WORLD SHIP SOCIETY

For our November program, we joined former PONY Branch chairman Ted Scull on a half-dozen voyages aboard ships that represent the end of their type: passenger-container ship, Royal Mail Ship, colonial liner, liner converted to cruising, and a pair of Atlantic liners. During Ted’s program we ventured from Buenos Aires on a 26-day, northbound voyage to Brooklyn aboard Ivaran Lines’ super-comfy, 86-passenger-container ship, AMERICANA. Intended to be the first of a new breed of combi-ship, and officially classified as a scheduled passenger vessel, she attained priority access to congested Brazilian ports. We also went aboard the Royal Mail Ship ST. HELENA, living on borrowed time as her namesake island’s brand-new airport located deep in the South Atlantic finally opened to regular air service from South Africa after a long delay due to severe wind shear. The RMS ST. HELENA represented the very last of the long-distance mail ships and served the island with everything it required, except fuel.

Ships built to serve colonial empires slowly disappeared as one possession after another declared independence. Using the British India liner SS KARANJA as an example, Ted introduced us to people who had to pull up stakes in East Africa and find another home.

Regency Cruises was a major operator of second-hand ships until it declared bankruptcy. On this journey, we followed the REGENT SEA, converted from Swedish Americas Line’s GRIPSHOLM of 1957, on a cruise to the Mayan ruins of Belize, Honduras, and Belize. Following the program, Ted’s new book “Ocean Liner Sunset” was available for sale along with the first two of the trilogy: “Ocean Liner Odyssey” and “Ocean Liner Twilight.”