RMS Sylvania
 As Sitmar Fairwind in Miami, 1988
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The RMS Sylvania was a transatlantic liner of the Cunard Line from 1957. She is the last ship of the shipping company that was specially built for the transatlantic liner service. After a conversion to a cruise ship, she sailed from 1968 to 2003 under various other names for Sitmar-Line , Princess Cruises and Phoenix Reisen .
After a cargo ship in North America service was named Sylvania between 1895 and 1910, the RMS Sylvania was Cunard's second ship with this name.
Conception and construction
In addition to the prestigious transatlantic route from Southampton to New York, the Cunard Line also served a number of other routes across the Atlantic, including one from Liverpool to Montreal in Canada. A class of four identical ships was ordered for this in 1951, which for economic reasons also received six cargo holds in addition to the passenger cabins. Accommodation was also simplified by reducing it to just two classes: 1st class and tourist class, with the latter taking up the majority of the ship. The dimensions were limited by the fact that the ships had to be able to drive up the St. Lawrence River to Montreal.
The order for the four ships went to the Scottish shipyard John Brown & Company in Clydebank near Glasgow. This was delivered by the type ship Saxonia in 1954, followed by her three sisters every year: Ivernia 1955, Carinthia 1956 and finally Sylvania 1957. The names were - as usual with Cunard - Latin names for provinces of the Roman Empire or the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . In addition, as mail ships, they were entitled to the RMS ( Royal Mail Ship ) suffix .
history
1957-1968: RMS Sylvania
On June 5, 1957, the Sylvania ran from Greenock on her maiden voyage to Montreal. Then she took up regular service on the route Liverpool - Greenock - Quebec - Montreal and back with her sister ship. This was to remain its main task until 1967, only interrupted in the winter months when the route Liverpool - Cobh - Halifax - New York was driven instead because of the ice on the St. Lawrence River. However, in later years Cunard was forced to look for alternative tasks due to increasing competition from air traffic. For example, the Sylvania operated the Rotterdam - Southampton - Le Havre - Quebec - Montreal route temporarily to improve capacity utilization.
At the same time, all four sisters were also used for cruises from the early 1960s. A corresponding adjustment of the passenger accommodations was carried out during a shipyard stay in early 1965 and on February 20, 1965 she left Southampton for her first major cruise into the Mediterranean (27 days). She went on cruises again from January to May 1966. Her subsequent stay in the shipyard, however, coincided with a seaman's strike, so that she was inactive in Liverpool for six weeks from mid-May. The strike loss to Cunard was later put at £ 3 million. For this reason, among other things, the winter route Liverpool - New York was finally closed at the end of 1966. She drove the Sylvania for the last time in November of that year.
During the following stay in the shipyard in 1966/67, she was painted completely white for the coming cruise season. She then went on a 36-day trip to the Caribbean in January / February 1967, which was followed by five Mediterranean cruises from Gibraltar by May - including return flights from London Gatwick, an early example of fly / cruise offers. As a special feature this season which led Sylvania a hovercraft type SR.N6 with which primarily advertising for the British Hovercraft Corporation should do in some Mediterranean ports, but also took occasional trips with the passengers. On all these trips it turned out to be very problematic that only the public areas of the Sylvania were air-conditioned, but not the cabins, which heated up almost unbearably, especially in the Caribbean.
In May, the ship returned to its traditional transatlantic route Liverpool - Montreal, from which high passenger numbers were expected this year due to EXPO 67 in Montreal. The Sylvania ran aground on June 15, 1967 shortly after leaving for the return journey at Trois-Rivières. Despite several attempts, they were unsuccessful and finally two days later the passengers were brought ashore in tenders to make the trip on a Canadian Pacific Line ship or plane. Only after all bunkers and fresh water tanks had been emptied and the crew had been taken off board did they finally float up and were towed back to Montreal. The damage was repaired within 3 days, so that it was available again for its next scheduled departure on July 4th.
Due to ongoing financial losses, Cunard finally put the Sylvania and Carinthia out of service in December 1967 . Both were launched and offered for sale in Southampton.
1968–1988: Fairwind
On February 2, 1968, both ships were sold to the Italian Societa Italiana Transporti Maritimi SpA (Sitmar Line), which they wanted to use under the names Fairwind and Fairland as emigrant ships on the route from Europe to Australia and New Zealand. The shipping company has been using this route since 1955 on behalf of the Australian government and wanted to use the new ships to gain an advantage in the new tendering of the contract for the period from 1970. However, Sitmar was defeated by the Greek shipping company Chandris and decided to convert the two steamers into cruise ships instead.
From January 1970 to January 1971 the ship was rebuilt in the Trieste shipyard San Marco. The most noticeable changes were the new chimney and the advanced, more modern command bridge as well as the removal of the loading booms. After the conversion, the Fairwind took up service for the American market, where it - together with its sister, who had since been renamed Fairsea - proved to be very popular. In winter she mainly tours South America from Fort Lauderdale, while in summer she mostly drove from San Francisco to Canada and Alaska. In 1988 she even took two cruises up the Amazon to Manaus. On the way back to the US west coast, however, one of the propeller shafts broke, so that the Fairwind had to dock in San Francisco. In the late 1980s, Sitmar sought a new image in the face of falling passenger numbers. Among other things, all ships should get a new coat of paint and new names. The Fairwind's unscheduled docking was just in time, so she left the shipyard with a striking blue chimney and the new swan logo as Sitmar Fairwind . Only a few weeks later she suffered an engine failure off Nassau and had to go back to the dock, this time to New York. Sitmar was taken over and dissolved by P&O on September 1, 1988, before it could leave it again after several weeks of repairs.
