Southampton Shipwatch 26: MSC Opera – Musings of a curious individual

This shipwatch was originally a short one because I only had a short glimpse of the ship in question and was hoping to get better pics of her at a later date. MSC Opera was scheduled to arrive at QEII on the 18th of May at 07H30. And, when I got there at of 07H00 she was already alongside. This is the resulting image:

I was not able to photograph her sailing either, as I was out gallivanting. She is scheduled here again on the 25th, so hopefully I will be able to get more images then. The Opera is one of the Lyrica class ships, and as far as I recall they were loosely based on the Grand Mistral that was in Southampton this past week. Until I can get better images though this is all I can say about Opera.

Arrival 25/05/2013

And, as promised MSC Opera arrived just before 07H30 on 25 May. The last of 5 ships scheduled for the day. She also arrived as the weather turned, so the one set of pics are in cloud, the other in partial sunlight.

Compared to the bulk of QM2 she is small, and I was looking for that resemblance to Grand Mistral in her too.

The major difference that gives her a bit of an edge is that she has been built up above the bridge and around the stern, and has a not too awful funnel. She is not quite as square as I expected.