ssMaritime
With Reuben
Goossens
Maritime Historian
China Sea Discovery
Ex Fair Princess, Fairsea, Fairland, built
1955 as RMS Carinthia
Written by a senior officer of the China Sea Discovery
China Sea Discovery Laid up in Taiwan
Fair Princess has been a popular cruise ship
in both America and Australia and
Australians would have preferred to see this fine liner continue to cruise the
Pacific. For she was one of the last classic liners built by Cunard, bought and
rebuilt by the popular Sitmar Line, still in service. When it was decided to
replace her with another ex Sitmar built ship Sky Princess, P&O Australia
decided Fair Princes would be relocated to New Zealand, which would have been
a lucrative market.
However, suddenly an announcement was made
that Fair Princess had been sold to Asian interests. We are now aware that she
was purchased by Charles Ming and associates (including Casino Canada) for an
incredible US$15 million, which she was certainly not worth. P&O must have
laughed all the way to the bank, for who would be so stupid to pay that much
for an aging ship! Obviously an inexperienced Charles Ming was. She was about
to become an Asian casino cruise ship. Even before she finally departed Australia, the
China Sea Discovery saga began.
The story presented on this page was sent to
us by an ex crew member who witnessed the events described below. Due to
language problems, there may be some minor inaccuracies in the translation.
Sydney
Apparently, P&O Australia stipulated in
the contract that no one from the buyer, being Charles Ming and associates
(including Casino Canada),
were permitted to board her until the day of the hand over. When she was
boarded by her the new owners, captain and crew, it was noted that the ship had
been emptied of tools spare parts, right down to computers throughout the ship
etc. Fair Princess departed under the command of Captain Anders Anderson.
Asia
Upon arrival in Hong Kong
the ship became the subject for a PSC
(Passenger Safety Certificate) and the result was detention. The PSC review presented seven pages full of defects
that had to be fixed. Other problem being, that the third party protection and
indemnity insurance restricted liability, thus the ship had to take special
actions during the night, with fire door having to be closed, which is an
unusual action.
The intentions with the project were to
operate gambling cruises during weekends out of Hong Kong and to operate
cruises between Haikou in Hainan, and Halong Bay
in Vietnam.
A charter company from Vietnam would be the first consortium that
received permission to operate cruises between the Peoples
Republic of China and another country.
During her refurbishments, which sadly
included changing some public rooms into casino spaces, many other problems
were encountered. These, together with the Safety Certificates, saw the owner
was rapidly running out of available funds.
Then, blue asbestos was found onboard thus,
the owner obtained some local workers to rip it out. Obviously, these men were
not professional asbestos removers, as the managers soon found out, and the
work was stopped. The owners were informed about the regulations connected with
asbestos handling and it was agreed that a qualified company from the UK was
supposed to come in for the clean up, as this particular company had worked on
her earlier and was aware the location of the asbestos present.
It was assumed by the crew that it was a done
deal, for obviously, there were dangers involved for the ships crew. However,
later in the night more local workers came onboard commencing to work on the
removal once again. Again there was a dispute onboard.
“On site” in charge of the
conversion was Charles Ming’s son Stephen Ming, who was an obstinate
young man in the early 20’s.?
During the dry docking it was discovered that another condition related PSC, for the upper rudder pintel
had been deleted when the vessel was afloat? Thus based on this discovery she
was only given a 30 days PSSC.
China Sea Discovery’s problems were only
just beginning, for on the day of her departure, with pilot onboard, tugs with
lines attached, the ship was ordered to a halt by the shipyard, as they had not
received their payments.
Mr. Ming having come to an agreement, the
China Sea Discovery finally sailed for Hainan.
The channel into Haikou is quite narrow and has a side current, her entrance also has two bends. All was well and
the vessel came alongside as planned.
China Sea Discovery is a steam ship with twin
screws, but she has no thrusters, this together with just one rudder, she has a
reputation for being a hard case with manoeuvring.
On the way out, with the leading lights hidden
behind the funnel and only the channel buoys to relay on, the ship ran aground
twice, although both times she was inside the channel. Both times she was
freed. In due course she passed the rather shallow channel and finally was back
in deeper waters. At that stage the Master informed the company that he did not
intended to enter Haikou
again, thus, upon the ship’s return the company had to arrange to use the
tenders to bring passengers ashore.
Onboard during the maiden voyage, there were
three representatives of the charter company and it was discovered that they
where armed, one being the “top dog for the police in Haikou.”
