RMS Caronia (ship, 1949)
.jpg) The Caronia in the Trondheimfjord, around 1956
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The RMS Caronia (II) was a passenger ship that entered service in 1949 for the British Cunard White Star Line (later Cunard Line). The ship known as the "Green Goddess" remained in service for Cunard until 1967. It was one of the first ships to be built for both transatlantic traffic and cruises . After her service for Cunard, the Caronia was operated by the Universal Cruise Line, which she renamed Caribia . After an explosion in the engine room , the ship was retired in 1969. In 1974 the Caribia was shipwrecked off Guam while it was being transported to Taiwan for scrapping .
Planning and construction
After the Second World War , the Cunard White Star Line only operated three ships on the route from Southampton to New York : the RMS Queen Mary , the RMS Queen Elizabeth and the somewhat slower and smaller RMS Mauretania . The Cunard White Star Line therefore decided to build an addition to the Mauretania that would be of similar size, capacity and speed. In addition, the new ship was to be built specifically for cruises for the first time in the history of the shipping company, which also explains the small size of the ship compared to the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth .
The ship was commissioned from John Brown & Company , based in Clydebank . On October 30, 1947, the ship, named Caronia, was launched in a festive setting. The ship's godmother was then Princess Elisabeth .
The Caronia was supposed to be different from the other ships of the shipping company, which is why she got a green hull painting instead of the black hull otherwise traditional at Cunard. For this reason, the ship was nicknamed Green Goddess ( Green Goddess ).
The Caronia was very susceptible to wind through the size of their chimney. The Green Goddess remained the largest passenger ship built in Scotland after the Second World War until the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 was commissioned twenty years later .
Furnishing
The ship was divided into first class and tourist class on transatlantic trips. However, this class division was lifted during the cruises. The first-class public rooms were at the level of the promenade deck. The largest public space in the first class was, next to the dining room, the lounge, which extended over two decks. At the end of the room there was a large painting of the godmother Princess Elisabeth with her husband Prince Philip . In the bow area of the Caronia was the "Observation Lounge" with panoramic windows and a view of the bow of the ship. The first class also had a reading and writing room, a smoking room and a library. The tourist class was structured similarly, but had neither a library nor a reading and writing room.
Some spaces usable by the ship's passengers were accessible to both classes, which was unusual. These rooms included the ship's theater and cinema, which also extended over two decks. In addition, both classes shared the Garden Lounge and the Verandah Cafe. This was more practical for the cruise operation, since the class division was canceled anyway during the cruises. The ship's two dining rooms were divided into classes, but were both on the same deck.
Cunard White Star Line
On January 4, 1949, the Caronia made her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, which went without incident. After two more transatlantic crossings, the ship made its first cruise to the Caribbean . In the Caronia's first years of service , the ship was mainly used on the transatlantic route and was only used for cruises in the winter months. In 1951 the ship's first trip around the world took place. From 1952, she only drove on the transatlantic route in August and September. From now on , the Caronia spent the rest of the year cruising.
In May 1953, the Caronia served as a floating hotel during the coronation celebrations of Elizabeth II, who had christened the ship six years earlier. The ship was needed as additional accommodation as most of the hotels on land were already booked. The Caronia was modernized in 1956 and got air conditioning in all public rooms and cabins, among other things, in order to increase the comfort during cruises in tropical waters.
During another voyage around the world in 1958, the ship was badly damaged in the port of Yokohama when it was pressed against a quay wall by a strong cross wind in the port. In addition to the ship, which suffered severe deformations at the bow, a lighthouse was also damaged. The Caronia was repaired in a shipyard in Yokosuka . In the autumn of the same year, a cruise by the ship in the Mediterranean had to be canceled due to conflicts in the Middle East .
In 1959 the Caronia made her last scheduled voyage on the transatlantic route. The falling number of passengers due to competition from passenger planes had made the transatlantic service for Cunard uneconomical with a total of four ships on this route. There continued to be trips across the Atlantic, but these were marketed as cruises.
Although the Caronia was a British ship, most voyages could only be paid for in US dollars , as most of the passengers on board were US Americans. Once a year, however, Cunard offered so-called Sterling Cruises , on which only the pound sterling was accepted as a means of payment.
In 1962, Cunard decided to adapt a large part of its fleet to the special requirements of cruises. As the first of these ships, the Mauretania was rebuilt, which now also got the green hull painting like the Caronia . A little later, the RMS Franconia and the RMS Carmania followed .
