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All text and photographs (unless stated otherwise) © Paul Timmerman; photographs on this page made during ship visit in 1981 when she sailed as The Victoria for Chandris Cruises . One of
the oldest cruise
ships afloat (67 years of age……),
Princesa Victoria has a
long and interesting career. Built in
1936 as
Dunnotar Castle by Harland and Wolff shipyards at Belfast for the famous
Union Castle Line, she started life on the round Africa service, completely
encircling Africa before returning to London. This lasted for only 3 years until
1939, when she commenced war service.
Theatre, Emerald deck
El Patio Lounge, Rendez-vous deck She
survived the war intact after having sailed over 250.000 miles
and
was handed
over to Union Castle again. Refitted
to return to her regular service to Africa she resumed her commercial service in
1949. A
remarkable fact was that her passenger capacity had decreased
to 105 passengers in
first, and 263 in second class, not much for a ship her size (15.000 tons). She
also had considerable cargo space.
Casino, Rendez-vous deck Galleon Bar, Rendes-vous deck As on
all trades world wide,
the round Africa service was also overtaken by the jet
aircraft, resulting in (too) many empty cabins on the Dunnotar Castle. She was
taken out of service in 1958 and offered for sale. The
Incres Line of New York
was interested. They
wanted to use her for fairly long cruises (two weeks and
more to the Caribbean and Europe). The other ship Incres owned was the Nassau,
which ran very successful 7-day cruises from New York to Nassau
(Bahamas).
Roman restaurant, Coral deck
Continued on next page...... Go to Princesa Victoria page 2
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