Name Seaward (failed name) Ordered Klosters Rederi A/S Laid down 1970 Launched 11 May 1972 Draft 7 m | Owner Norwegian Cruise Line Yard number 290 Construction started 1970 Length 163 m Beam 23 m | |
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Builder Cantiere navale di Riva Trigoso | ||
Spirit of London was an Italian built cruise ship put into service in 1972. In January 2012, Runfeng Ocean Deluxe Cruises (Chinese: 香港润峰豪华邮轮公司) took over as operator, renaming the ship Ocean Dream (Chinese: 海洋之梦; pinyin: hăiyángzhīmèng).
Contents
Delayed construction
The vessel was originally ordered in 1970 by Norwegian Caribbean Line as Seaward. The shipyard, Cantieri Navali del Tirreno & Riuniti, encountered financial troubles and was consequently taken over by the IRI Group, who canceled the building contract of Seaward. After much protest from NCL the IRI Group agreed to partially complete the vessel. Despite this Norwegian Caribbean sold the hull to P&O, who would complete the Seaward as Spirit of London.
Due to being originally ordered for Norwegian Caribbean Line Spirit of London had a sister ship in the NCL fleet, Southward. Both vessels superstructures are identical, however the funnels differed. Although Southward is smaller in tonnage than Spirit of London, both are 537 feet long.
History
In 1974, P&O bought Princess Cruises and transferred Spirit of London to their fleet, with Princess operating her as Sun Princess, alongside Island Princess and Pacific Princess.
1988 saw the sale of Sun Princess by P&O to Premier Cruises, where it was initially named Majestic, becoming Starship Majestic in 1989 which included refurbishment of her interior. The majority of the Columbo episode "Troubled Waters" was filmed in the interior of the ship, creating a video time capsule (1975) of the ships history before her refurbishment. In 1994, she was purchased by CTC and was renamed Southern Cross. She was renamed again in 1998 when Festival Cruises began operating her as Flamenco.
When Festival Cruises collapsed in 2004, she was sold for $12.25 million at a bankruptcy auction to Cruise Elysia, who renamed her New Flamenco. In 2007 Club Cruise acquired New Flamenco. Club Cruise had New Flamenco serve as a hotel ship in New Caledonia until they failed in late 2008. The vessel was sold for scrap after over a year of lay up off Singapore. In 2012 the ship was saved from the scrapyard and was renamed Ocean Dream with a dragon painted on her bow. Now owned by Runfeng Ocean Deluxe Cruises, she began operating cruises from Haikou, China to Halong Bay, Vietnam.
The ship capsized and sank off Laem Chabang, Sri Racha,Thailand in shallow water on 27 February 2016 after having been abandoned without crew or maintenance for about a year.
In popular culture
The ship appeared in the 1975 Columbo episode "Troubled Waters", guest starring Robert Vaughn, as well as in Herbie Goes Bananas (1980). The majority of the "Troubled Waters" was filmed in the interior of the ship, creating a video time capsule of the ships history from the start of her life. She was also featured in the original 1976 TV movie of The Love Boat and at least one episode involving a competition between Captain Stubing of Pacific Princess and the captain of Sun Princess. In addition, the ship appeared briefly in the 1975 episode of Starsky & Hutch entitled "Terror on the Docks".