Adios To OLA; Former BLACK PRINCE Ceases Operation
Ola Cruises, the Venezuelan operator of the 11,209 gross ton OLA ESMERALDA (ex BLACK PRINCE) appears to have ceased operations. Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines sold the hugely popular 451-passenger ship to SAVECA (Servicios Acuaticos de Venezuela CA.) in 2009 for what was intended to be further service as a cruise ship in Venezuelan domestic waters between the mainland and their islands. It also reportedly sailed to the Southern Caribbean destinations of Aruba, Curacao, Trinidad and Tobago. In 2010 the ship was chartered to the U.N. Mission to Haiti for accommodations during the relief efforts following the major earthquake there. SAVECA was owned by a group of Venezulean hotel chains that were able to take advantage of the extremely low fuel prices made available by the Venvezuelan government.
The ship was built in 1966 in Lubeck, Germany as a combination ferry and cruise ship, but had been cruising on a full-time basis since 1987. The last voyage for Fred. Olsen was in October, 2009. In Venezuelan domestic service, the ship was not converted to be SOLAS 2010 compliant and has not been updated since it was acquired. The dimensions of the BLACK PRINCE/OLA ESMERALDA are 471 feet in overall length, 65.8 feet in beam and a 21 foot draught. The ship will almost certainly be sold for scrap.
Shawn Dake
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Shawn, thanks for the update. I think her asking price is something like 2.5 million, which certainly means she’s a scrapper. Here is a link to a rather heavily illustrated Sea Trek (sorry, no time to reformat for large photos) I did about her penultimate cruise from the U.K. I savor having been able to sail in the old girl and am sorry but not surprised to see her go:
http://maritimematters.com/2009/09/penning-the-ultimate-prince-blog-hail-and-farewell-to-fred-olsens-black-prince/
— Peter
Peter, Thank you for posting the link to your excellent article which gives readers the ultimate story of the ship with great photos of her interior and exterior. You are fortunate to have enjoyed a cruise in her. It looks like another rather unique class of vessel is about to fade into history.
Shawn and Peter,
OLA ESMERALDA appeared in Santo Domingo Roads, the morning after Huricane Sandy continued to North. She tried to anchor outside the port entry, but due to wind, current and swell she did not manage to make it, and finally drifted South with Starboard Anchor hanging underneath.
She found shelter in Caucedo Port for some days, and after a week finaly was berthed in North Pier.
Rumors in port wanted her to be used in December as a floating Disco but her final destination is intended in January the scrapyard in Ozama Rived of Santo Domingo.
Regards
Capt. Sparrow
Captain Sparrow,
Thanks so much for this interesting information! Never heard of Ozama Rived — is this a new scrapyard? PALM BEACH PRINCESS (ex ILMATAR) just arrived in Santo Domingo, presumably for the same purpose. I’m wondering how a Caribbean state can do this kind of work without raising the ire of environmentalists…
Thanks again,
Peter
It is indeed a shame for the ex-BLACK PRINCE to end up in a scrapyard. She and her sister ship BLACK WATCH (and the near-sister BLENHEIM) were utterly fascinating ships – how many other combination ferry-reefer-cruise ships can you name? But admittedly it’s hard to think of a use for her in modern-day shipping. The same, sadly, goes for the delightful PALM BEACH PRINCESS, if indeed she too is due to be scrapped at Santo Domingo.
Another old ship that says goodbye.
I remember to see this ship and her twin -Black Watch-in the early 80’s, arriving at Las Palmas every Thursday and leaving every Friday, on her winter service from UK to Madeira and the Canaries. If ships have a soul, this ship’s soul must be happy, as she has had a long and profitable life. Goodbye, my friend.
Dear Peter,
Ozama river is the river running Santo Domingo and ends to the sea. In it’s mouth sides there are piers new and old ones, that form what we call Santo Domingo Port. Some half a mile North, there is a floating construction that connects both sides of city, just beyond the new Bridge Highway. If you have less than 16 feet of Draft and good luck, going north there is a yard, that can do a little bit of everything, either to construct or demolish..
