Hanseatic

[Sky Sweet]

Around 1959 my parents took a cruise from New York to the Caribbean on SS Hanseatic. Does anyone remember that ship?

[cal516]

Around 1959 my parents took a cruise from New York to the Caribbean on SS Hanseatic. Does anyone remember that ship?

 

As a youth in the late 60's, I remember being on several Home Lines cruises that shared various Caribbean port visits with German Atlantic Line's Hanseatic. There were not nearly as many cruise ships back then and sharing a port visit was always something of an event with passengers meeting in stores and on beaches explaining why their ship was clearly better. Oddly enough, Home Lines layer acquired her.

 

Here's a tidbit from Wikipedia:

 

SS Shalom was a combined ocean liner/cruise ship built in 1964 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, St Nazaire, France for ZIM Lines, Israel for transatlantic service from Haifa to New York.

 

In 1967 she was sold to the German Atlantic Line, becoming their second SS Hanseatic. Subsequently she served as SS Doric for Home Lines, SS Royal Odyssey for Royal Cruise Line and SS Regent Sun for Regency Cruises.

 

She was laid up in 1995 following the bankruptcy of Regency Cruises. Numerous attempts were made to bring her back to service, but none were successful and the ship sunk outside Cape St. Francis, South Africa on 26 July2001 while en-route to India to be scrapped.

 

More details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Shalom

 

Detailed History & pictures: http://www.ssmaritime.com/ZIM-3.htm

[Sky Sweet]

As a youth in the late 60's, I remember being on several Home Lines cruises that shared various Caribbean port visits with German Atlantic Line's Hanseatic. There were not nearly as many cruise ships back then and sharing a port visit was always something of an event with passengers meeting in stores and on beaches explaining why their ship was clearly better. Oddly enough, Home Lines layer acquired her.

 

Here's a tidbit from Wikipedia:

 

SS Shalom was a combined ocean liner/cruise ship built in 1964 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, St Nazaire, France for ZIM Lines, Israel for transatlantic service from Haifa to New York.

 

In 1967 she was sold to the German Atlantic Line, becoming their second SS Hanseatic. Subsequently she served as SS Doric for Home Lines, SS Royal Odyssey for Royal Cruise Line and SS Regent Sun for Regency Cruises.

 

She was laid up in 1995 following the bankruptcy of Regency Cruises. Numerous attempts were made to bring her back to service, but none were successful and the ship sunk outside Cape St. Francis, South Africa on 26 July2001 while en-route to India to be scrapped.

 

More details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Shalom

 

Detailed History & pictures: http://www.ssmaritime.com/ZIM-3.htm

 

Hi Cal :)

 

Thank you for sharing that information. My parents went on a few cruises during the fifties and sixties, when I was growing up, but never took us (the children) with them.

 

I didn't take my first cruise until the middle seventies which was with my husband for our honeymoon. That was on Leonardo da Vinci from New York to St Thomas and St Maartin. At that time we were the only ship in both Caribbean ports, which was quite a different experience from our recent cruises :)

[tally10]

I grew up in Hollywood, Fl and we were in half day sessions in high school, which was very close to the beach. After school, my friend and I would go to Port Everglades and go onto the cruise ships just to look around (no real security in those days). The Hanseatic was one of the many ships we went on and I remember thinking how fun a voyage on her would be. She had a sister ship at that time, the Hamburg, that we also liked very much, but my memories of the Hanseatic are more vivid. She was a beautiful ship.

[modelman]

The 1959 Hanseatic that you mention was a different ship than the one that became the Doric. She was the former Empress of Scotland, and was sold to the Hamburg Atlantik Line in 1958 and completely rebuilt. She lasted until a fire in 1966 damaged her enough that she had to be scrapped. That is when the second Hanseatic, former Shalom, was purchased.

 

Here are a few postcards from Simplon of the Hanseatic

 

 

 

The second Hanseatic is shown here.

 

 

She was joined in 1969 by the newly built Hamburg, which still sails today as the Maxim Gorkiy, and is soon to become the Marco Polo II of the reborn Orient Lines

 

[Liz54]

When I was a young teen our family did a transatlantic crossing on the Hanseatic in the early to mid 60s. This was a last minute change of plans as Cunard was on strike. We crossed from Southampton to NYC. We had a few days in NYC at the end. The crossing was about 7 or 8 days. We kids found it long as there was not so much to do for children. It was still a very interesting experience!

[wrdalton]

I was five years old in the summer of 1959 when my mother and I traveled on the Hanseatic from New York to Cuxhaven and back. I remember playing shuffleboard on the deck, drinking ginger ale in the bar, and singing "Hang down your head, Tom Dooley" in the kid's club.

[Calgary North]

I was on the Hanseatic in June, 1964, crossing from NYC to Southampton. If you check another thread on this page "Your First Cruise Ship..." started by Copper 10-8, you can find a full description and history of the Hanseatic.

