Sea Princess, which started the cruise season off when it called for the first time 11 days ago, returned to Port Chalmers last Friday. The 77,449gt purpose-built cruise ship was completed at Monfalcone in November, 1998. It perpetuates the name of an earlier unit of the fleet that has been afloat for more than 46 years.
The ship is one of only three passenger liners ordered from John Browns Clydebank shipyard still in existence; the others being former Cunarders.
Queen Mary of 1936 became a museum, hotel and conference centre after arriving at Long Beach on December 9, 1967.
A similar role was planned for Queen Elizabeth 2 of 1969 when it arrived at Dubai on November 26, 2008. It was intended the ship would become a feature of the Palm Jumeirah complex. This has not happened and QE2 remains berthed at Port Rashid.
The earlier Sea Princess was built for the Swedish-America Line (SAL) of Gothenburg. As the fourth Kungsholm in the fleet, it was launched on April 14, 1965. Completed on March 17, 1966, it was the last passenger liner built for these owners.
Kungsholm was designed as a dual-purpose vessel: as a transatlantic liner for 715 passengers in two classes, but when cruising it was limited to 450. Its maiden voyage from Gothenburg to New York began on April 22, 1966.
A vessel of 26,678gt, later increased to 28,891gt, it was designed to operate at a service speed of 21 knots, and on trials achieved 25. Twin-screw propulsion machinery was in the form of two nine-cylinder diesels of the Gotaverken design having a combined output of 25,200bhp.
SAL withdrew the vessel from service in August, 1975. Two months later it was sold and transferred to the Liberian register for cruising out of the US by Flagship Cruises.
In January, 1979, it was sold to P&O and renamed Sea Princess. A refit in Germany by the Bremer Vulkan shipyard added accommodation and removed the forward, dummy funnel.
Initially based in Australia, London-registered Sea Princess later alternated between P&O's UK-based fleet and subsidiary Princess Cruises. Renamed Victoria in 1995, the ship was operated out of Southampton by the parent company till sold in 2002.
It made a charter voyage to mark the centenary of the formation of the Union-Castle Line in February, 1900. With funnel painted in their colours, Victoria sailed from Southampton on December 11. 1999, and arrived at Cape Town 18 days later, after calling at ports visited by Union-Castle Line ships before its demise.
P&O sold the ship to Leonardo Shipping Inc, which renamed it Mona Lisa then chartered it to a German company that went bankrupt in September, 2006. Then after a brief laid-up period at Piraeus it was chartered from November, 2006, to January, 2007, for use as a hotel at Doha, Qatar, for the Asian Games.
From April 30 to May 28, 2007, it was chartered by the Louis Cruise Line as a temporary replacement for its Sea Diamond. This cruise ship went aground on the Greek island of Santorini on April 4, 2007, and sank the next day.
Renamed Oceanic II in 2007, the ship reverted to the name Mona Lisa in 2008. The past four years it has served with The Scholar Ship International Education programme, a co-operative venture between seven major world universities and as the Peace Boat in the northern hemisphere. And earlier last year it was employed as floating accommodation for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games at Vancouver.
The veteran had been owned by Leonardo Shipping and registered at Nassau since 2002. But from August, 2010, it no longer complied with new Safety of Life at Sea regulations that became effective two months later. It was then sold to DSME Oman LLC, an offshoot of South Korea's Daewoo shipyard.
Mona Lisa arrived at Oman from Piraeus on October 26, 2010. It is planned to use the ship there as a floating hotel until 2015.