Regarding the environmental issues, and your wonders i would think the same, if i hadn’t seen what is coming down with the river, from the 2,5 million people living almost inside it in conditions that nobody would be jealous of..
The yard, as i understand is nothinlg like Alang’s organized system and production line, but only an attempt to get by.
Regards
Capt. Sparrow,
I too wanted to add my thanks to you for providing this most interesting information. It will be fascinating to see if the Dominican Republic will be able to remain competitive with other countries in the dismantling of smaller ships. Please keep us posted on any new developments going into January and beyond. Great name by the way… especially for a nautical person in the Caribbean.
Shawn
This link claims that the reason Olsen sold ex-BLACK-PRINCE was because updating it to SOLAS 2010 standards was (financially) difficult/impossible.
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/archive/index.php?t-27534.html
I’m tinkering with a business idea involving a cruise-ship around 150m length & 20m beam, with overnight accommodations for ~1000 pax, possibly also with room for cars (ferry-style… RORO or maybe crane-load?). This would be used in USA waters, semi-commercially, with crew and ‘passengers’ all being employees of a single (non-shipping-industry) parent corp, yet still paying for their berths, sort of like a company-perk that requires employees to contribute matching funds. The parent corp would buy & own the ship outright.
My understanding of the cruise business is *woefully* inadequate, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask for some initial assistance here in the comments. If this is the wrong place for such talk, please just let me know.
Looking at the economics of buying a cruise ship to my specs, it seems you can get one for ~~$5m that is non SOLAS 2010 compliant, and does not have USCG/USPH fittings. MS SALAMIS FILOXENIA sold at auction in 2009 for $7m, and the OLA ESMERALDA in the article above was sold to the scrapyard for $3m. Somebody in Chennai India was selling a 150m RORO car ferry from 1974 at less than $1m… but presumably, like the ex-BLACK-PRINCE, the low price is means it can only legally be used in non-USA waters. Is that a fair assessment? Or do the low-priced vessels that are SOLAS 2010 and USCG simply have unadvertised prices?
With vessel prices like those, the price per cabin comes out in the $100k/pax… too high).
There *are* a few modern ships being built near my external specs, such as 2010 Le Boreal 142m x 18m, but she is a luxury-intimate-cruise with only 132 cabins for her 11k tonnage (80GT/cabin). I’m looking for something more like 1993 Braemer classic-intimate-cruise, which has 484 cabins and 23k tonnage (50GT/cabin), or even denser: work-cubicle-cruise class, aka floating office building.
What would an average price be for a used vessel, somewhat like the Braemer or denser, fully compliant for the Houston-Boston run, as a ‘semi-commercial’ cruise ship? Does my parent-corp-sole-owner scheme allow me to be treated as a private yacht under SOLAS and USCG regulations, or must I comply with all chapters? Is my business idea totally crazy… perhaps, like a fox? I see this as potentially being a way to save classics like ex-BLACK-PRINCE from the scrap heap, if the regulatory hurdles can be overcome.
[Arrgh… captcha issue, accidentally messed up my own post. Below is the *correct* fifth paragraph; it was mangled, above.]
With vessel prices like those, the price per cabin comes out in the $100k/pax… too high).
[Sigh. Okay, I did get a captcha error, but the *other* problem was that my comment used angle-brackets for non-markup purposes. I hope this one works! Corrected fifth paragraph, this time for real.]
With vessel prices like those, the price per cabin comes out in the less-than-$10k/pax range (5m for 500 cabins), which is a reasonably small portion of the annual salary an employee makes, when spread across several years of use. However, most vessels that mention SOLAS 2010 compliance and USCG fittings in their descriptions cost five times that amount, such as http://www.shipseller.net/details.php?id=1761 which currently does casino-cruise runs out of Vietnam. It doesn’t have USCG fittings, either. New vessels of the luxury-mega-liner class tend to have 75k-150k tonnage (way larger than my goals), and cost above $100m (with ~75GT/cabin and more-than-$100k/pax… too high).