 

The entire thread is fascinating and Copper 10-8 has done a wonderful job documenting hundreds of ships.

 

The thread originated on the HAL page and was recently moved here.

 

Regards

[Copper10-8]

RMS Empress of Japan (1930-1966) Built in 1930 as RMS Empress of Japan by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd, Govan (near Glasgow), Scotland for the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company (CPSC). By the 1920s Canadian Pacific had established a sea/rail connection between Europe and the Far East. The company's steamships would carry passengers from Great Britain to Canada, the same company's railroad would then carry passengers across the North American continent to Vancouver, BC, where passengers boarded another Canadian Pacific ship that would carry them to across the Pacific to Asia. This was at the time the fastest way to reach the Far East from Europe.

 

 

Empress of Japan carried out successful sea trials in May 1930, achieving a top speed of 23 knots. She started off on her maiden voyage on 14 June 1930 when she left Liverpool for Southampton and Quebec. On 12 July 1930 she sailed for Suez and Hong Kong and then began operating on the transpacific Hong Kong - Yokohama - Vancouver run carrying 399 First, 164 Second, 100 Third and 510 steerage passengers with a crew of 579. During this time period, she wound up being the fastest ocean liner on the Pacific service. Due to her carrying Royal Mail as part of her Canadian Pacific's service, Empress of Japan wsa able to carry the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) prefix in front of her name. When not carrying mail, the ship was identified as ss (Steam Ship) Empress of Japan.

 

 

She would continue to sail the Vancouver - Yokohama - Kobe -Shanghai - Hong Kong route for the rest of the decade. Among her celebrity passengers were a number of American baseball stars, including Babe Ruth, who sailed aboard her in October 1934 en route to Japan.

 

Empress of Japan was in Shanghai, China when war was declared in September 1939. Due to suspicions about Japanese intentions, she was instructed not to return to Yokohama, but instead sailed back to Victoria BC, via Honolulu. Here she was prepared for service as a troop-ship, by being painted in wartime grey, and having guns fitted. She was requisitioned on November 25th, and began nine years of troop carrying duties by transporting Australian and New Zealand troops to the Middle East.

In October 1940, the Empress was part of a so-called 'multi-million Dollar convoy', sailing from Australia to South Africa. That convey included seven troop-carrying luxury liners, Cunard's Queen Mary, Aquitania, and Mauretania, Canadian Pacific's Empresses of Britain, Japan, and Canada; and Royal Mail Lines' Andes. In October 1942, ten months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Empress of Japan was renamed Empress of Scotland. The change had been delayed due to wartime regulations prohibiting renaming of ships. It is believed that Winston Churchill was personally involved in authorising this exception, recognising the nonsense of an allied ship carrying the name of an enemy state.

 

The Empress was finally discharged from trooping duties in May 1948. During nine years of war duty she had carried over 250,000 passengers as well as 30,000 tons of cargo. She had covered over 600,000 miles, believed to be the most of any merchant ship in World War II, and had travelled to all affected parts of the world, Australasia, the Far East, South Africa, and North America.

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Empress of Scotland was returned to her original owners in May 1948 and used to meet the growing demands for trans-Atlantic passenger service. In the period between 1948 and 1950, she received an extensive refit at Fairfield in Glasgow which included increasing her size to 26,313 gross tons, her promenade deck "glassed", as well as a radical reconfiguration of her cabins from the original four classes to just two, 458 First and 250 Tourist class accommodations. The modifications she received were necessary to meet the weather conditions on the colder Atlantic route.

 

On 9 May 1950 she departed on her first post war sailing from Liverpool to Greenock to Quebec City. In April 1952, her masts were shortened in order to allow her to pass under the Quebec bridge and continue up to Montreal. She continued on her transatlantic service until September 1957. During seven years of Atlantic service, Empress of Scotland made 90 round trips to Canada. She also made 26 Caribbean cruises out of New York, plus three cruises from Southampton.

 

lantik

 

After a short period of being laid up in Liverpool, Empress of Scotland was sold to the (then) West Germany-based Hamburg Atlantik Linie/Hamburg Atlantic Line in January 1958. She received a radical refit at Howaldswerke Deutsche Werke in Hamburg where her superstructure and her orginal three funnels were replaced by two modern ones and her passenger accommodations once again reconfigured to carry as many as 1,350 passengers in comfortable luxury She emerged as the 30,030 grt ss Hanseatic and on 2 July, 1958, sailed for the first time from Cuxhaven to New York, via Le Havre, Southampton and Cobh. For the next eight years this would be her regular route, together with winter Caribbean cruises out of New York.

 

 

On 7 September 1966, while berthed in New York City harbor, a fire erupted in her engine room. There were no casualties, but the ship sustained damage beyond economic repair. She was subsequently towed back to Hamburg by two ocean tugs appropriately named Atlantic and Pacific. She was sold for scrap to Eisen & Metall AG and broken up at Hamburg in December 1966.