The 1914-built battleship TEXAS, a veteran of both World Wars, has been moored at the San Jacinto Battleground, Texas since 1948. Her hull was last repaired in the late 1980s and has since become dangerously weakened from years of exposure to the brackish water of the Houston Ship Channel. A…
NCL’s brand new NORWEGIAN EPIC arrived in Rotterdam at 9:15 this morning to begin the first of her inaugural festivities prior to a maiden transatlantic crossing from Southampton to New York where she will be named by Reba McEntire on July 2. Many thanks to Bert Lamers for providing the…
Helping fill the gap left in US waterway cruising since owners, Ambassadors International, announced in April 2008 that Majestic America Line was exiting the cruise business after its 2008 season, Seattle-based Cruise West announced that it will offer cruises along the Mississippi River beginning in March 2011. The 102-passenger 1984-built…
˜ NCL’s NORWEGIAN EPIC has completed her second sea trials off STX’s St. Nazaire, France-based shipyard and will head to Rotterdam and Southampton for a series of inaugural cruises before crossing the Atlantic to arrive in New York on July 1. On July 2, she will be christened by Reba…
Posted Sunday, June 13, 2010 The terribly sad images at the bottom of the page speak for themselves. We have received many requests from people to publish them as they lend a certain “closure” to the sorrowful INDEPENDENCE saga. The photos were forwarded to MaritimeMatters by James Hood, who found…
The keel was laid for Oceania Cruises’ MV RIVIERA, second of its 1,258 passenger MARINA class ships, on June 3 at Fincantieri’s Sestri Ponente (near Genoa) shipyard. The first of 55 steel blocks that will form the ship’s hull and superstructure was lowered into the graving dock in a process…
A haunting series of images taken of the stranded and now quite visibly broken SS PLATINUM II (ex INDEPENDENCE, SEA LUCK I, OCEANIC INDEPENDENCE, OCEANIC) have been forwarded to MaritimeMatters by James Hood. Once we get the URL for the website, we will provide a link but thus far, the…
St. Nazaire, France-based STX Europe have been commissioned by Libya’s General National Maritime Transport Co (GNMTC) to construct a 139,400 gt cruise ship largely based upon the design of MSC Cruises’ recent STX newbuilds, MSC FANTASIA (shown) and MSC SPLENDIDA. The as yet unnamed vessel is due for completion at…