Oh Man… its been a bad year for all these classic ships. 🙁
This is so sad. I Sailed from Newcastle to Kristiansand with Fred Olsen on her as the ferry Black Prince many times in the 1970’s. Even once without a bed or sleeperette reservation and sleeping on the floor of the Lido bar!! I was happy to hear she had been given a stay of execution as the Ola when she left Fred Olsen’s Fleet. But time ( and Money) catches up with us all and although I wish she could be saved like the Hurtigruten ship Nordstjernen, alas she will go the way of her sister and end up at the cutters torch. Good bye old friend!!!!
___j___: Did I understand correctly that your plan is to use the ship exclusively within the US waters? If so, there are two things you should be aware of: only US-flagged ships maybe used in intra-US traffic, and only US-built ships can be US flagged (unless you get a special exemption from the US Congress). On the other hand, SOLAS regulations only apply to ships in international service. Hence it would be possible to run a non-SOLAS compliant ship in intra-US service – presuming that the US regulations are less strict than SOLAS, of course.
Finding a passenger ship that can crane-load cars (lo-lo as opposed to ro-ro) is extremely unlikely these days. If you want to carry cars then ro-ro is more than likely your only option.
Kalle Id, thanks for the reply. My intended use-case would *primarily* be for travel in USA-waters… but my running assumption was that staying within the waters of a single country would make it *easier* to comply with regulations, rather than harder! Seems I was wrong. Mandating purchase of US-built vessels which are US-flagged makes it sound much ‘easier’ to have the ship flagged in the Bahamas (or Panama or whatever). As a bonus, would international-flagging permit travel outside the east coast region, through the canal to California, and through the St Lawrence to the Great Lakes? However, what exactly does intra-US traffic mean? Can I start in the Bahamas, sail to Texas, stop at various places up the east coast ending in Maine, then sail back to the Bahamas? Or do I have to sail internationally on every other stop? Here is my abridged version of wikipedia-terminology:
#0. Coastal trading vessel — smaller shallow-hulled ships used for intra-US cargo trade.
#1. Ferry — regular frequent point-to-point-and-back schedule, transports passengers/cars/trucks/containers/someCombo, ranging in size from the Venice water-taxi to the NYC commuter-behemoths.
#2. Cruiseferry — a large ferry, possibly seagoing, with RORO (or rarely crane-load) and
#3. Classic passenger ships — primary function is passengers, but also often transport mail/freight/etc (often stored with passenger-luggage in a below-decks cargo-hold). Smaller than an ocean-liner, but otherwise a very blurry category.
#4. Ocean liner — seagoing passenger ship, used for international voyages by passengers, sometimes *not* in a round-trip fashion. More likely to have a cargo-hold, less likely to have RORO, but like the cruise-ships tend to be exclusively for passengers in modern designs.
#5. Cruise ships — passenger ship used for pleasure voyages by tourists, typically seagoing but in round-trip fashion, mostly serving EU/US markets (older vessels often serve in the Asia/Pacific region). Modern cruise ships tend not to have RORO, or indeed, even a cargo-hold.
Using those definitions, I believe I’m looking for something in the cruiseferry / classic-passenger-ship / somewhat-older-ocean-liner / rather-older-cruise-ship category, but I’m planning on *using* the vessel more like a coastal trading vessel slash long-distance ferry, travelling up and down the USA coastline, with regular stops. A new niche, perhaps… or do such tourist operations already exist, where you hop on the cruiseferry in Miami on June 1st, head for NYC, stopping along the way for driving excursions, and then return to Miami a couple months later? I’ve never heard of one, but that doesn’t mean nobody does them (or tried it in the past).
#A. commercial vessel — vessel engaged in commercial [cargo] trade, or that carries passengers-for-hire, for instance, Disney Cruise Ships.
#B. pleasure craft — do not carry passengers-for-hire, for instance, private yacht.
