One of four beautiful liners from John Brown's shipyard in the 1950's, she has made her final journey.

From an age when regular ocean travel seemed never to be replaced by the expensive jet aeroplane, four beautiful sisters were ordered by Cunard and built at the John Brown shipyard between 1954 and 1957. Maybe not as grand as their older, much larger (and more famous) fleet sisters the QUEEN ELIZABETH and the QUEEN MARY, they nevertheless epitomised an era that was coming to an end - bold, optimistic and graceful.

They were built for services from Liverpool & Greenock to Montreal and Quebec in the summer and in winter from Liverpool & Cobh to Halifax and New York. SAXONIA, IVERNIA, CARINTHIA and SYLVANIA sailed from John Brown's in that order, the third of which, CARINTHIA, was launched on the 14th December by HRH Princess Margaret and made her maiden voyage on the 27th June 1956.

(picture on the right from John Young who emigrated to Canada on her, shows her steaming past the Cloch after picking up passengers at Greenock)

They ran on these services for only a few short years - the Jumbo jet had arrived, and it was getting cheaper and cheaper to travel on them - the days of the passenger liner were numbered. The effects of this were felt on the Clyde especially, the area being dependant on this trade, both for shipbuilding and repair as well as being ports that were reliant on the liners for provisioning, services and passenger handling. As the Golden Era came to an end, gloom descended on the yards, and indeed the Clyde itself. Older people would shake their heads and say "The Clyde only sees the wee stuff now"

Cunard refitted three of the vessels in the early sixties, SAXONIA and IVERNIA as cruise ships (picture, from Tom Carreyette, shows these being refitted at John Brown's) whilst CARINTHIA and SYLVANIA plodded on in the North Atlantic runs until 1967. CARINTHIA made her last regular sailing from Liverpool in October. After making one final sail from Southampton she was laid up and sold in 1968 along with SYLVANIA to the Sitmar Group for the Italy to Australia and New Zealand emigrant service.

Renamed FAIRSEA and FAIRWIND, their new trade did not last very long and they were once again laid up. In 1971 they emerged into the cruise ship market and did so very successfully. P&O bought the group in 1988 and CARINTHIA was renamed FAIR PRINCESS whilst her sister became DAWN PRINCESS and they sailed as part of the Princess brand. In 1993 the sisters parted ways with DAWN PRINCESS going into the German cruise market with a different company and renamed ALBATROSS. She was scrapped at Alang in 2004.

Our ex CARINTHIA underwent another role in 1998 when P&O deployed her in the Australian cruising trade replacing FAIRSTAR. Stuart Cameron had an interesting snippet about this on CS last year when he told us that this was none other than the Bibby liner OXFORDSHIRE who had been launched the very next day after CARINTHIA, further up river at Fairfield's yard in Govan.

She continued in her new role until being sold in 1999 to Hong Kong interests who set about refitting her as a casino ship and renamed her CHINA SEA DISCOVERY. All of their efforts came to naught and it was with sadness that John Newth posted just recently that it had been learned that she too, like all of her sisters before her, had been hauled up onto the beaches of Alang to be ripped apart, arriving there about the 19th November this year (2005)

But let's not dwell on her demise but rather that she had a splendid long and varied life. It is no mean feat for a machine designed for life in the fifties to have worked up to the eve of the 21st century.



(With thanks to Bruce Alan who spotted an error in the original text)