Prins Oberon
As Prince Oberon in Bremerhaven in the 1970s
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The Prins Oberon was a ferry of the Swedish shipping company Lion Ferry put into service in 1970 . It was used until 1982 as the "England ferry" between Bremerhaven and Harwich . The rest of the service time the ship spent under different owners and routes. It was last used between 1999 and 2008 as a casino ship under the name Ambassador II in Florida . In 2011 the former ferry was demolished in New Orleans .
history
Prins Oberon
The Prins Oberon was laid on August 18, 1969 under the hull number 663 in the Nobiskrug shipyard in Rendsburg and was launched on February 21, 1970. Two days after the handover to Lion Ferry, the ship began ferry service between Bremerhaven and Harwich on June 8, 1970. In 1972 the Prins Oberon received new stabilizers.
Prince Oberon
In September 1978 the ship was renamed Prinz Oberon after being sold to Deutsche Leasing AG and from then on managed by Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab (DFDS) under the name “Prinzenlinie”. In May 1981 the ferry was completely taken over by DFDS. On 17 December 1982, also referred to as "England ferry" was Prince Oberon retired and in Bremerhaven launched .
From February to March 1983 the ship was chartered by Stoomvart Maatschappij Zeeland between Hoek van Holland and Harwich, after which the Sealink British Rail operated on the same route until June 1983. After a long layover in Bremerhaven and Copenhagen , the ferry was in service for DFDS from June 1984, before being laid up again in Copenhagen in August 1984.
Nordic Sun
Under the new name Nordic Sun , the ship was rebuilt by its builder Nobiskrug in February 1985 and was supposed to start service between Södertälje and Travemünde , but this remained unrealized. Instead, the ferry was in service from May 1985 onwards under the TT-Saga line between Trelleborg and Travemünde. After the charter contract expired, the Nordic Sun received a shipyard overhaul at Wärtsilä in Helsinki and was sold to the Perbadabab Nasional Shipping Line Berhad in Malaysia in the same month .
Cruise Muhibah
After the transfer from Helsinki to Port Klang , the ferry took up service between Kota Kinabalu , Kuching , Kuantan and Singapore as Cruise Muhibah in August 1986 .
In the following years the ship was involved in several accidents. In October 1987 it failed due to an engine failure, in the same year it burned in the engine room. On New Year's Day 1989, the ferry between Kuching and Singapore hit a reef and could only be towed free nine days later.
In December 1989 the Cruise Muhibah was transferred to the B&I Line and arrived in Dublin on February 5, 1990 for renovation work .
Muenster
As Munster , the ship began service on April 27, 1990 between Rosslare Harbor and Pembroke Dock . From February to March 1991 and from February to March 1992 it also served the route from Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead .
After the charter contract expired on March 31, 1992, the ferry was overhauled in Kristiansand in April 1993 after a lengthy layover in Dublin and then chartered out again.
Ambassador / Ambassador II
The new operator was the Greek shipping company Olympic Ferries , which used the ship as an ambassador between Patras , Igoumenitsa and Bari from July 1993 . After the shipping company went bankrupt, the ferry was in Genoa from February 1994 .
Under the new name Ambassador II , the ship returned to service in May 1994, this time under a charter from the Tunisian Cotunav between Tunis , Naples and Genoa. The ferry was then used from December 1994 for Tallink Hansaway (between Travemünde and Tallinn ), from July 1995 for Comanav and from October 1996 for the Libyan National Maritime Transport Company, before being launched again in November 1997.
In April 1997 the Ambassador II became the property of Sterling Shipping and was converted into a casino ship in Tyne from August 1997 . A fire during the renovation work on January 29, 1998 delayed delivery, which only took place in June 1999. The former ferry flying the flag of the Bahamas was then used as a casino ship by Sterling Casino Lines from Port Canaveral off the coast of Florida.
On July 6, 2008, the Ambassador II ceased operations. It was launched in Orange , Texas , and towed to New Orleans for demolition in January 2011 after two and a half years of inactivity.