delusionofgrandeur

I’m not sure why I keep stumbling across maritime stories or why they interest me so much but here are another two.

MS Van Gough, a Norwegian owned 16,000 ton 1970s cruise liner has been impounded in the port of Fuchal on the Portuguese mid-atlantic island of Madeira over an unpaid debt owed by the former owners of the ship. Unfortunately for the 400 or so passengers which left Falmouth in January on a 3 month cruise, it appears the cruise organisers, Van Gough Cruises of Cheltenham UK, are not members of ABTA - a trade body which provides financial protection for travel agent customers.

Grand Princess, a modern 106,000 ton, 2,600 passenger cruise liner, is meanwhile taking it easy on the next leg of her cruise as she has blown two turbochargers (one each on two of six engines). The blowers apparent let go as she was leaving port in Jamaica and news reports there initially suggested that Grand Princess was on fire as “thick black smoke” was seen. Grand Princess is now continuing on to her destination of Grand Cayman on three engines. Obviously, she will need repairs at the end of her current cruise.

Photo Credit: Teh tennisman cc-by-sa-3.0

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Automotive, Maritime.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.