| 
Passenger ships
This page, along with the accompanying page of train photographs dates from a website built at a time when computer monitors were smaller. I am still working on them and missing images and header will appear shortly.
Around six months of my life has been spent on passenger ships,
not the floating hotels that are the modern cruise liner, but
working passenger liners plying regular trades on fixed routes
before the airlines put them out of business. |
| The P & O Ship
Mooltan, on which my family arrived from England in 1950.
We are pictured at left on the wharf at Fremantle with the
Mooltan in the background. I am the little chap at the left.
Photograph above is an official P & O postcard, while
the family shot was taken by an unknown local commercial
photographer. |
|
 |
Maloja, sistership
to the Mooltan, 20,837 grt, 600 ft, Harland & Wolff,
Belfast, 1924, Australia service, carrying 656 passengers.
Served as an armed merchant cruiser and troopship during
WWII, returning to passenger service in 1948, rebuilt to
carry 1,030 passengers. Scrapped 1954. |
| |
|
 |
Caledonien, Messageries Maritime, France.
Sydney-Marseilles, April 1970 |
The good ship Caledonien anchored
in the Marquesas Islands, south Pacific. Paradise! This ship and
her sister, the Tahitien, alternated on a regular monthly service
taking a leisurely two months to travel between Sydney and Marseilles.
I took one of the last voyages on the Caledonien in April 1970,
as an alternative to conscription and Vietnam.
For lots more on the Caledonien and her sistership Tahtien, go to caledonien.net. |
Caledonien - bows cutting through the Pacific,
in the Mediterranean, approaching Marseilles. |
Caledonien - afterdeck views ... no cruise
ship, this one. On the bridge at Papeete. |
The cheapest cabins were the dog kennels! |
Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 1969 |
Queen Mary at Southampton, 1966 and Queen Elizabeth
2 at Oslo, 1972. |
Queen Elizabeth 2 at Hobart, 1980s. |
Fairwelling friends on one of the Townsend-Thoresen
Free Enterprise ships at Calais, France, 1972, an island trader
at Papeete, French Polynesia, 1970, and a coastal cargo passenger
ship, Ege loading at the Black Sea port of Trabzon, Turkey, 1971. |
| Paddle-wheeler Maid
of the Loch, photographed at Balloch while still
in active service on Loch Lomond, Scotland, in 1971.
She was built in Glasgow in 1953 and taken out of service
in 1981, currently under restoration by volunteers.
Click on the image for a larger view.
|
|
 |
Bass Strait Ferry Abel Tasman |
| Abel Tasman,
formerly the 1975 German-built Scandinavian ferry Nils Holgersson,
replaced the barbaric Empress of Australia in 1985
on the Melbourne-Devonport run. Seen here on a show-off visit
to Hobart and loading at Station Pier, Melbourne. |
|
 |
Abel Tasman was replaced on the Bass Straight run from Melbourne to Devonport firstly with Spirit of Tasmania, which itself was subsequently replaced in 2002 by two sisterships Spirit of Tasmania I and II, formerly Greek ferries Superfast I and II. This photograph shows Spirit of Tasmania II preparing for departure at Devonport in June 2008.
The picture below shows Spirit of Tasmania I at Station Pier, Port Melbourne. |
RMS Arcadia, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company |
I made two journeys as a kid on this handsome
ship in 1958, between Australia and England. |
This ship from rival company the Orient Line
took me from Melbourne to Southampton in 1966. Seen here in Colombo
harbour, Ceylon. |
Shipboard views in the Indian Ocean. |
Old ships in new Chandris clothing ... |
Chandris Lines' Australis, previously United
States Lines' transatlantic liner America, leaving Fremantle in
early 1967. Much more about this ship may be found at Ken Ironside's
website. |
Chandris Lines' Regina Magna was originally
built in 1939 as Pasteur for French line Sudantlantique, was sold
in 1957 to German line Norddeutsche Lloyd who named it Bremen,
before selling it to Chandris in 1971. Seen here anchored in Stockholm
harbour, Sweden, in 1972. |
Chandris Lines' Queen Frederica was built
in 1927 as Malolo for US line Matson, who renamed her Matsonia
ten years later, before selling her to Home Lines in 1948 who
called her Atlantic. She was renamed Queen Frederica in 1954 when
operated by a Home Lines subsidiary, National Hellenic Lines,
who ran her until 1965 when she was purchased by Chandris. She
was finally scrapped in 1978. She is seen here in Fremantle, WA,
