 2 crack schooners “going for it” to your Prestige collection print, order now  from this page and pay securely using Paypal http://www.frickers.co.uk/prints.html

The Katie Cluett was built at the nearby Port of Fowey where the Royal Fowey Yacht Club now stands.
At Loe Beach near Feock , near the place Rhoda Mary was built is the grave of William Ferris, her builder and Geoff’s ancestor.
The inscription reads:
William Ferris (shipbuilder) Died 20th June 1921 aged 88 years. Joanna died May 9th 1903 aged 69. Gone but not forgotten.
Gordon Frickers visited the grave with his friend and shipmate of many years Mr. Trebilcock.
When asked what William would make of the attention to his ship after all these years, Mr. Trebilcock a descendant of William Ferris replied “I think he would be very surprised”.
Gordon during his years living at Falmouth got to know several of the Ferris and Trebilcock clan, racing against and sometimes sailing with the late Henry Ferris when they were all members of Restronguet Sailing Club.

Henry Ferris was a delight to be with, very Cornish. My guess is William was not very different to Henry. A former Mosquito pilot, it was said he was so short he had to sit on cushions to see out of his fighter bomber! After the war, Henry became a school teacher, friend of many and very fine helmsman”.

Do you know more on the above subjects? If you do, we would like to hear from you, thanks.

also took a great series of photos of QE 2 at Plymouth on VE Day in 1995.

In the latter case, in those days my family and I were  very active member of the Royal Plymouth Corinthian Yacht Club.
The club played a significant part in the VE Day celebrations including hosting many V.I.P.’s and flying Nelson’s most famous signal (England expects…).

The RPCYC kindly provided me with a launch and very willing crew.
QE 2 was moored in Plymouth Sound, a beautiful setting, on a beautiful day. A great photographic opportunity.

On the previous occasion I’d been invited by Cunard line to be a celebrity guest to sail on QE 2  to demonstrate marine painting techniques to QE 2’s other guests and give a lecture (I still have the notes!).
It was a very memorable voyage in many ways, thank you Cunard and the good people in the agency who set  the project up.
I was encourage to take my wife and we were generously put on deck 1 and nourished in the best restaurant, “The Queen’s Grill”.
Knowing there were many very bright people onboard, I turned the “lecture” into what became a popular interactive talk.
Some of the friendships made on that voyage still endure.

My previous experience of Cunard was limited to painting a night scene of their famous record holder, “Mauretania” http://www.frickers.co.uk/marine-art/mauretania.html, available direct from our page http://www.frickers.co.uk/prints.html as a limited edition.

There was an entire restaurant dedicated to Mauretania including a splendid quality large model of her onboard QE2.

It never featured one of my prints though, nor did the onboard shops. I don’t go to the right cock tail parties!

Do you know decision makers in Cunard?

It’s worth a free complementary copy, please put us in touch. It would be mutually beneficial and the guests would love the prints.

So why post the Queen?

Because of a friendship started in 1989 when I was part of a group who visited Miami and the port to view and officially visit some of the great cruise liners.
Among others I was fortunate to become a friend of Bob Lenzer.
Bob who lives in land locked Dallas, Texas.

He is some thing of an authority on cruise ships and liners.

Bob Lenzer is very knowledgeable, you can read an example of his work http://www.frickers.co.uk/marine-art/norway_miami.html

Bob is currently writing a book on Queen Elizabeth 2.
Thus we have agreed he can use any of my photographs in return “for a generous credit” (and a few beers if ever we meet again).

I might even be persuaded to make a painting for his book.

I tend to the view, a good painting always finds a buyer eventually hence my very comprehensive gaurantee on my web site ( http://www.frickers.co.uk/blog/how-to-order/).

If you have QE 2 memories and photos particularly taken onboard, I am quietly confident Bob will be pleased to hear from you.

Bob Lenzer can be contacted here via info@frickers.co.uk.

Would you like to contribute anecdotes or photos for possible inclusion in Bob Lenzer’s new book on QE2?