Pianos at Sea

[pryan2]

Hi Bob,

First of all, Congratulations on your nuptials.  Wish you a long and happy
life together.  I service cruise ship pianos on the East coast of Florida.
A buddy of mine and I service three cruise lines every weekend.  Each ship
has about five or six pianos aboard and they have them tuned at least every
other week.  Some want them tuned every week.  We find that the pianos are
usually pretty new and in good shape, with some pedal adjustment and broken
string replacements needed.  Most of the ships have Yamaha C1, C3 and C6's
usually bought in Geneva.  Others have Steinways from Hamburg.  Bad part of
the job is that the ships  only come into port on weekends and then only for
part of the day.  We have to get in, tune two or three pianos a piece and
get off before 4:00 pm or we will have to fly back from Mexico or some other
enchanted island.  Also, calypso music is piped in all over the ship while
the passengers are boarding.  Makes it an interesting job!

Phil Ryan
Miami Beach
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----- Original Message -----
From: "robert goodale" <rrg@nevada.edu>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2000 1:02 AM
Subject: Pianos at Sea


> A bit more about the honeymoon cruise...
>
> We sailed on the ELATION, an 855 foot cruising vessel weighing
> 70,367 gross tons empty and a total passenger and crew capacity
> of nearly 3,500 persons.  There are a total of thirteen decks,
> three of which are reserved for the crew and technical.
>
> While on the ship we counted eight pianos, (if I remember
> correctly), located in various entertainment, dining, and
> drinking establishments on board.  All were Yamahas.  At least
> two that I saw were equipped with Disclavier systems and at least
> two I noted had PianoDisc systems installed.  I only heard the
> PianoDisc units playing and unfortunately they were dreadfully
> out of regulation so what came out wasn't all that pretty.  All
> of the pianos had their legs secured by steal sleeves that where
> anchored to the deck to prevent them from moving around should
> the ship encounter rough seas.  (That would be an interesting
> sight if they were being played at the time).
>
> The pianos seemed to be in decent tune so I assume they are
> serviced regularly.  I would guess this is done in San Pedro,
> (LA), since that is the origination port of each cruise.  I never
> got a real close hand look at the instruments but I could imagine
> that there was probably some degree of rust on the strings due to
> the salt air.  I did notice that at least one piano had what
> appeared to be a DamppeChaser dryer unit.
>
> Does anyone know who the tech is that services these
> instruments?  Does anyone on this list service cruise ship
> pianos?  I would imagine that there are probably some interesting
> piano tech problems in this kind of environment.  Servicing these
> would seem to me like an interesting contract.
>
> Rob Goodale, RPT
> Las Vegas, NV
>
>