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THE END OF A GRAND OLD LADY
SS FRANCE/SS NORWAY
THE GREENIES WIN!
In the shipping newspapers and some other media around the world a ‘Right Battle Royal’ has been raging recently that has involved governments, greenies, shipping companies and ship breakers on two continents.
It all centred on the pensioned off French aircraft carrier Clemenceau a 27,000-tonne ship which was known to have a couple of thousand tons of asbestos built into her.
Extensive ‘greenie pressure at home and India caused a diplomatic shemozzle then a high court case in France forced president Jacques Chirac to order the carrier home from the Arabian sea were she has been making lazy circles since India banned her a few days ago.
Various bodies are quoting it will cost up to the 10 million Eros for France to remove the asbestos from the carrier.
*****
Caught up in the same row is the once famous liner ‘FRANCE’
(Compagnie Generale Transatlantique or "CGT")
"FRANCE"
After her glory days on the New York run like lots of other liners of her time built for the Atlantic ferry run to America she was soon displaced by the Boeing 707s.
she was converted to a cruise boat but not very successful like all her ilk she was to expensive to run in that mode.
After just 12 years in 1974 she was taken out of service and retired.
She was laid up for many years, bought & sold many times once by a Saudi billionaire but even he couldn’t do any thing with her.
Finally rescue came, the travelling public had rediscovered “Cruising’.
In 1979 she was bought by the Norwegian shipping magnate Lauritz Kloster for $18 million.
As the shipping world cynically looked on, Kloster spent some $80 million to convert the "cold weather" SS FRANCE into the "warm weather" SS NORWAY.
His fleet of 1960's/70's-built cruise ships (the 17,000 gross ton SOUTHWARD, the 16,000 gross ton STARWARD, and SKYWARD) were sailing at or beyond capacity under the flag of Norwegian Caribbean Lines (later Norwegian Cruise Lines), and Kloster intended to more than double his share of the market with the NORWAY.
She was towed to Bremerhaven in August of 1979 and completely rebuilt with a huge new lido deck at her stern, and two outdoor pools.
Two huge tenders, the "little NORWAY I and II", were hoisted on her bow and special cranes were built to offload them at ports where NORWAY's deep draft prevented her from docking.
Her passenger capacity was increased from 2044 to 2181 and her crew complement was decreased from 1100 to 800.
Her once chic French interiors were largely restyled and/or replaced with more comfortable and "tropical" fittings.
More economic diesels replaced her Turbo generators and in the summer of 1980 she sailed for the US to begin her new role - cruising.
"NORWAY"
The NORWAY was an absolute smash hit, sending the competition reeling.
Aside from the QE2, she was half again as large as any vessel sailing, offering an onboard experience the smaller ships simply could not emulate.
NCL's Vegas and Broadway-style shows ushered in a new era of glitz at sea, and special celebrity "theme" cruises allowed eager passengers an opportunity to mingle with and see their favourite stars perform or lecture in the ship's cavernous theatre. With the NORWAY, the ship became a resort destination in itself, and her success inspired the competition into a building frenzy that resulted in a fleet of mega passenger ships many thought had ended with the QE2 in 1968.
From 1999 on rumours had her being pensioned off at any moment but they were always cancelled at the last moment as the cruising trade boomed.
On May 25th 2003 a boiler explosion killed 4 and injured 17 crewmembers.
It was the beginning of the end for the SS Norway.
On June 27th she was towed to Hamburg supposedly for repair but in effect laid up.
She was towed to Bremerhaven were she was used as an accommodation ship for workers building the liners ‘Pride of America’ & ‘Norwegian Sky’
In May of 2005 she was towed by the ocean going tug ‘De Da’ via the Cape to Port Kalang in Malaysia.
In January of 2006 now 46 years old it was reported that the grand old ship had been sold to Indian ship Breakers.
Almost at once the news came out she was full of ASBESTOS!
That funny white stuff most of us have worked with, shared a cabin with, one top bunk I had for a few months had three asbestos lagged pipes running along just above it, I found them quite useful as a place to keep my books, fags ashtray and general junk.
A campaign started with the greenies in France saying the French government should not allow all this floating pollution to be dumped in some 3rd world country.
The Indian Greenies took up the call and the government feeling the wind banned the ship.
The Indian Breaker then sold her to a Bangladeshi Breakers yard to a scrap trader named Haji Lokman Hossain.
He told wire service AFP that he bought the vessel from an Indian investor for the equivalent of NOK 82 million (about USD 12 million). But it wasn’t to be the hue & cry arose there and the Bangladeshi government banned her from entering their waters.
He said he was "surprised and shocked" by the Bangladeshi ban against scrapping the vessel, claiming the country's scrap yards have accepted other vessels with asbestos.
French workers who built the ship say it has 1,250 tonnes of material containing asbestos.
And there the story ‘hangs’ for now, the grand old lady of the seas is making lazy circles somewhere.
I haven’t heard that she has been beached for scrapping or were she is.
One thing is certain it will be costing someone a lot of money to keep dragging her around.
