MARCO POLO a long time visitor in Madeira

-
The 1965 cruise ship MARCO POLO making her way in Funchal's waters after a transatlantic crossing from Bridgetown, on 5th January 2011.
MARCO POLO is the former ALEKSANDR PUSHKIN built in Mathias Thesen Werft, East Germany for the late soviet owned Black Sea Shipping Co. and nowadays the sole survivor of the 5 ship class Ivan Franko.
Early in her career she served as an ocean liner, crossing the Atlantic regularly between Leningrad and Montreal, until the late 70's as she begun her cruise operations.She did visit Funchal quite often as ALEKSANDR PUSHKIN, chartered to western european companies. In 1993 and after a period laid up she was purchased by Orient Lines of NCL renamed MARCO POLO in tribute to the famous venetian explorer. Eventually refited to return to service, she was a great sucess in classic cruising for many years to follow. In 2008 Orient Lines seases operations and the ship is sold to Global Maritime that immediatly charters her to Transocean Tours of Rostock. In 2010 MARCO POLO is again chartered, however for a newly founded company, Cruise & Martime Voyages and operates mainly for the british market.It's always a delight to see this handsome ship visiting Funchal by the times, the last of it's kind and judging from her actual shape and condition i'm sure she'll be sailing the seas for many more years.

Comments

  1. VMFSeptember 15, 2011 at 5:47 AM

    I haven´t seen this ship for years, she looks amazing, thanks for sharing, beautiful

    Best
    Vitor

    ReplyDelete
  2. João AbreuSeptember 16, 2011 at 3:10 AM

    I knew you would especially like this one ;) It's such a delight to see a ship of this age and beauty still sailling the seven seas.

    Regards

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CRISTOFORO COLOMBO, one of the nicest ships ever built

-
Image
This post is dedicated to all the Italian followers of this blog. This past week saw an unprecedented number of pageviews from Italy, I was really pleased to notice that the post "WILLEM RUYS BECOMES ACHILLE LAURO" is the most popular post of this blog, leading by far all the posts related to the COSTA CONCORDIA's tragedy, so despite the relevance of the tragic events which obviously dominated the news not just in Italy but around the world, there is an obvious interest on Italian passenger liners and this is reassuring for me, I do believe that the most beautiful liners came out of Italy, this is why I have chosen CRISTOFORO COLOMBO for many the most elegant liner ever built as a testimony of appreciation to the great nation that Italy was and still is as far as shipping and ship building is concerned, so thank you to all my Italian followers, I will endeavour to carry on with the best possible work on this blog. Postcards of my collection
Read more

SS "LEONARDO DA VINCI" a remarkable liner with a short career

-
Image
The SS "LEONARDO DA VINCI" was an ocean liner built by ANSALDO SHIPYARDS at Genoa in 1960, the ship was intended as a replacement for the ill-fated ANDREA DORIA to operate on the North Atlantic run with ITALIAN LINE, she was as built 33.340 GRT and had a top speed of 25.5 knots. The ship left on her maiden voyage on the 30th June 1960 from Genoa to New York, she was kept on this service until 1965 when the new superliners MICHELANGELO and RAFFAELLO entered service, LEONARDO was then used on cruising in the MED, CARIBBEAN, SOUTH and NORTH AMERICA, after the withdrawal of the new superliners from service on the North Atlantic due to lack of passengers  LEONARDO was back on the transtlantic service, but only for a brief spell, she went back to cruising until 1978 when she arrived at La Spezia in Italy to be laid up, she caught fire in 1980 and was considered a total loss, she was finally scrapped in 1982, a brief career for such a beautiful ship, she was not a lucky vessel un
Read more

Remembering the "SUNDREAM"

-
Image
This post takes us back to 1997, the "SUNDREAM" is seen secured for sea ready for another departure from Barcelona. The ship was built in 1970 by WARTSILA in Finland as the "SONG OF NORWAY" to Royal Caribbean, she was 18416 GRT with a top speed of 22 knots, the vessel was lengthened by 24 meters in 1978, the GRT was increased to 23005 GRT. In 1996 the ship was sold to AIRTOURS SUN CRUISES and was renamed "SUNDREAM", she is still around operated by INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING PARTNERS under the name of "GEMINI" but facing uncertain times with the ship being reported for sale or charter
Read more