Pacific Dawn
 In the Baie du Santal, Easo, Lifou, New Caledonia
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The Pacific Dawn (dt. Pacific Dawn ) is a cruise ship of the British - American Carnival Corporation & plc . It has been in service for the P&O Cruises Australia brand at the British subsidiary Carnival UK since the end of 2007 . She sails under the flag of Great Britain with her home port in London , but her cruises always depart from Brisbane, Australia .
First commissioned by Princess Cruises as the Regal Princess in 1991 , she followed as the second identical sister ship to today's Karnika .
In April 2018, a 47-year-old tourist fell overboard while the ship was at sea. Despite the search being initiated immediately, it was unsuccessful and had to be stopped after many hours.
history
prehistory
From 1984 onwards, Sitmar Cruises (Società Italiana Trasporti Marittimi), a company of the Russian-born shipowner family Vlasov under Boris Vlasov, negotiated with the Italian state shipyard Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiani SpA about the construction of two new cruise ships. Fincantieri was already one of the most important shipbuilding companies in Europe with eight shipyards at the time, but saw the plans as a great opportunity and challenge after no passenger ships had been built in Italy for Costa Crociere since the Eugenio C. in 1966. Until then, Sitmar Cruises mainly used converted cargo ships for cruises and feared falling behind in the ensuing arms race between the American competitors Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line with their ever larger newbuildings, which were specially designed for the booming cruise market. When the negotiations dragged on due to demands from the Italian government, the French shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire was commissioned to build the Sitmar FairMajesty for 153 million US dollars by the end of 1988. An option was agreed for a second ship by the end of 1986.
The Italian government was shocked and changed tactics. It now offered Sitmar special conditions for other ships and actually brought the company to the point of dropping the option to build the second ship in France and a contract for two identical cruise ships of the "fourth generation" with 70,000 GRT at 280 million each . USD complete with Fincantieri.
Planning and construction
The ships should have a particularly Italian look. The architect Renzo Piano , who had already achieved worldwide fame with his designs for the Paris Center Georges Pompidou , was engaged to design it. The later Prime Minister of Italy Romano Prodi had approached him in his role as President of the state holding Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), to which the Fincantieri shipyard belonged at the time. The ship owes its curved shapes and rounded structure above the bridge, which was modeled on the head of a swimming dolphin, to Piano's designs. The original plans are said to have been far more futuristic, but were rejected for cost reasons and revised again.
For ownership of the new ships, Boris Vlasov founded a new subsidiary under the name Astramar, based in Palermo . Sitmar Cruises was to become the lessee after the ships were completed. He wanted to assert tax advantages as an Italian shipping company for the construction contract and to counter the criticism that several EU countries had already expressed about the nationality of his company for a long time. Although he had actually relocated the company headquarters to Monaco shortly after the death of his father, the company's founder Alexander Vlasov in 1961 , the shipping company continued to act officially in Italian.
However, in 1987 Boris Vlasov died unexpectedly and the company got into trouble. The British shipping company P&O recognized its opportunity. For them, the lead of the competition in the expansion of the cruise fleet would only have been made up - if at all - a few years later. It was therefore already considering a merger of its own cruise line with another company. In July 1988, P&O CEO Lord Sterling succeeded in acquiring the cruise line of the Vlasow shipping company's heirs for US $ 210 million, including Fincantieri's Hull No. 5839 and 5840 to buy ships already under construction.
Commissioning
The second ship with hull number 5840, today's Pacific Dawn , was completed in 1991 and handed over on July 20.
For the first two years, as planned and contractually agreed by Boris Vlasov, the ship remained the property of the Italian Astramar . This, meanwhile under the management of P&O, left the ship as Regal Princess to the American P&O subsidiary Princess Cruises . The ship was registered in Liberia and, after its official christening on August 8, 1991 in New York by the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, immediately put into service for the same route from Fort Lauderdale to the Caribbean that was used in the winter months under the name Crown Princess the sister ship, completed a year earlier, was also in use.
commitment
Princess Cruises finally took ownership of the ship in 1992. The flag initially remained with Liberia , in 2000 Princess Cruises then registered the ship in Bermuda . One -week cruises to Alaska were offered from Vancouver between May and September , followed by a trip from Los Angeles to numerous islands in the South Pacific.