The other portion of my idea is to have corporation that owns a vessel outright, and have ‘passengers’ restricted to employees of that same corporation. Not sure whether that means I qualify as a seagoing “pleasure craft” or not, and probably only a lawyer can give me a definitive answer, because it depends on whether employees that provide matching funds are considered passengers-for-hire. (Happy to hear if you have any thoughts on which way the decision would lean, of course!) Conservatively, then, I’d like to plan for what it takes to become a “commercial vessel” according to the USCG… but I would also like to know *which* regulations and restrictions will no longer apply, if I can re-classify my vessel as a pleasure-craft at some point, after consultation with a lawyer experienced in the area. So: you mentioned that intra-US traffic requires a US-flagged vessel, which in turn requires that the vessel be manufactured in the USA. Does that restriction apply to commercial vessels, or to pleasure craft, or to both? Plenty of yachts in the water, with flags of convenience, owned by Americans, used by Americans for intra-US traffic, but because every so often they visit the Carib, don’t have to be US-flagged (nor US-manufactured)… right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Flagged#The_commercial_fleet Wikipedia says as of 2006 there were ~100 privately-owned vessels above 1k tonnage in the U.S. Merchant Marine — 19 general passenger ships, 58 combined passenger&cargo ships, 27 roll-on-roll-off ships, 20 vehicle carriers. However, it hints that some (or maybe all?) of the Merchant Marine fleet is manned & maintained by the government, for purposes like supplying the military in the Middle East. It also claims (with a ‘citation needed’ link that says some random person made that particular edit) that there are ~700 large private yachts operating under flags of convenience, but used & run primarily by USA-based owners.
One thing that your reply seemed interesting, but I’m not sure was what you intended: are you saying that, if I can find a US-flagged US-manufactured older vessel, I can use it for intra-US traffic *without* being SOLAS 2010 and USCG compliant? Or when you said this depended on USA regulations being less strict than SOLAS, that you are uncertain whether those older vessels are grandfathered in by U.S. law? Here http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=18744 is a post from another website, which suggests that in the past SOLAS regulations only applied to new construction, but as of the mid-1990s changes were made so that old ships were to be forcibly retired (sprinklers required as of 2005 and non-combust construction required as of 2010). However, SOLAS-style rules may not apply if the older vessel was built in the USA, and is only used in US-waters? Does it depend on vessel classification?
I just found this vessel, which would be close to my specs — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_City_of_New_York Served 1888-1920, ocean liner, 170m x 19m, 1740 pax, 10508 tonnage, ~12 GT/cabin.
It was scrapped in 1923, but assuming you could purchase one like it for $10m today, and legally sail it from city to city in the USA, the cost per cabin would be $12k (each semi-passenger couple would own the rights to their cabin in much the way that a highrise sells ownership of apartments or a beach-condo-operation sells single-owner timeshares). Contrast that with the ~$400k/cabin on the MSC MUSICA, Carnival BREEZE, Costa FASCINOSA, NCL BREAKAWAY… or a few years back the ~$300k/cabin of the MSC SERENATA, EMERALD PRINCESS, and Carnival FREEDOM. Those are brand-new-vessel prices, of course, which makes a difference… but not twenty-five-times the difference! Modern luxury-mega-cruise vessels are just a different beast from the old-school ocean-liners. I need the latter.
The reason for the low price is the 12 GT/cabin, about 6 or 7 times denser than modern luxury-mega-cruise, and even about 4 times denser than intimate-classic-cruise of the Braemer’s 50 GT/cabin. Considering the hygiene risks of steerage-class passage in the late 1800s, probably 12 GT/cabin is *too* dense, but maybe 24 or 36 GT/cabin is achievable nowadays… if the passengers will accept it. Does anybody have first-hand experience with living conditions in the cramped quarters of ~25 GT/cabin vessels? After 1893, the SS CITY OF NEW YORK eliminated steerage-class (in favor of luggage and mail-freight presumably), which gave her about 28 GT/cabin.
p.s. Note that, because of safety reasons (lifeboat count and lifejacket count and hallway-bottlenecks and such things) it seems unlikely that I could just take a vessel like the Braemer, and put up makeshift extra “cabins” in the casino/ballroom/restaurants/lounges to double the passenger-density. There is certainly physically enough room to do that — see floorplans here — http://www.ocean-liner-society.com/Visit_Braemar.htm — but in an emergency, there would not be enough infrastructure and other facilities to permit everybody to escape.
