Monday, May 19, 2008

Where do Old Ships Go?

So those of you that know me know that I like to travel. You also know that I enjoy cruises quite a bit. I occasionally look around online and see if I can find any deals for cruises and think that if I can I would go. So this past weekend as I was looking around I started thinking about my past cruises and wondered about all those ships.

The first cruise I went on was on the SS Norway from Norwegian Cruise Lines. I was pretty sure that it was no longer sailing with them but was curious as to where it was and what it was doing. So I decided to google it and here is what I found.

This boat since 1999 has had quite a story, we traveled on it in 1993. On May 28th of 1999 it had a fire on board and the boat had to be evacuated and then taken out of service until it was repaired. It then continued service again for the next 4 years.

On My 25th 2003, almost 4 years to the day later, while in the Port of Miami there was an explosion in the boiler room. Several of the crew lost their lives and the Norway was towed around for the next few years pretty much not having any plans or being repaired. It was slated to go to the Asian Market and then they were going to turn it into a floating luxury hotel in the Middle East. None of these plans ever worked. Finally it was sold to a company that was responsible for scrapping ships.

Many people really wanted to save the Norway and tried but they could not make it happen. It was tied up in court for quite a while due to the asbestos that was used in it's counstruction, their could not be any destruction until they knew it could happen safely. Eventually the SS Norway was renamed Blue Lady and on August 15th, 2006 the Norway was run aground and beached in the waters off India where she would be cut up for scrap use and disassembled.

Below I put together a slideshow of the pictures that I could find of the Norway's final days. I am sure there still may be a couple of lost receipts with a lot of Michelob Lights and Strawberry Daiquiris. But even more than that I am sure are a lot of memories. If you are interested in the entire story you can find it here: http://www.maritimematters.com/norway.html




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool, D. Love the music...and the history of the Norway. As I recall it was still the largest ship cruising when we last went on it in 1993. Dad & I have sailed it twice. Wonder why "they" didn't tell us about it's demise? :-)
Speaking of the music...did you see Kenny and George sing it Sun night?
LY...C

Susan said...

Wow...that is very cool. Good job there, Dan! You might like the meme that I play now on Tuesdays. It's kind of right up your alley.

:-)

Anonymous said...

Ah the memories...that was a great ship and we had a lot of fun...can't remember, but SOMEONE won a lot of money playing bingo!!! I saw this very same article a while back and was shocked to see what was happening to the 'ol gal'.

Gerg