MS Ancerville/MS Minghua - Flagship of the People's Republic of China Merchant Marine
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While the big, transatlantic liners tend to get the most attention, prior to the advent of modern airliners, ocean liners were present on all of the world's oceans, connecting all continents. In the case of France, a network of shipping companies linked the homeland with its far-flung colonial empire spread across the globe. Compagnie de Navigation Paquet, founded in 1863, focused on destinations in Africa and the Middle East. By the late 1950s, it was clear that both airlines were the future, and that mass decolonization was around the corner, but, like many shipping companies, Paquet still expected that their nearly a century old business would be able to survive and adapt to the new challenges.
In 1960, Paquet placed an order with the famous Chantiers de l'Atlantique yard in Ste Nazaire for a new, modern flagship. President Charles de Gaulle served as the new ship's godfather, christening her Ancerville on April 5, 1962, with the completed ship being handed over to Paquet on August 20th. Measuring 14,224 gross tons and 551 ft. long, she was tiny by Atlantic standards, but was quite large for Paquet – being a full 50% larger than the next biggest ship the company had ever operated, intended to set a whole new standard of modern luxury for the line.
As was getting to be common practice with newer liners, Ancerville featured split exhaust uptakes placed toward the sides of the hull to allow for more open passenger spaces, which were vented through a pair of streamlined parallel funnels. Power was by a pair of Burmeister & Wain-designed 12-cylinder diesels, built under license by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, and fitted with Brown-Boveri turbochargers, sending 26,700hp to twin screws. On trials, she hit a reasonably quick 25 knots, with 22.5 considered her maximum sustained cruising speed.
Ancerville featured a somewhat unusual layout, with passenger cabins placed forward, and all public rooms and amenities placed aft, completely separating the private and public living spaces. Accommodations for her 756 passengers were broken down into a fairly complicated class system – 22 in Deluxe Class (equivalent to First), 171 in Comfort Class (equivalent to Cabin or Second), 342 in Tourist Class, and 243 in Standard Class (equivalent to pre-1920s Third). Comfort Class was further divided into three sub-classes: Comfort Class Deluxe, Comfort Class Priorité, and Comfort Class Standard. All Comfort Class cabins, regardless of sub-class, were outside and featured private bathrooms, and the ship was fully air conditioned throughout. Standard Class consisted of 10-bed dormitories, but did have its own outdoor pool and full compliment of lounges. The crew numbered 173.
From 1962-1973, Ancerville sailed the Marseille-Dakar, Senegal route, via Casablanca, Morocco and the Canary Islands (stopping at Tenerife outbound, and Las Palmas inbound). Calls at Alicante, Spain; Tangiers, Morocco, and Madeira would occasionally be added, with the one way trip taking 6 days. Paquet had designed the ship for rapid adaptability to a single-class configuration, if needed for cruising. The Standard Class and lesser Tourist Class cabins would be taken out of use to give a single class capacity of 500. Throughout her tenure with Paquet, Mediterranean cruises would occasionally be run in between liner voyages, typically booked through various French travel agencies.
Airline competition did take longer to seriously affect African routes, but, by the late 1960s, it was taking its toll. In 1965, Compagnie de Navigation Paquet merged with the Fabre Line and Chargeurs Reunis to form Nouvelle Compagnie de Paquebots, with each company initially keeping its own identity, until 1970, when all operations were consolidated under the Nouvelle Compagnie de Paquebots name. In January of 1973, NCP decided to discontinue ocean liner services at the end of the summer, and placed Ancerville up for sale. The People's Republic of China immediately purchased her, and, insisting on taking delivery as soon as possible, pushed NCP to cancel the last several months of sailings and hand Ancerville over on April 1st. NCP had to cancel the last sailing mid trip and charter planes to fly passengers home from Tenerife in order to meet the sudden delivery deadline.
Under Red Chinese ownership, the ship was renamed Minghua (meaning “Spirit of China”) and became the largest passenger ship in the PRC's merchant fleet. Under the management of the state-owned China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), she was placed in service between Guangzhou and Dar es Salam, Tanzania, with only very minimal refitting. Minghua worked the China-Tanzania liner service from 1973-1978, during which time her primary role was carrying Chinese workers to and from the Tanzania-Zambia Railway construction project, the largest foreign aid program ever undertaken by the PRC government up to that time. In 1978, an attempt was made to use Minghua to evacuate ethnic Chinese nationals from Vietnam during racial tensions in that country, but negotiations broke down and Minghua was denied permission to dock in Ho Chi Minh City and had to return to China empty.
After ending regular service to Dar es Salam during 1978, Minghua went through a time with extended periods of inactivity, laid up in Guangzhou. During May of 1979, she made a circumnavigation of Japan with a trade delegation of 600 senior Chinese officials on board, lead by People's Liberation Army General Liao Chengzhi, the former head of Xinhua News Agency. Minghua held a trade fair promoting Chinese industry, with Japanese politicians and business leaders entertained on board at each port, including Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira.