With enough money, of course, a new vessel could always be designed from scratch, or I could buy one of the $1m RORO vessels from India, gut it, and rebuild it to spec, but that is outside the scope of my initial project idea. Perhaps someday, once the concept has been proven.
What is the MSC SERENATA anyway? Never heard of it.
MSC SERENATA is the original name for MSC SPLENDIDA. I looked it up on wikipedia.
Kenneth and Hank, I came across the list of SPLENDIDA-fka-SERENATA, EMERALD PRINCESS, and FREEDOM in a forum-post of 2006, which gave their estimated prices when new. Since they were way above my both my tonnage-envelope and my cost-per-cabin goal, I didn’t research them further.
What I have been *unable* to find is a rough price for a used vessel in the ~15k GRT range, either cruise, or even better, cruiseferry. Here is a list of 100 in-service passenger vessels, with IMO numbers — http://grosstonnage.com/?syslng=ing&sysmen=5&sysind=4&syssub=0&sysfnt=0&code=RESUL&op=ADV&idflag=0&idtype=20&tonfrom=9600&tonto=26500&idstatus=1
They also have ~1000 vessels listed in the RORO category, mostly car-carriers transporting new Toyota models from Asia to the west, but also including a few passenger-ferries like ARATERE — http://www.interislander.co.nz/Our-Ships-And-Services/Aratere/Facts-And-Figures.aspx 670 pax + 31 crew + 230 cars, 19 knots, 183m x 20m, 12596 GRT, decent density at ~37 GT/’cabin’ including one car for every three passengers (but ‘cabin’ is in scarequotes because it has no overnight berths! just a day-ferry.)
Thanks Hank!
This is the Ozama River the metal from the ships plate is cut into strips and used for wrought iron work. There are also efforts to develop a ship breaking operation in Miragoane, Haiti.
-j-: There are roughly 50 cruise ships on the open S&P market at present, ranging from $ 5 million up to $ 180 million. Thee also others not openly known to be for sale. Unfortunately, I’m away from the office, in South Africa, for another three weeks. But if you email me, I can send you a full portfolio.
The end result which out of many possibilities is the one most probable. First the plates would be broken apart and the plates cut into strips. The section of the warehouse which is indicated in the lower left hand side.
http://www.metaldom.com/productos.html
Richard / Anyone: Does anyone know exactly where Ola Esmeralde is at the moment? Did a Google Earth satalite search of Ozema River and couldn’t even see Palm Beach Princess anywhere. How come Haiti is still a disaster zone but can start a shipbreakers at Miragoane?
Alan
Can’t offer any insight to OLA ESMERALDA nor PALM BEACH PRINCESS.
However, the very mention of Haiti conjures up the suffering those dear people have suffered for many a decade.
One major cruise line has stated that “they”, the cruise lne, intend to build a major cruise facuility in Port au Prince, for theirs and other ships, and reopen the city to cruise travellers. How arrogant. And selfish. This was featured in the US press, not as joke.
Those people don’t need cruise ship passengers, they need a life.
Kenneth
I agree with you 110%. Sounds like the cruise company is making the devastation and povety an attraction to gloat at. Haiti will, one day, be as good as DomRep, but it sure as hell upsets me to see all the broken promises, wasted money, corruption and blah-blah no action. Just like when “Ola Esmeralda” was charteed by the UN for the
Haiti relief programme as a booz palace and love boat. Grrr!
Solas is clamping down on old vessels, too bad the ones that caught fire and stranded and partially sunk were solas compliant vessels.
Upkeep and updating these older vessels are important. We have to have a market for the older ships. Not everyone likes these mamoth 3500 plus passenger ships..
Have now received confirmation that both “Ola Esmeralda” and “Palm Beach Princess” are indeed at Ozema River near Santo Domingo, and that both (including PBP) are untouched and intact because local government haven’t granted shipbreaking permit. There is a rumour they may be moved to Haiti. Watch this space. Happy Christmas 2 U all.
I was just visiting Santo Domingo (dec 17-22nd) and saw the ship along side, looking very old. There were crew aboard, saw them having a BBQ on the top deck. I took some photos, if intersted send me an email