Building a more modern "Southern Seas" II - cruiseship

• The new "Southern Seas" (II) was built and completed in 1977, at the Disney Central Shops and Drydock. When it was christened, everyone who worked on building the ship, got to ride on her first maiden voyage, with passengers. Group Photos were taken for the Disney "Eyes & Ears" newsletter. During the earlier sea trials, it was revealed that this was a very fast ship, capable of going at a top speed of 7.5 knots on the large lakes. At flank speed, the Seas' side-paddlewheels could put out a killer wake, a wavical flow of moving water behind it, which has been known to be able to capsize the small speedboats that the guests can rent from the resort marinas. Of course, we rarely ever needed to go that fast with the Southern Seas. The side-paddlewheels are the sole means of propulsion for the ship. There are no propellers, like on the Ferryboats, and other Disney watercraft vessels.



• The "Gallows A-Frame walking beam engine" from the first "Seas" was saved and put into the superstructure of the new "Seas". However, it was just for show, since the new ship required no steam boiler. Instead, she had a Model 3406 Caterpillar 6-cylinder diesel engine to crank her 55 kw Kato AC electric generator (made in Mankato, MN.), which supplied propulsion power to her two 75 hp. electric drive motors and reduction gearboxes, one in each of the side-paddlewheel housings. The Randtronics power distribution circuit control panel, regulated the distribution of all motive power dynamically (as it varies), as well as onboard electrical power loads for the ship. The new Seas was a wonderful looking ship, and great for doing charter cruises. At 150 tons, she was much larger than her two Osceola-class predecessors. The ship's capacity was about 250 passengers. Life jackets were stowed in brown storage boxes underneath the seats.



• There was a design problem that emerged later. Because the ship had been built with a steel hull, and an aluminum superstructure, this made the ship lighter than expected, which was good, but the bad part of that meant the ship sat 6" higher up, out of the water. This meant that the side-paddlewheels and the rudder's surface area were not "treading" as much water as it should have. A ship must be able to manuever fast enough in the Channel, where all the ships had to go slowly, at "No Wake" speed. While maneuvering at one-quarter speed, and steering a series of tight turns, the Southern Seas was really slow to come about. It took 3-seconds to response to the helm. The Watercraft pilot on duty had to steer the ship's brass tiller wheel (and rudder), at the same time, while working the throttles, which were built into the authentic brass "telegraph" stanchion, located behind the pilot while he or she is steering and looking ahead. When setting the throttles, the rpm's of each side-paddlewheel had to be set equally, or the ship would shutter and vibrate a bit, from an imbalance in the force of the propulsion motors, turning the side-paddlewheels.

EPCOT opens and forever changes things on the Lakes -

• The Southern Seas (II) operated in regular service from 1977, until WDW's second theme park, EPCOT Center opened during Oct. 1, 1982. After that, the heavy guest traffic that was once centralized up in the northern part of Walt Disney World's property, was now being split up amongst the two parks, and by Sept. of 1982, attendence had dropped off for the World Cruise to Discovery Island, and the nightly Moonlight Cruise. It seems the guests now had a second, newer, and bigger theme park to visit, so the two Cruise budgets were cut out, and the Southern Seas saw less action as a mode of guest pleasure transportation. There was even less boat rental activity at the resort hotel marinas, and less mini-speedboats (Watersprites, or Aqua Larks), buzzing around on the lakes, which was a shame, since they add to the overall ambiance of the water.
  
  
  
• However, the Southern Seas did remain very active, as part of the Convention Sales Dept.'s charter cruise package. The Convention Sales Dept. Office was based at the Contemporary Resort, on the often hard to find "Third Floor" office area. Many of the charters involved the exact same activity profiles as the Moonlight Cruise events did. Pick-up the conventioneers at either The Contemporary Resort marina dock, from one of the other resort docks, or from the front of the Magic Kingdom. Sometimes it was just a convention group pick-up and drop-off charter. They were always fun to do, and very challenging. Guests always enjoyed the excursions on the lakes, and watching us operate the ships. The Southern Seas and the other watercraft vessels all made excellent viewing platforms for taking photographs, as well as watching the "Fantasy In the Sky" fireworks shows from the theme park, and viewing NASA space shuttle launches on the horizon, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, located just 50 miles away.
  
  
  
• During 1996, the Southern Seas saw even less use, due to the fact that she was in great need of another general rehab. This involves sandblasting and repainting the white hull, re-doing the varnish, or replacing the wooden mohogany handrails, and sanding off her teak deck. But neither the Watercraft Dept., nor the Convention Sales Dept. could really justify such an enormous expense again, so the ship was kept at its berth in Drydock for the next year. Sometime during 1997, she was raised out of the water, and rolled back onto the "hill", behind Drydock. Finally, the decision was handed down, and the Southern Seas was turned over to the scrappers, using an outside demolition contractor to carry out the grim task.