Shipbucket

This is another installment in my series of alternate continuations of classic ocean liners' careers. The first installment was the SS Cap Arcona survives WWII and is transferred to the Compagnie Générale Sud-Atlantique: http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... =14&t=6297

The next alternate ship history I will do, as the thread's title implies is the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Große of the Norddeutscher Lloyd. In this timeline, the ship is not sunk in combat with HMS Highflyer. She is ordered back to Germany and stays there as a barracks ship in the port of Kiel for the entirety of the war. Of course the allies seize the Kaiser after the war and, not having a place in any of the premier transatlantic shipping companies' fleets she is sold to the Navigazione Generale Italiana. While she would be considered obsolete in any of the north atlantic passenger fleets, on the more southerly Genoa-New York route, she is one of the most sought after ships. After extensive refits she reemerges in 1921 as the SS Giuseppe Garibaldi. The interiors are transformed to a masterpiece of Italian neoclassical design and her power plant is converted to oil fueled steam turbines, boosting her top speed to a swift 24 knots. The most noticeable exterior differences are the new livery of black and white funnels, the white band around the top deck of the hull, and the addition of an enclosed portion of the promenade deck. Otherwise, her noble silhouette is unchanged and she becomes a symbol of Italian pride. She embarks from Genoa on her maiden voyage on April 16, 1921 with calls in Marseille and and Gibraltar before reaching New York nine days later. This is the beginning of a prosperous career in the service of her new owners which lasts until 1933 with the introduction of the Rex and Conte di Savoia. She is put on cruising duty but, her engines prove uneconomical and her interiors stuffy and out of style. Even so, she manages to turn a small profit by servicing an older, wealthy, retired clientèle on her winter cruises around the Mediterranean and those of the summer season mostly to the Norwegian fjords. She is demobbed and eventually scrapped in 1938, ending an over forty year life as one of the most successful ocean liners in history.



P.S. I use GIMP and the text function is being weird so I couldn't edit the credit line or the ship name, country, etc. in the top right corner of the template, so I just erased all of it. It shouldn't be a problem since this is just a fun exercise and will not be on the database, but so you think I'm trying to steal credit, the original artist was WhyMe.

Awesome job and story! Can't wait to see what you come up with next!

_________________

MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Nice work, may try Paint.net for the crediting... its free and offers a lot of fonts in antialiasing

_________________
best regards
Martin

~~Normerr~~FD stuff~~

Hi tsd,

Very nice looking ship!

If you're interested, the "official" SB font is in the signature below, should be able to cut-and-paste the requisite characters if you prefer.

Regards,
Adam

_________________
Public Service Announcement: This is the preferred SB / FD font.

NSWE: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5695

Looks good! I also agree with the use of paint.net. I've used it a couple of times myself and it is very nice, but I prefer PaintXP still.

_________________
Salide - Denton - The Interrealms

I am not very active on the forums anymore, but work is still being done on my AUs. Visit the Salidan Altiverse Page on the SB Wiki for more information. All current work is being done on Google Docs.
If anyone wishes for their nations to interact with the countries of the Salidan Altiverse, please send me a PM, after which we can further discuss through email.

Did you only repaint her funnels (basically!)? or did you do other changes? I think a fairly old vessel (by 1921) as KWdG would've been substantially rebuilt - quite possibly and probably involving increasing her passenger carrying capacity - especially if sold to, in this case to NGI which was known as a huge emigrant shipping company. As shown in your drawing, she'd be of precious little practical worth to that company.

_________________
My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

Thanks to everyone for their compliments and suggestions.
Thank you Bezobrazov for your constructive criticism. As for the question of capacity, I looked into these concerns as I was preparing for this small project. She actually could carry over 1,000 emigrants in steerage. This would be welcomed by a mainly emigrant-carrying shipping line to supplement their existing ships. However, with her luxury and large capacity for first and second class passengers, she would serve perfectly for a line trying to break into the upper ranks of passenger shipping on the Atlantic. I am thinking about adding another installment into this particular alternate history around the Great Depression in which NGI adds cargo masts and reduces the steerage capacity to try to maintain a profit with the aging ship (the loss of the steerage capacity is not important because of the 1922 American immigration laws). Another possibility is for the Giuseppe Garibaldi to be converted into at least a part-time cruise ship (also around the time of the Great Depression) with greater and modernized first and second class accommodation and reduced emigrant carrying capacity as the 1922 immigration laws in the US would have significantly cut into NGI's business. Which of these possibilities do you think is more probable? I also think my original retirement date of 1938 is a bit late and will probably move it up 3-5 years.
P.S. These alternate histories of ocean liners are not intended to be huge projects, but rather entertaining exercises, so don't be offended if I don't change a huge amount from the original drawing.