Ships I Have Known

The Mikhail Lermontov docked at Le Havre, France

After reminiscing recently with a family member about the ocean liners we'd taken across the Atlantic, I decided to do a posting about them, including what became of them.

Of all the ships on which I crossed the Atlantic, the Danish was the most friendly, the French had the best food, the Soviet was the most/least organized, the Polish was the poorest (in terms of $$), and the English was more like a cruise ship which was not a plus.

1.  In fact, the Danish M/V Uruguay was not a liner but a twelve-passenger freighter making the ten-day trip from Hoboken to the west coast of Denmark.  It was my first trip to Europe (and a solo one at that) and cost me $187.  A gorgeous crew, delicious food, liberal drink = a fabulous time.  Since that was 1963, the ship has surely long since been retired.

2.  The spiffiest was the French Line's SS France, then the longest passenger ship in the world. Lucky enough to be working in a building that overlooked the Hudson River, I witnessed its maiden voyage entry into New York's harbor "with 5 fireboats, 20 tugs, helicopters, flags flying, and much celebration," as I wrote that day, February 8, 1962.  Eight years later (when the fare was $313 each) we took it from New York to Le Havre and dined on foie gras with truffles.  Cold lobster in mayonnaise.  Dover sole.  Rack of lamb.  Camembert and chèvre.  Show-offy crêpes suzettes with flaming caramelized sugar and Grand Marnier.  The waiters served with a flick of the wrist ... they pulled corks, sniffed them, then gave a nod.  Spurred on by the increase in both air travel and the price of crude oil, the ship was sold to the Norwegians and turned into a cruise ship, the SS Norway, at which Howard Johnson's took over the kitchen, or so we heard.  Sold again, it became the SS Blue Lady and was scrapped in Gujarat, India, in 2008.  Alas. 

3.  In 1976, we took the MS Mikhail Lermontov, a Soviet ship, from New York to Le Havre on which you could take a balalaika class, get a massage for $3, and eat chicken schnitzel with slices of orange and pineapple on top.  It was a handsome ship but only fourteen years old when it ran aground in 1986 just off the coast of New Zealand after it, too, had been turned into a cruise ship.  The local pilot (who was also the harbormaster) wanted to offer the passengers a good view of the coast, so crept in too close, hitting rocks.  The ship sank only some twenty minutes after the last passenger was rescued though one crew member died.  It's still there in shallow enough water to make an easy dive for ship-wreck enthusiasts.

Gangplanks at Le Havre

4.  Another spiffy ship was Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2 which we took in May 1980 from New York to Southampton.  Here the dessert apricots were canned, the wine cost extra, the duck was tough, and the hot chocolate was made with water.  We won the ship's quiz twice, our prize being a paperweight--not a practical addition for those-who-travel-light.  The QE2 was operated as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship from 1969 to 2008.  It's now apparently in drydock in Dubai until a decision can be made whether to send it back to London or on to Asia to serve as a floating luxury hotel.

5.  Originally a Dutch ship built in 1952, the (renamed) M/V Stefan Batory became the flagship of the Polish Ocean Lines from 1969 to 1988.  It was a plucky little ship, not in the luxury class by any means, but trustworthy.  We sailed on her in 1984 from London to Montreal.  I'll never forget dessert one evening, called a "compote," was reconstituted raisins floating in a glass of some sort of sweetened water.  The Batory was apparently "the World's last regularly operated transatlantic liner," according to Wikipedia.  (I guess the Cunard line's ships didn't count because they also offered cruises.)  She was finally scrapped in Turkey in the early 2000s.

6.  Finally, one last ship entered our family history because it turned out to eventually sink as well, and that was the Canadian ship, the M/V William Carson, a passenger/vehicle icebreaker ferry that we took in 1975 not across the Atlantic but between North Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland.  It sank two years later after it struck an iceberg on a run out of Labrador.  All crew and passengers survived but sat watching in their lifeboats in the ice-field as the ship went down.  One man, in the process of relocating, lost everything--car, moving van, belongings.

I miss those liners, that comfortable, meditative, highly enjoyable, slow, elegant way to travel.  I'd return to them any day, easily eschewing air travel.