MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

M/V Marco Polo on her final South Atlantic cruise

Cruise <i>Marco Polo</i> during her last call at Montevideo

She doesn't have the grandeur or the glamour of QE2 but Marco Polo had been on South Atlantic cruises for the last fifteen years and this week saw her final tour of the region. Bahamas flagged, the 22.000 tons old lady belonging to Norwegian Cruise Line/Orient Line from Miami is currently sailing along the coast of Brazil and should be arriving in Lisbon the first week of March.

The 176 meters long vessel has an 800 passenger capacity, 350 crew members and was sold to a European corporation. In her last cruise when she called in Montevideo Marco Polo was carrying 650 passengers. Marco Polo was originally christened as S/S Alexandr Pushkin built by the Mathias Thesen shipyard in Wismar, East Germany, and delivered in 1965 to the Baltic Shipping Company to inaugurate their regular trans-Atlantic service between Montreal and Leningrad. The ship had traditional styling in its hull lines and profile. Built to navigate through broken ice, it has greater hull strength, freeboard, and reserve stability than are normally specified in passenger ships. Possible use as a troopship is credited as the reason behind her large provision and stores areas, which support a cruising range of over 10,000 nautical miles, which is twice the range of many large cruise ships currently under construction. M/S Alexandr Pushkin has a length overall of 176.3 meters, an extreme beam of 23.6 m and a design draft of 8.2 m and an original tonnage of 19,860. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Baltic Shipping needed cash to finance acquisition of new cargo ships, and sold off several cruise vessels. Lloyd's List, July 8, 1991, reported that the Pushkin, then one of the Soviet Union's largest cruise ships, had been sold by Far Eastern Shipping Co. of Vladivostock to London-based company Shipping & General Ltd, owned by Gerry Herrod, founder of Ocean Cruise Lines. Alexandr Pushkin slated to be the first ship in Mr. Herrod's new venture, Orient Lines, as the M/S Marco Polo. Upon purchase by Shipping & General, the Marco Polo proceeded to Greece for her 60 million US dollars conversion into a cruise vessel. The superstructure was lengthened, and the stack height was increased to keep a balance to the ship's profile. Enlargement of the superstructure resulted in an increase in gross tonnage to 20,500 tons. Since the ship was intended to cruise in Antarctic waters, a helipad was added, to allow a helicopter to scout ahead for whales and marine wildlife. The former automobile garage and side loading port was reconfigured to handle and stow inflatable zodiac boats that would land passengers on the Antarctic shore. Cabins were upgraded, and some new staterooms were installed. 800 lower berths are provided in 425 staterooms and 6 suites. 288 of the staterooms are outside. On average, the outside staterooms are 13.0 sq. meters and the inside staterooms are only slightly smaller at 12.1 sq. meters. Marco Polo is commonly placed in the "premium" class by cruise industry reviewers. Antarctic cruises were envisioned as part of the regular itineraries for this ship, and were part of her voyages in the first season. However, environmental regulations in Antarctica limited the maximum number of passengers on each voyage to 400, less than half of her maximum capacity. Additionally, only 100 persons were allowed ashore at a time, in order to protect the fragile Antarctic environment, but complicated operations using the zodiac boats. The Antarctic voyages were not a commercial success at the time, and they were dropped from the 1994/95 schedule when Orient Lines decided to concentrate on its Far East itineraries. However Marco Polo later alternated Mediterranean and Far East with South Atlantic and South Pacific cruises. NLC president Colin Veitch said that the company is in the process of modernizing its fleet and the "concept of freestyle cruising goes hand in hand with the decommissioning of our oldest vessels".