Following the completion of the goodwill tour of Japan, Minghua was placed under charter to a new startup cruise line in Australia, called Asia Pacific Cruises and underwent a major refitting in Hong Kong, paid for by the new line's Australian and British investors, to bring her up to the standards of a modern cruise ship. Now with a capacity of 590 passengers, Minghua began cruises to New Zealand and the South Pacific from Sydney at the end of December, 1979. However, for reasons that are still somewhat murky, the relationship between COSCO and Asia Pacific Cruises quickly broke down, and COSCO abruptly terminated the charter and retook possession of Minghua in January of 1980, after competing only two cruises.
In the aftermath, COSCO approached the Australian shipping firm Burns, Philp & Company Ltd about taking over the management of Minghua. Burns, Philp agreed, a charter agreement was signed, and Minghua went through another major refurbishment in Hong Kong to further “westernize” her interiors. She returned to service in the Spring of 1980, sailing for Burns, Philp under the name Minghua Cruises, again running a program of New Zealand and South Pacific cruises out of Sydney.
During 1981, Minghua was refitted again, reducing her capacity from 590 to just 450 passengers, for a more luxurious experience.
Minghua Cruises was highly profitable from1980-1983, and Burns, Philp were eager to continue the charter indefinitely, as the ship had built a good reputation and loyal clientele within Australia. However, for reasons that are still somewhat murky, China Ocean Shipping Company informed Burns, Philp on February 2nd 1983 that their charter agreement would be terminated in 3 months. Minghua ended service as a cruise ship in May of 1983, and in June, was transferred to the ownership of Sea World Ltd., a new development company formed as a joint venture between the Chinese government and Hong Kong business interests. Minghua was docked in the Special Economic Zone at Liuwan Bay in Shekou, Guangdong Province, near the Hong Kong border during August of 1983, and converted into a hotel and entertainment center, with 253 hotel rooms, 4 Chinese and British style restaurants, a nightclub, a fitness center, public swimming pool, and a museum of Chinese folk customs.
The ship was officially opened to the public in 1984, at a ceremony led by Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Paramount Leader of the PRC, Deng Xiaoping, in which she was officially renamed Shekou Sea World, though “Minghua” remained painted on her bow and stern. Over the course of the 1980s, the port area around the ship was filled in for development, leaving Shekou Sea World completely landlocked by the end of the decade. Although no longer able to move, and no longer afloat, the ship remained listed with the International Maritime Organization and Lloyd's Register of Shipping until 1991, when the Chinese government finally canceled the registration.
A fire broke out in the hotel section in 1998, causing relatively minor damage, but the incident caused Shekou Sea World to be closed to the public. In the following years, the exterior was kept freshly painted and the grounds maintained, but the ship remained closed and the interior spaces deteriorated badly. Starting in 2001, a major redevelopment project on the ship and surrounding area began, with an upscale shopping and nightlife area called Sea World Plaza being developed adjacent, and the ship itself being heavily renovated, reopening in 2005 with a hotel, movie theater, cigar lounge, and a number of Western-style restaurants and bars. However, the area around the ship was badly damaged by flooding in 2007, which resulted in a further redevelopment, completed in 2013.
Shekou Sea World now has a shallow, ornamental lake partly surrounding the ship to give the illusion of floating. The ship now features a luxury hotel with 110 rooms, along with bars and restaurants, with basically all of the original French wood paneled interiors having been ripped out and replaced over the years, with the lifeboats and davits also removed, and much larger picture windows cut into the hull and superstructure. I have no confirmation of whether the machinery spaces are still intact, but I would assume not, which is a moot point anyway, as the ship can no longer float.
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@ranwhenparked Great read thanks!
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@ranwhenparked very entertaining read! Thanks for sharing.
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@ranwhenparked That's one weird hotel but I'd stay there.
Great read . -
@ranwhenparked That is an unlikely success story. I suppose the lack of resources available within China to replace a ship of its size ensured it had a pretty safe future for a while but I did not see that landlocked hotel coming.
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@whoistheleader Really, it was still practically new (well, middle-aged) at the time they grounded it, and was operating under a profitable and successful charter agreement that they could have kept going for years. Kind of surprising they opted for that right there and then.
The Australian cruise market was served primarily by old 1950s and '60s ocean liners until about the year 2000, so she really could have had stayed competitive there and banked cash for almost another 2 decades.
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@ranwhenparked Interesting. Wasn't that when the new safety regulations killed all the old ships?
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@whoistheleader 2010 was the big year, October. There was some changes around 1996/97, regarding fire doors and sprinklers, but they were pretty straightforward to meet. 2010 was when all combustible materials were totally banned from all interior spaces, which was mostly impossible.
The 90s was when a lot of first generation modern cruise ships from the 1970s and '80s started to become available on the secondhand market or get handed down to second tier operators, as the heavy competition in North America forced the shift to bigger and bigger megaships. That made it possible for smaller operators in smaller markets that had been making do with vintage liners to suddenly start upgrading their fleets. Plus, the '50s stuff was at the end of its design lifespan anyway, and the '60s ones were nearing it.
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