Fairstar
 The Fairstar in the colors of Sitmar Cruises
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Fairstar was a cruise ship owned by the Liberia- based shipping company Sitmar Cruises . She was put into service in 1957 as a passenger ship and troop transport under the name Oxfordshire by the British Bibby Line and bought by Sitmar in 1964 as an emigrant ship. She has been in use for cruises since 1973 . In 1997, the ship ended after 40 years of service, his last ride and then went to abort the Indian Alang .
history
The Oxfordshire was built under the hull number 775 in the yard of Fairfield Shipbuilders in Govan and was launched on December 15, 1955. The handover to the Bibby Line took place on February 13, 1957, the commissioning 15 days later. From then on, the ship was used as a troop transport for the British government under the management of Bibby Line, but could also be used as a civil liner passenger ship. In the following years it carried large numbers of British military personnel to the colonies of the United Kingdom.
Originally that was Oxfordshire for a period of 15 years, chartered to the British government, but was ultimately scrapped in December 1962 in Falmouth launched . In February 1963, Sitmar chartered the ship with an option to buy and had it converted first in Schiedam and then at Harland & Wolff in Belfast for purely civilian service. On 19 May 1964, broke under the new name Fairstar from Southampton to Australia on.
In the following nine years, the Fairstar was used as an emigration ship between Australia and Southampton. She ended this service in July 1973 to be used as a cruise ship. After the takeover of Sitmar Cruises by P&O Cruises and the liquidation of the shipping company in 1988, the ship sailed for the subsidiary P&O Cruises Australia .
In April 1989, the Fairstar was modernized in Singapore , where it was also brought in June 1991 for repairs after an engine failure that it had sustained during a cruise in the South China Sea. After further propulsion problems in April 1996, the aging ship was taken out of service. Due to her popularity, the Fairstar took one last farewell cruise from Sydney from January 21st to 31st, 1997 and was sold to India for demolition immediately afterwards . Under the name Ripa , the ship arrived on April 10, 1997 at the dismantling yards near Alang .
literature
- Arnold Kludas: The world's great passenger ships. A documentation. Volume V: 1950–1974 , Stalling Verlag; Oldenburg, Hamburg 1974, ISBN 3-7979-1844-5 , p. 100.
Web links
- Entry about the ship on faktaomfartyg.se (Swedish)
- History of the ship on ssmaritime.com (English)
- technical data of the ship on clydeships.co.uk