VIKING PRINCESS

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VIKING PRINCESS

Post by shipstamps » Fri Oct 10, 2008 6:31 pm

Built as a cargo- passenger vessel by Ateliers et Chantiers de La Loire, St Nazaire, France for Cie. Mar. des Chargeurs Réunis, Le Havre.
30 October 1948 launched under the name LAVOISIER.
Tonnage 11.986 gross, 6.737 net, 9.493dwt., dim. 163.6 x 19.6m.
Powered by two 8-cyl. Sulzer diesels manufactured by Cie. De Const. Méc, St Dennis, 12.000 bhp., twin screws, speed 16 knots.
Passenger accommodation for 94 first and 230 second class.

After delivery first put in the service from France to River La Plate ports.
19 September 1950 she left Le Havre for her maiden voyage to Buenos Aires, and then placed in the service from Hamburg to Buenos Aires.

August 1961 sold to Commerciale Maritime Petroli SpA, Palermo, Italy, and rebuilt at Genoa as a cruise vessel.
Renamed RIVIERA PRIMA. Tonnage 12.812 gross.
November 1962 chartered by Caribbean Cruise Line, and the RIVIERA PRIMA on two to 14 days cruises from the U.S. East Coast ports.
During the summer of 1964 the Caribbean Cruise Line collapsed and the RIVIERA PRIMA was sold.
October 1964 sold to A/S Sigline, Berge Sigval Bergesen, Oslo and renamed VIKING PRINCESS.
The new owners used her as a cruise vessel from the US to the Caribbean.

02 April 1966 she sailed from Miami under command of Capt. Otto Thorsen and 235 passengers and 259 crewmembers, bound for the Caribbean waters. The first five days were uneventful, but when she was sailing in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti about 75 miles from the American naval base Guantanamo Bay on 08 April at 1.44 a.m. a fire was reported in the engine room. The fire spread very quickly and the captain ordered to abandon the VIKING PRINCESS.
On her mayday call many vessels responded, and when arriving on the scene found the VIKING PRINCESS en-gulfed in flames.
CAP NORTE a West Germany vessel picked up 376 survivors, and a Liberian vessel the NAVIGATOR took 80 survivors on board, while the steamship CHUNGKIN VICTORY took many more survivors, all survivors were taken to Guantanamo Bay.
Of all the people on board two died on heart attacks and 25 people suffered minor injures.
The Norwegian crew were well trained and in 15 minutes all persons on board had left the vessels in the lifeboats.

The steamship NAVIGATOR managed to put a towline on the still blazing ship, while United States Navy and Coast Guard crews went on board to extinguish the fire.
Still smoldering the VIKING PRINCESS was towed to Kingston, Jamaica where she arrived on 12 April, she dropt her anchor outside the port.
She was declared a constructive total loss, and was sold to Spanish breakers.
14 July 1966 under tow she arrived at Bilbao, Spain for breaking up.

On Nevis 1988 $3 sg 511, scott 574.

Source: Modern Shipping Disasters 1963-1987 by Norman Hooke. Great Passenger Ships of the World by Arnold Kludas. Register of Merchant Ships completed in 1950.
Attachments
SG511
SG511

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