in 1967. |
Tugboat at work, a ship abandoned in the harbour
and the Italian liner Victoria. |
Sydney harbour, 1968-1970 ... |
MV Tjiwangi, built in 1950 for Dutch
Line, Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij, later Royal Interocean
Lines, at Wooloomooloo, 1970. |
|
 |
P & O's Himalaya passing the Sydney skyline
and partially completed Opera House in 1968. |
Naples and Melbourne in the 1960s ... |
Italia Line's superb Leonardo da Vinci (1960)
at Naples, 1966, and Royal Rotterdam Lloyd's Willem Ruys at Port
Melbourne, early 1960s. Willem Ruys was built in 1939 and later
became the Achille Lauro for Lauro Lines and as such she starred
in a famous hijacking in 1985. She finally caught fire and sank
in 1994 while on a cruise to Africa for Swiss owners. |
Promotional booklet for Willem Ruys depicting
scenes from shipboard life and places visited. |
Achille Lauro docked in Hobart in
the 1980s. |
Royal Viking Line's Royal Viking Sea
docked in Hobart in the 1980s. |
Australian and New Zealand ships |
The
second Monowai operated by New Zealand's Union Steam Ship
Company was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast as Razma
for P & O's Indian services, entering service in 1925. She was
transferred to P & O's company's New Zealand subsidiary in 1930
for use on the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, services to the US West Coast and
occasional Pacific cruising as well as troop carrying during WWII,
including the D-Day landings. Scrapped in 1960. Excellent detailed
website operated by the New
Zealand National Maritime Museum. |
|
The Westralia, built by Harland and Wolff, Glasgow,
launched in 1929, 8,108 grt, 448 ft, 450 passengers. Originally worked
as a refrigerated cargo ship and later as a passenger ship for
Huddart Parker of Melbourne on the Australian coastal and trans-Tasman
trade. Served as an armed merchant cruiser during WWII, then
a troopship until returning to civilian life in 1950 or 1951. Scrapped
1960. Click on the image for a larger view. |
|
The Doulos
was built in 1914 in Newport, Virginia as the freighter
Medina, and is recognised as the world's oldest ocean-going
passenger ship.
Photographed at Melbourne in June 1989. It operates as
floating bookshop for missionary organisation Gute
Bücher
für Alle e.V, the ship is still sailing. Click
on the image for a larger view. |
| |
|
 |
Ships visiting Hobart, 1980s |
 |
|
Vasco da Gama was originally Infante Dom Henrique, built
in Belgium in 1961 for Portuguese line Cia Colonial de Navegacao,
for their Portugal-Mozambique service.
Photographed in Hobart in cruise ship mode in the 1980s.
Later named Seawind Crown, she was scrapped in 2003.
|
| |
|
Sea Princess,
formerly
Swedish-America Line's Kungsholm, birthed at Sydney's
Circular Quay in the early 1980s. The towers of Sydney Harbour
Bridge are one the right. Click on the picture for a larger view.
Kungsholm had two funnels and in the conversion for P
& O the forward funnel was removed, somewhat destroying the liner's
classical balance. In 1998 she was renamed Victoria and cruised
for Union Castle Lines before being sold in 2002 to Italian operators who leased her to German operator
Holiday Kreuzfahrten and renamed Mona Lisa, she crused from
Europe. She is still in service at the time of writing, renamed again Oceanic II, and operating extensive educational cruises for Royal Carribbean subsidiary The Scholar Ship. |
| Above ... Sea Princess,
departing Hobart with new Princess Cruises colour scheme, later
in the 1980s or early 1990s, no record of the actual date unfortunately.
Below ... Fair Princess, formerly Cunard's
transatlantic liner Carinthia, berthed at Hobart. Click
on the image for a larger view. |
| Princess Mahsuri, originally
the German cruiser Berlin, docked at Hobart in the early
1980s.
|
Royal Odyssey, a ship of many names |
| Originally the 1964 Israeli liner
Shalom, this ship was subsequently renamed by various
owners Hanseatic (1967), Doric (1973), Royal
Odyssey (1981, as shown here berthed at Hobart in the mid
1980s), Regent Sun (1988), Sun Venture and finally
Sun. |
| A rare visit from an unidentified
Russian cruise ship berthed in Hobart, mid 1980s. |
Acknowledgement must go to Ian Boyle's wonderful website of
postcards and shipping information at http://www.simplonpc.co.uk.
More information links to websites about ships can be found at
the Maritime Information Gateway, PORT, at http://www.port.nmm.ac.uk.
|
|
