Universe Explorer
 The Universe Explorer in Vancouver, September 1997
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The Universe Explorer was a cruise ship that was used for educational trips from 1996 to 2004 by the organization Semester at Sea under the direction of the University of Virginia . The ship was completed in 1958 as Brasil for the Moore-McCormack shipping company . In its 46 years of service, it changed name and operator several times.
history
In September 1955, the Moore-McCormack shipping company and the United States Federal Maritime Board put the construction of two structurally identical liner passenger ships to tender, which were to cost around US $ 20 million. Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula was awarded the contract with the best offer ; the final price of both ships was to be US $ 24.44 million each.
The Brasil was laid down on July 6, 1957 as the lead ship of the sister ships now known as the Brasil class , and launched on December 16, 1957. After the delivery to Moore-McCormarck in September 1958, the ship took up the liner service from New York to Buenos Aires on December 9th . The sister ship Argentina followed three days later . The Brasil and Argentina were among the last scheduled passenger ships built in the United States .
In 1963 the Brasil was rebuilt at Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore . Among other things, the tonnage and passenger capacity increased due to additional superstructures. Then the ship was another six years in service before it in September 1969 in Baltimore launched was.
After more than two and a half years of lay, the Brasil went under the name Volendam into the possession of Holland-America Line , which had the ship converted for cruise operations from August 1972 to February 1973 at Lloyd Werft Bremerhaven . Nevertheless, the ship did not take up the service, but was instead laid up in October 1974 in Hampton Roads .
In September 1975, the Monarch Cruise Lines chartered the ship, now renamed Monarch Sun , for cruises between Miami and the Bahamas . In the following year it was completely owned by the shipping company, but was bought back by Holland-America in 1978 for further operation and renamed Volendam again. Since 1982 the ship has been sailing under the flag of the Netherlands Antilles .
In 1983 Holland America retired the now 25-year-old Volendam . In the following years the ship changed its name and owner several times: in 1984 it was used as a floating hotel called Island Sun in Québec , then from December 1985 it was used as a Liberte between Papeete and Tahiti . In 1987 it was renamed Canada Star for the service between New York and Montreal before it was named Queen of Bermuda in 1988 . After two years of unused lay time in Philadelphia , the ship went to the Commodore Cruise Line as Enchanted Seas in November 1990 .
In 1996, the Enchanted Seas became the property of Azure Investments, which they chartered under the name Universe Explorer to the University of Virginia for their organization Semester at Sea . From then on, the ship was used for educational trips and courses, but also carried out conventional cruises. For these trips, it was chartered by the tour operator World Explorer Cruises.
During a trip to Alaska on July 27, 1996, a fire broke out in the laundry of the Universe Explorer off Juneau . Five crew members were killed by smoke poisoning . The ship was evacuated with the help of the coast guard and the fire was extinguished an hour after the outbreak. Despite the severe damage and an age of 38 years, the ship went to Vancouver for repairs . The cost of this was $ 1.5 million. It was able to resume service on August 14, 1996.
After a further eight years of service for Semester at Sea , the Universe Explorer was retired in June 2004 after almost 46 years of service and launched in Hong Kong . After a planned additional use could not be realized, the ship was launched in October 2004 under the shortened name Universe to a demolition yard in Indian Alang , where it arrived on December 5 of 2004. The demolition work continued until May 2005.
As the successor to the Universe Explorer , the only two-year-old Olympic Explorer was chartered as an Explorer from the University of Virginia that same year . She stayed in service for Semester at Sea until 2015 and has been called Glory Sea since 2016 .
literature
- Glen Petrie: Bermuda Star Lines SS CANADA STAR . In: Cruise Travel . Volume 9, No. 5 . Lakeside Publishing Company, Evanston March 1988, pp. 28-30 .
Web links
- the ship on faktaomfartyg.se (Swedish)
- the ship on ssmaritime.com (English)
- Period of service as Universe Explorer on ssmaritime.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Bill Vinson, Ginger Quering Casey: SS BRASIL. In: moore-mccormack.com. Retrieved September 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Glen Petrie: Bermuda Star Lines SS CANADA STAR . In: Cruise Travel . Volume 9, Number 5, Lakeside Publishing Company, Evanston March 1988, p. 28.
- ↑ 5 Die and 16 Are Injured in Cruise Ship Fire. In: The New York Times . July 28, 1996, accessed September 16, 2017 .
- ^ Reuben Goossens: SS Universe Explorer. In: ssmaritime.com. Retrieved September 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Shawn Dake: EXPLORER Cruise Ship / Floating University. In: Maritime Matters. April 24, 2011, accessed September 16, 2017 .