In the course of the 1960s, more and more shipping companies followed the trend and had new cruise ships built that were far more modern than the Caronia . For this reason, Cunard had the ship overhauled and renovated in dry dock for ten weeks in November 1965. The interior was modernized and additional suites and a lido deck were added.
In 1966 dock workers and ship crews went on strike across Great Britain, with the result that the Caronia was delayed or had to cancel several voyages. 1967 was the first year that the ship made no profits for Cunard. The shipping company therefore decided to decommission the Caronia at the end of the year. The Caronia's farewell voyage was a classic transatlantic voyage from New York to Southampton.
Star Shipping
In 1968 the ship was sold to Star Shipping and renamed Columbia . The ship was brought to Greece to be modernized again there. The Cunard Line did not have any major maintenance work carried out on the ship during the last months of service. Primarily the machinery of the Columbia was supposed to be overhauled, but this was not done. Before the renovation work began, the ship was sold to the Greek shipowner Andrew Konstaninidis , who had it renamed Caribia .
Universal cruise line
The ship was modernized again and also got a white hull painting. In February 1969 the Caribia began her first cruise to the Caribbean for her new operator Universal Cruise Line in New York. Already on this first cruise there were machine problems that severely delayed the cruise schedule.
On the second cruise, an explosion occurred in the engine room, killing one crew member and injuring several other crew members. The ship remained idle for more than 20 hours until the machinery could be poorly repaired and the Caribia could be brought back to port. Universal Cruise Line then decided not to get the ship going again. Repairing the ship would have been unprofitable. In addition, thanks to the media, word of the accident had spread across the United States, which soon gave the Caribia a bad name.
The last few years
In the years to come, Universal Cruise Line tried several times to sell the ship to a new operator. However, there were no interested parties in the damaged ship, which was still in New York harbor. In 1974 the Caribia was finally sold to Taiwan for demolition . The German deep-sea tug Hamburg was commissioned to bring the propulsionless ship to its final destination. The Caribia's last voyage began on April 27, 1974 .
Both ships got caught in a storm off Honolulu , which resulted in the unpowered Caribia listing and threatening to overturn. After the ship had been stabilized, however, the voyage could continue. The cause of the instability of the towed ship was never determined or documented. The deep- sea tug Hamburg suffered machine damage off the island of Guam and had to cut the tow to the Caribia in order not to damage itself. The Caribia was driven to the coast of Apra Harbor , where she ran aground. The hull of the ship broke into three parts, which is why it was impossible to recover the Caribia . It was therefore decided to dismantle the wreckage on site. The workers had to proceed with great caution, as a landing ship loaded with ammunition had sunk close to the Caribia accident site during the Korean War . The scrapping of the Caribia also had to be carried out as quickly as possible because it was stranded in an unfavorable place and blocked the port entrance.
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Before the Caronia was dismantled, the entire equipment of the ship was removed and offered for sale. Some of the ship's furnishings can be seen today at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool.
literature
- William Miller, Brian Hawley: RMS Caronia: Cunard's Green Goddess. The History Press 2010, ISBN 978-0-7524-5791-8
- Jaroslav Coplák, Pavol Pevný: passenger ships. Dausien 1996, ISBN 3-7684-0570-2 , page 148
Web links
- Photographs of the ship
- detailed website about the Caronia
- Photo gallery
- History of the ship with technical data on lostliners.com
- The wreck of the ship on wrecksite.eu
Individual evidence
- ^ Brian Hawley: RMS Caronia The Green Goddess. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
- ^ Bryan R. Guinn: Caronia The "Green Goddess. Retrieved August 15, 2015 .
- ^ John Edwards: Caronia's Famous Funnel. (No longer available online.) January 31, 2015, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on August 14, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Peter Stevens: Caronia's 1st Class Public Rooms. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
- ^ Peter Stevens: Caronia's Cabin Class Public Rooms. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
- ^ Peter Stevens: The General Public Rooms. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
- ↑ Chris Frame: Caronia. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 6, 2010 ; accessed on August 13, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Henrik Ljungström: Caronia (II) / Columbia / Caribia. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 3, 2016 ; accessed on August 13, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Peter Stevens: Drama at Yokohama. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
- ^ Peter Stevens: The Sterling Cruise. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
- ^ Peter Stevens: Caronia Sold & Re-named. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
- ^ Peter Stevens: Caribia's Planned Cruise Schedule. Retrieved August 14, 2015 .
- ↑ Peter Stevens: Languishing in New York - Part 1. Retrieved on 13 August 2015 .
- ^ Peter Stevens: Caribia's Final Resting Place. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
- ↑ Peter Stevens: An Art Deco Sale Like No Other. Retrieved August 13, 2015 .
