Great mediterranean passenger ships -stefan batory

[Doc Vernon]

StefanBatory 2[213].jpg

T​ime was running out for​ the trans-Atlantic ​liners. ​Business ​​hadchanged and quite drastically by the late '60s. There were just too fewpassengers. So, companies sold off older, less profitable ships. ​
In October1968, Holland America Line's ​Maasdam (built 1952) ​was sold off to the Polish Ocean Lines,refitted as the Stefan Batory and used on the North Atlantic, betweenGdynia, Copenhagen, London, Quebec City and Montreal, beginning in April1969. She replaced the veteran, very popular, thirty-three-year oldBatory. Used also for winter cruising, the Stefan Batory tradedfor almost twenty years before the Greek-owned Lelakis Group, parent ofRegency Cruises, bought the then ​idle 15,000-ton ship, which was renamed Stefanin 1988. These new owners planned to refit her for furthercruising, but the project never materialized. Instead, s​he sat idle for sometwelve years – rusting, dark, largely unattended. In March 2000,however, she made one final short voyage: over to the scrappers inAliaga in Turkey. The ex-Maasdam was by then 48 yearsold.

[John Arton]

Used to have a beer or two with the stewardess's and sailors on the Stefan Batory when she was on the other side of the pier to us in Montreal when I was on the Empress of Canada
rgds
JA