During the Alaska season of 1998, a large number of passengers on board contracted a virus infection. After all attempts to get a grip on further infections with this disease, which for some of the passengers were quite serious, failed while the ship was in operation, the ship was withdrawn from service for a week from July 5, 1998. Bedding, towels and all surfaces with which the patients might come into contact were disinfected with a chlorine solution and by irradiation with ultraviolet light.
In November 2000, the ship entered Sydney Harbor for the first time and started a series of multi-week round trips via various stations in New Zealand to Auckland , before returning from Sydney to Alaska for its annual mission in March. On the return voyage, however, after a stop in Cairns on March 16, 2001 , the ship touched the starboard side on a sandbank. After only a few hours, the journey to Darwin could be continued, but only minor damage to the bulbous bow was found, which could have occurred when touching the sandbar, but also before during one of the Caribbean voyages. Further investigations into the incident revealed that the canal in front of Cairns was too small for a ship the size of the Regal Princess and that the port access had been approved with insufficient safety margin for commercial interests. On the other hand, however, also that the bridge is not optimally manned and the steering system of the ship is difficult to control under certain conditions for structural reasons.
In autumn 2003, towards the end of the voyage from Europe across the Atlantic and back to their previous area of operation, another virus infection spread on board. This time with the Norwalk virus, a human norovirus . Two officers from the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention and a disinfection team were flown in. 217 passengers and crew members were suspected of being infected when the crew received instructions to cancel further stopovers in Greenland and Newfoundland and to call at the port of New York directly . Sick passengers were asked to stay in their cabins and wait about 48 hours, after which symptoms usually subsided. They got room service for so long. Upon arrival, only four people were still suffering from the virus and cleaning staff and disinfection teams prepared the ship at high pressure for its next voyage, which was to start on September 4, two days later.
After it had already been considered agreed that the Regal Princess would follow the relocation of its sister Crown Princess to the A'Rosa brand on the German-speaking market, not only was this brand sold, but there were also general changes in the company. P&O Princess Cruises , which had previously been spun off from the parent company P&O , formed today's world market leader Carnival Corporation & plc together with the American Carnival Corporation in 2003 . A reinforcement of the sister ship at Ocean Village , which was planned for 2006, was also no longer implemented, and cruises for this brand were finally discontinued in 2010.
The Regal Princess stayed with Princess Cruises until 2007. Then the decision was finally made to relocate the ship to the growing P&O Cruises Australia brand at the end of the 2007 season. Before the handover, the ship ran aground near Huatulco , Mexico . The ship was able to free itself again and reach the port of Acapulco at slow speed . However, the two following trips were canceled to allow necessary repairs to be made.
In November 2007, the ship was received in Sydney for its new assignment and named Pacific Dawn by the Australian athlete and winner of the Olympic gold medal in the 400 m race, Cathy Freeman . Since then it has been used under this name on trips to the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.
In 2019, Cruise & Maritime Voyages announced the acquisition of Pacific Dawn in 2021. She should be named Amy Johnson . In July 2020, Cruise & Maritime Voyages went bankrupt in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic .
literature
- Riccardo Magrini: Ships . Kaiserverlag, Klagenfurt 2006, ISBN 3-7043-1422-6 .
- Douglas Ward: Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships 2006 . Berlitz Publishing, 2006, ISBN 3-493-60252-9 .
- Peter Plowman: The Sitmar Liners: Past and Present . Rosenberg, Hong Kong 2004, ISBN 1-877058-25-4 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ A b c Robert Klein: Crown Princess (I). In: castleoftheseas.nl. Retrieved December 3, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Robert Klein: Regal Princess (I). In: castleoftheseas.nl. Retrieved December 3, 2013 .
- ^ Peter Plowman: The SITMAR Liners: Past and Present . Rosenberg Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-877058-25-4 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Margaret Thatcher - Regal Princess. In: company website. Princess Cruise Lines, accessed December 6, 2013 .
- ^ Peter Plowman: The SITMAR Liners: Past and Present . Rosenberg Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-877058-25-4 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Cathy Freeman takes small step onto giant boat. In: The Age . Australia Associated Press (AAP), November 13, 2018, accessed December 6, 2013 .
- ↑ Two more ships for 2021! Press release. Cruise & Maritime Voyages, November 28, 2019, accessed November 28, 2019 .
- ^ New Ship Names Revealed. Press release. Cruise & Maritime Voyages, January 24, 2020, accessed January 4, 2019 .