The trip down to Halong bay went without any
trouble, and I must say, overlooking the bow and watching the it going up and
down in the night, brought the image back to the time when she was crossing the
Atlantic.
As the ship was heavily delayed on departure,
due to the earlier grounding, she arrived in Halong Bay
late in the afternoon instead of the morning. It was a falling tide and there
was not sufficient water below the ship, thus the Master decided to anchor at
the outer anchorage, otherwise the ship had to wait until the next morning to
enter.
The local tenders took passengers ashore and
shore excursions took place. Apparently, great pressure was placed on the
Master, by both from the charter and the local tourist board, to bring the ship
into the port. However, he would not endanger the ship. As I can recall the
last tender came back after midnight
and as the crew did not have navigation equipment apart from a compass, I
believe two of tenders even went aground, such was the ridiculous situation at Halong Bay.
As the ship headed north, the pressure on the
master became even worse, for he refused to enter Haikou again as he had clearly stated after
the first visit. Both he and Mr. Ming received verbal abuse, as well as faxed
messages from the charter, which said, that if the ship did not enter Haikou, the personal
consequences could be severe for both of them. They were told that tendering
passengers ashore would be denied. The situation became so serious, as the ship
sailed that night towards Haikou both the Master had to have two bodyguards
outside his cabin, whilst Mr. Ming and his family had to be hidden somewhere
onboard., so ridiculous was the situation.
As the vessel arrived at Haikou,
3 pilots and two tugs awaited, yet again the Master refused to enter Haikou, thus, the
situation became even worse. Just 2 hours south of Haikou there is an ore port which has
sufficient water depth and plenty of space, but China Sea Discovery was denied
to use it, as it was being used by another cruise company.
After the ship was stationary outside Haikou for almost a full
day, permission was finally given to use the other port. Everything went well
and all passengers disembarked. Whilst in port, the Master remained in his
office with two bodyguards outside the door and handed the ship over to the
Staff Captain, just in case he was going to be “asked to come in to Haikou for
questioning.” Thankfully, this did not occur and it has to be said that the
Master departed the port as quick as he could that evening, as the situation
had become that volatile.
As the vessel departed for Hong
Kong without any passengers, a dinner was ordered for all crew in
the ships dinning room, which was one of the few happy times on this ship of
troubles. Back in Hong Kong the owners has a
plan B, which was to commence permanent gambling cruises. As there were a good
number of ships based in Hong Kong, which were
far superior, such as the Superstar Leo and other ships, the gamblers never
arrived. One night a bunch of guys from another company came onboard with their
own staff chips and their gamblers and departed in the morning with the money,
just leaving a little for the owner.
As the financial situation became worse and worse
we were given orders that the Filipino crew could only have one ball of rice a
day, and that all the grapes for the passengers had to be cut in half, so they
could not eat that much and so on and on.
It
is obvious from this photograph the ship suffered greatly from poor loadings.
One day the Master was ordered to use the fuel
that was supposed to be as permanent ballast (a Class requirement) instead for
getting fuel from a supplier. It took the Master a length of time to convince
the owner what stability on a vessel meant. It was quite obvious the owners
should never have bought a ship, as they had no maritime background whatsoever.
The result is, a magnificent ship is now laid up rotting
away as the owners are fighting amongst themselves.
As stated earlier, this tragic story of a ship
that has had a fine record was sent to us by a crew member who experienced the
events shown above.
PLEASE NOTE: This remarkable story was
provided by the senior officer on board the CSD, We take no responsibility for
its accuracy; however, we have done everything in our power to check the
details, before deciding to use the story as part of our feature on Carinthia / Fairsea / Fairland / Fair Princess / China
Sea Discovery.
Index
Page 1 –
Foreword – Construction
Page 2
– Sitmar buys Carinthia and Ivernia
– Sisters go Russian
Page
3 - Fairwind / Fairsea – Sitmar sold to P&O Princess Cruises
Page
4 – The
Fairstar the Australian connection
Page 5 – Fair Princess becomes an
Aussie
Page 6 – Passenger list images
Page 7 – Albatros
ex Dawn Princess / Fairwind / Sylvania
/ Ivernia /
Saxonia – Passenger list images
Fair Princess Photo Album
– Exteriors
Fair Princess Photo Album
- Interiors
Fedor
Shalyapin
- ex Franconia / Ivernia
China Sea Discovery
– ex Fair Princess / Fairsea / Fairland / Carinthia
China Sea Discovery Photo
Album
China Sea Discovery Saga
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