On the Waterfront: Variety among cruise visitors

The visit last Friday by the 77,441gt Sun Princess that marked 50 years of calls to this harbour by international cruise ships, could not have happened at a more appropriate time in the cruise ship calendar.

Radiance of the Seas was in the previous day, Diamond Princess on Saturday, Sea Princess and Volendam yesterday, and today the smaller Australian-registered Oceanic Discoverer makes a return visit to Dunedin.

These six vessels entered service over the period 1995-2005 and are all purpose-built cruise ships.

Unlike them, Seven Seas which introduced cruises by overseas vessels to the local scene when it berthed at Dunedin on December 23, 1961, had been built in 1940 as a cargo vessel and was taken over by the US Navy and converted into the prototype escort carrier.

Later postwar service as an emigrant ship was followed by carrying passengers across the North Atlantic and the odd cruise. Its final years were spent as a floating hostel in Rotterdam.

There were also other vessels that brought passengers here on cruises that were not built for that role. The American-owned sisters Mariposa (built 1952) and Monterey (1953), seen here from 1974-77, were built as fast Mariner-type cargo ships. Both were converted to passenger vessels in 1956.

The 1955-built Switzerland was an interesting visitor to Port Chalmers on January 12, 1996.

Conversion into a cruise liner altered the vessel's appearance completely from the two visits made to Dunedin on January 25, 1968, and June 22, 1970, when it was serving the Port Line as Port Sydney. The vessel is still in service as the Madeira-registered Princess Daphne.

Visiting Port Chalmers on January 5, 1997, was the smaller 3095gt Caledonian Star. Built as a fish factory stern trawler in 1966, it was converted into a 110-berth cruise ship in 1983.

And the 8282gt Song of Flower, which made visits to both Dunedin and Port Chalmers early in 2000, and could carry 265 passengers, was converted in 1983 from a Ro/Ro cargo vessel built in 1974.

First visitor to Port Chalmers on December, 27, 1962, was Orion, on a one-off cruise from Australia. Operated by P&O-Orient Lines, the turbine steamer had been built for the Orient Lines UK-Australia passenger service in 1935.

There have also been local visits by classic liners of the past that have switched to cruising in later life. One of these, Fairstar from the P&O fleet, commenced life in 1957 as the Bibby Lines troop ship Oxfordshire.

And from the same fleet, Fair Princess was one of four passenger-cargo liners built for Cunard's Canadian service.

Completed in 1956 as Carinthia, Sylvania that followed in 1957, turned up here on February 6, 2001, as Albatros (spelt with only one s).

A number of the older interesting ships that were seen here have gone for scrap. Some that were not so old were forced to go down that path as it would have been too costly to bring them into line with current Safety of Life at Sea regulations.

But still soldiering on, despite its age, as Athena and registered also at Madeira, is the vessel that was here in February 1996, and again 12 months later as Italia Prima. The first postwar passenger liner to be completed, it entered service in February 1948, as Stockholm and made headline news when it collided with and sank the much larger Italian passenger liner Andrea Doria off Nantucket in July 26, 1956.

Another interesting visitor in February 2003, and again in October 2006, was The World, the world's first residential ship, in 2002.

The arrival of Oceanic Discoverer at Dunedin today brings the total of local cruise ship visits since December 1961, to 621. Of these, Dunedin's share has been 119 visits by 15 ships, two of which were back under other names. Of the 78 ships that have visited Port Chalmers, 11 made visits under different names.

 

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