ONE of the great ladies of the British luxury cruising fleet is set to retire after 36 years of distinguished service in war and peace.
The 45,000-tonnes Canberra, pride of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, will make her final round-the-world voyage early next year, before returning to Britain for her last season. Her farewell 21-day cruise will depart from Southampton for the eastern Mediterranean on September 10.
The ultimate fate of the erstwhile immigrant ship, troop carrier, and cruise liner is uncertain. P&O said yesterday it was considering several proposals from the UK and overseas to convert her into a floating hotel or a museum.
The Canberra was built by Harland and Wolff of Belfast in 1960-61, at a cost of #17m, principally to sail between England and Australia in the days before jumbo jets captured the market. Hence wealthy tourists in luxury cabins sailed with migrants who had paid #10 for accommodation on lower decks through the assisted passage scheme. Her name reflected her designated role, and she was launched by Dame Pattie Menzies, wife of the then Australian Prime Minister.
Her most famous exploit took place in 1982, when she was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence and converted into a troop ship and helicopter carrier for the Falklands conflict. It was at San Carlos Sound that she landed most of the ground forces that recaptured the islands, including the celebrated 3 Para Regiment. She then served as a hospital ship, and as transport for thousands of prisoners of war to southern Argentina, before returning to a hero’s welcome at Southampton.
More recently, she was recalled for passive military duty to convey Second World War veterans to Cherbourg for the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994. In between, she took part in the dramatic rescue of seven Filipino seamen from the blazing hulk of a liquid nitrogen gas carrier in the Indian Ocean.
Most of the one million or so passengers who have sailed on this grand old lady of the Seven Seas had less eventful voyages, however. They had time to contemplate at leisure her wood panelling, polished brass, weathered deck, and flying bridge wings that gave her classic elegance. Her yellow twin funnels and creaking timbers, and a bow that was built for big seas, set her apart from the new generation of purpose-built “boatels” that predominate in the luxury-cruise market.
Viewed from the hills of southern Jordan, she was once memorably described by Herald writer Julie Davidson as “like a dislocated iceberg defying the heat of the Aqaba waterfront”.
In the course of her career, she has sailed more than three million miles across the world’s great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as some exotic ponds – the Coral, South China, Arabian, and Red Seas. And she never melted once.
Gwyn Hughes, the managing director of P&O Cruises, says there will be sadness at her passing, but that it was only a matter of time. “Obviously it will be a very sad day, but no ship lasts forever. She has already been in service longer than most vessels of her kind.”
He concedes that her sleek lines now belong to an earlier era of maritime romance. “When she was built, her design was regarded as being radically new. But since then the technology has become much more advanced, allowing us to get more volume in ships. As a result of new rules and regulations, they also tend to ride higher in the water.”
Affection for the Canberra among her regular passengers has developed over the years into almost proprietorial attitudes. Davidson, who sailed on her last year for a travel article, observed that relationships between short-trip holidaymakers and those on three-month world voyages are delicate, and potentially tricky.
She wrote: “We are sometimes met with the polite resistance and faint condescension that the native resident reserves for the daytripper, and some passengers have found themselves cemented into inflexible routines, with stoutly defended territorial rights to deck space and bar stool.”
When she sails from Southampton for her final round-the-world voyage in January, it is fairly safe to assume that skirmishes over favoured spots on her decks will make the Falklands look like a picnic.
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