1988-1993: Dawn Princess
Just eight days after the acquisition of Sitmar, the Sitmar Fairwind was transferred to the P&O subsidiary Princess Cruises , which it continues to use on the American market under the name Dawn Princess . However, she only stayed here for a few years, of which she spent three months in 1991 to clean up asbestos in Portland. In early 1993 she was finally sold as part of the fleet modernization and replaced by a new build (a Sun class ship of the same name ).
1993-2003: Albatros
The next owner of the ship became V.Ships , a company of the Vlaslov Group, which also owned Sitmar. They chartered these out from March 27, 1993 to the German tour operator Phoenix Reisen, for whom they set out on their first cruise to the North Cape on August 18 under the new name Albatros . The new operator had big plans for her, including annual world trips. But the second of these ended unexpectedly in the Red Sea on May 22, 1995 when a fire broke out in the engine room. Although the fire could be extinguished, the boilers were switched off for safety reasons, so that the ship was unable to maneuver in the sea for several hours. Eventually she reached Jeddah, from where the passengers were brought home by charter planes. The Albatros itself drove to Marseille under its own power, where it went to the shipyard for repairs until July 26th.
Only two years later, she suffered the biggest accident of her career on a two-week cruise around the British Isles: On the way from the Scilly Isles to the east, she ran on North Bartholomew Rock in St. Mary's Bay on May 13, 1997. The underwater cliff tore a 61 m long leak in the hull and only its stable hull structure, designed for the Canadian ice, prevented a total loss. Listed she returned to St. Mary's, where the next day the 504 passengers were picked up from a ferry and brought to Penzance . She was finally salvaged and moved under her own steam at six knots to Southampton dock for repairs.
The remaining years of the Albatross were relatively calm, with trips to the north and the Baltic Sea in summer, trips to the Mediterranean in autumn and an annual trip around the world in winter. When the machine problems increased in autumn 2003, Phoenix decided to terminate the charter contract. Since, from the perspective of V.Ships, the repair of the 46-year-old drive system was too expensive, it was finally sold to Alang for demolition in December 2003 . She left Genoa on December 21, 2003 under the flyover name Genoa and reached Alang on January 1, 2004, where she was beached and dismantled.
Design and modifications
Exterior design
All four ships of the Saxonia class had the typical look of the transatlantic liners of their time: black hull, elongated bow, white superstructures with a slightly rounded front and stepped stern. Only the strongly rounded shape of the single massive chimney was unusual. Another typical feature were the four conspicuous loading harnesses on the fore and aft, which were required for loading and unloading the cargo holds. During the annual overhaul in the winter of 1966/67, the Saxonia was painted completely white in view of the increasingly frequent cruises in Mediterranean and tropical waters. Only the chimney retained its old red and black color.
For use as a cruise ship at Sitmar, the exterior of the ship was radically changed in 1970/71: The bridge was made slimmer and more streamlined, the originally straight chimney was given a slightly conical shape with a conspicuous smoke deflector, and all cargo harnesses were removed. The paintwork was adapted to the colors of Sitmar that were common at the time, with a white hull and yellow chimney with a large V (for Vlasov, the parent company of Sitmar) on it. In order to have a straight color finish, the radar mast and the top superstructure deck were also painted yellow.
During her stay at the shipyard in 1988, the Fairwind was the first Sitmar ship to receive the new look with a completely white primer, blue chimney with the new Sitmar swan logo and three eye-catching wavy lines on the aft ship. Besides her, only Fairstar got the new coat of paint (but without the wavy lines) before Sitmar was sold.
With the change to Princess Cruises the appearance of the ship was changed again: Now it was painted in a uniform white paint, from which only the dark blue chimney cap and the wave logo of the shipping company on the chimney differed.
The paint job changed one last time when I switched to Phoenix Reisen as TS Albatros . The hull and superstructure remained white, but with a narrow turquoise trim. The chimney was now turquoise with a black cap and the Phoenix logo (white albatross in front of a yellow sun disk).
Interior
Originally, all ships of the Saxonia class had a cargo area with three cargo holds each in the fore and aft. In between was the passenger area. Despite the clear predominance of tourist class cabins, the furnishings there were very elegant and based on the Cunard ships of past decades. There was a two-story theater and all public spaces were air-conditioned.
While her sisters Saxonia and Ivernia were extensively rebuilt for cruises in the mid-1960s, the Sylvania only got a private bathroom for 80 of its tourist class cabins in January 1964 (previously there were only shared bathrooms for all 250 cabins in this class).
With the move to Sitmar, she and her sister Carinthia were also converted into pure cruise ships. All cargo holds were omitted, and additional cabins and an on-board cinema were installed in the front. Three swimming pools were installed on the aft ship. In addition, all cabins now have their own wet cells and are connected to the air conditioning. After the renovation, a total of 925 passengers had access to two restaurants, five bars and nightclubs, a theater with 330 seats and the on-board cinema.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Sylvania II on Cunard.com, accessed May 4, 2012
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Liverpool Ships ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) 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. , accessed May 4, 2012
- ↑ a b c d e f The Saxonia-Class Liners , ssMaritime, accessed on May 4, 2012
- ↑ Marine Accident Report 5/98 ( Memento of the original of July 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 3.2 MB), accessed May 4, 2012
- ↑ Fairstar , Simplon Postcards, accessed May 4, 2012
- ↑ The wheelhouse ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Deck plans from TS Albatros), accessed May 4, 2012
