Page 14: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 1989)

OUTSTANDING PASSENGER VESSELS OF 1988

ALEXANDRIA BELLE

Blount Marine

In 1988, busy passenger boat builder Blount Marine Corporation of Warren, R.I., delivered the 87- foot replica steam paddlewheeler

Alexandria Belle to Uncle Sam

Tours of Alexandria Bay, N.Y.

The third vessel to have been built by Blount for the Combined 1000 Island Boat Tours' Uncle Sam

Tours, the Alexandria Belle is pow- ered by a pair of Detroit Diesel 8V71 diesel engines to speeds of about 10 knots. The 87-foot day/dinner ex- cursion boat has a beam of 32 feet 2 inches, depth of 8 feet and loaded draft of 4 feet 8 inches. Cruising the

St. Lawrence Seaway, the replica

Mississippi steam paddlewheeler

Alexandria Belle offers her passen- gers panoramic views of the islands of the popular Thousand Islands region of Upstate New York.

The 400-passenger excursion boat has dining facilities on her main and upper deck and outside seating on her bridge deck. Manned by a crew of up to 25, the Alexandria Belle has

Photos (clockwise from top left): Nils Dacke;

Eagle; Annabel Lee; and West Virginia Belle. 16 a potable water capacity of 515 gal- lons and a fuel capacity of 1,122 gal- lons. Her special features include a non-propulsive stern wheel and ro- tating lift/lower bow ramp for easy passenger boarding/disembarking operations.

She offers a variety of live enter- tainment on her three-hour cruises, including dinner and comedy cruises.

ALEXANDRIA BELLE

Equipment List

Main engines (2) Detroit Diesel

Reduction gears Capito

Engine controls Morse

Generators (2) Lister/Petter

Generator control panel Murphy

Steering system Wagner

Bilge pump JABSCO

Fire pump Gorman-Rupp

Radar Furuno

VHF radiotelephone Raytheon

Engine monitors Murphy

Horn Kahlenberg

Searchlight Ray-Line

AMORELLA

Brodosplit

In 1988, Yugoslavian shipbuilder

Brodosplit delivered the 37,500-gt

Amorella, the first of two new gener- ation Baltic cruise ferries, to owners

SF Line for operation by Viking

Line on the Turku-Mariehamn-

Stockholm service route.

The 2,200-passenger-capacity fer- ry, which also can accommodate 620 cars/53 trucks, has an overall length of 555-1/2 feet, breadth of 90-1/2 feet, depth of 28 feet and draft of 19-1/2 feet. With a deadweight of 2,800 metric tons, the Amorella is powered by four SEMT Pielstick-

Jadranbrod 12PC2-6V/400E diesel engines rated at 7,965 hp each. The 12-deck vessel, which has 565 pas- senger cabins, can reach speeds in excess of 21 knots.

The order for the Amorella and her sister ship, which is expected to be delivered in the spring of next year, represented an important breakthrough into the passenger ferry building sector for Brodosplit and the Yugoslavian shipbuilding industry.

One outstanding feature of the

Amorella is that 90 percent of her passengers will have berths, whereas current generation Baltic ferries on the route provide only about 60 per- cent of the passengers with berths.

The outfitting of the Amorella's public spaces was subcontracted to

Danish company Aalborg Vaerft.

BAY LADY

Service Marine

In the first quarter of 1988, Mor- gan City, La.-based boatbuilder Ser- vice Marine Industries delivered the elegant 600-passenger cruise boat

Bay Lady to operator Baltimore

Harbor Bay Tours, Ltd., Baltimore,

Md., for dinner cruise/excursion service on the Chesapeake Bay.

The sleek 140-foot-long vessel has a yacht-like hull shape and is de- signed for luxury harbor cruising.

Her interior features fine appoint- ments throughout, including custom bars with back lighting, polished brass fixtures and teakwood ac- cents. A sophisticated atmosphere is created by the use of mirrors and an excellent sound system. Passengers are kept comfortable by 60 tons of

Carrier air conditioning, and out- side glare is reduced by the use of tinted glass.

The Bay Lady, a sub-chapter T vessel, is powered by a pair of Cum- mins 300-hp NT-855 diesel engines.

The diesels, which were supplied by

Cummins Mid-South, Morgan City,

La., are fitted with Nelson exhaust silencers to reduce engine noise.

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