In 1951 and 1952 Messageries Maritimes ordered a quartet of combination passenger-cargo liners of the MD-type, La Bourdonnais, Jean Laborde, Ferdinand de Lesseps and Pierre Loti. Two of them would become well-known cruise ships in their later lives.
Messageries Maritimes was a French Company founded in 1852 by a shipowner from Marseille M. Rostand together with his business associate E. Simmons. After a couple of name changes the company became Messageries Maritimes in 1871 and started serving routes from homeport Marseille to the Middle East. During the company’s heyday between 1871 and 1914, which was during the period of French colonial expansion in the Middle and Far East, Messageries Maritimes served ports in the Med, Red Sea, the Middle and Far East and expanded even into the Pacific and to South-America. The main territory of Messageries Maritimes was the Far East with Saigon as its second homeport. after Marseiille.
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During WWI 20 vessels were lost. The fleet was reorganized with war reparations from Germany. WWII followed and again had a devastating effect on the company’s fleet as most vessels were lost. Besides war reparations (among these a gift of 19 Liberty ships from the US government), Messageries Maritimes started a newbuilding-program in the early fifties. Unfortunately, also Messageries Maritimes suffered from the switch of passengers to the aeroplane and at the end of the sixties they started selling off their combination liners. In 1972 the last passenger-cargo service sailing took place by their Pasteur. After that Messageries Maritimes soldiered on with freighters until 1977 when it merged with Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, known for their famous transtalantic liners ( like Paris, France, Normandie) to Compagnie Generale Maritime.
Part of the newbuilding program in the 1950’s, built in 1951 and 1952, Messageries Maritimes took a quartet of combination liners in service, the La Bourdonnais, Jean Laborde, Ferdinand de Lesseps and Pierre Loti. Two of these would be converted to cruise ships in their later careers We will have a look now into the long life of the Ferdinand the Lesseps (named after the famous developer of the Suez Canal). The other vessel Jean Laborde which became the Oceanos will be covered in another ship profile in time.
Ferdinand de Lesseps was built Forges & Chantiers de la Gironde, Bordeaux, France under yard number 1. She was a combination ship, carrying both passengers and freight. Her funnel was of the Lascroux-type (named after its designer Emile Lascroux). All uptakes are combined into one rising to the top of the funnel and large air-intakes at the front lift fumes upwards to avoid fumes and soot descending down on the decks. Several other well-known passenger ships of that era like Andrea Doria, Cristoforo Colombo and the Portuguese Infante Dom Henrique were also equipped with this type of funnel.
Her dimensions were 150m long x 20m wide x 7.50m draft. Two B&W Le Creusot diesels gave her a service speed of 17 knots. Launched July 21 1951, she was delivered a year later to the day to Messageries Maritimes who immediately deployed her on their Marseille – North East Africa, Madagascar and La Reunion-route. Her interiors had been designed by Jacques Adnet, a French art deco modernist architect and interior designer who was known in particular for his furniture designs in leather.
En route she passed the Suez Canal (except in 1956 because of the Suez crisis between Egypt and Israel and 1967 during the Six Day War between the same countries when it was closed and she had to take the long route via the cape). It was quite an uneventful period except when on March 23 1968 when she rescued the crew of the Spanish freighter Pico de Mulhacen off the coast of Marocco near the port of Casablanca.
As more and more passengers switched to travelling by air to save time, with their now empty passenger accommodation, their combo liners rapidly became money pits so Messageries Maritimes decided to sell them off.
Ferdinand de Lesseps was sold in 1969 to K. Efthymiades, a Greek shipowner. Efthymiades renamed her Delphi and had her converted to a cruise ship. Her cargo holds were replaced by cabins and the number of passengers grew from 496 to 801. Alas, Efthymiades ran into severe problems as one of the many freighters and even 4 Swedish tankers he had acquired and had converted to cruise ships, the Heleanna caught fire in the summer of 1971. She was so crowded that fire fighting (because of the absence of fire fighting procedures and an untrained crew) and the subsequent evacuation of the ship turned into a disaster, with 25 casualties and an unkown number of passengers missing as a result. Efthymiades’ entire fleet was laid up as he was sent to prison and his shipping empire started to fall apart. Most of his ships after years of neglect ended up at the scrapyard, but some of them survived, the Delphi being one of them.
Delphi had been cruising in the Mediteranean from Piraeus after her conversion to a cruise ship in 1970 but was taken out of service a few years later. In March 1974 she arrived in Cartagena, Spain for scrapping but last minute she miraculously escaped the breakers torch. She returned to Piraeus and was laid up there in 1976. A year later she was sold to Perlus Cruises from Limassol, Cyprus., Renamed La Perla she continued sailing mainly in the Mediterranean.
But financial difficulties for her owner and lack of maintenance combined with poor operating standards on board led to the arrest of La Perla in Liverpool in January of 1980. Reports from the ship were stunning as passengers told of a range of problems during her last cruise. It seemed that the crew had been trying to fix technical problems during several nights of the cruise during which in parts of the ship the electricity was cut off and the ship was dark. The disco had been closed off the entire voyage as it was flooded. The airco didn’t function and the fact that in the port of Casablanca all lifeboats were lowered and tested did not help much to reassure passengers and several of them left the ship to fly home.
Newspapers reported on the hamburgers that were served as Christmas day lunch. She was arrested in Liverpool and was detained there until April 28 when problems on board were rectified. The line had settled claims of passengers concerning her last cruise and for those that had been cancelled deposits were returned. At the end of 1980 she passed on to new ownership, that of Intercruise Ltd and was renamed La Palma. She sailed for many years for this company, mostly on a seasonal 8-day circuit from Venice to the Greek Isles. This lasted until 1992 when Navicruises Shipping, Piraeus acquired her. She sailed for this company for 5 years. In February 1997 she was arrested in Piraeus for unpaid bills and later that year she was sold to Louis Cruise Lines, Cyprus. However she remained in lay-up in Piraeus, Louis never used her although they advertised her as being part of their fleet.
Finally in 2003 she was acquired by Indian breakers, Ankom Gupta Steel. She made her final voyage to Alang, India under the name of SAGAR and was beached in July of 2003.
What happened to her one-time fleetmates? In short:
La Bourdonnais was sold in December 1968 also to Konstantin Efthymides and was renamed Knossos. She cuaght fire in May 1973 and was a total-loss. Scrapped in 1976 in Spain.
Jean Laborde was sold to Greek interests in 1970, she sailed under the names of Mykinai, Ancona, In 1974 renamed Eastern Princess for Singapore – Fremantle service which was shortlived. Renamed again to Oceanos for Epirotike Cruises in 1976. Sunk while cruising near the east coast of South Africa on August 3 1991. There were no casualties but when the captain and crew left the sinking ship with passengers still aboard, two entertainers and the cruise director led the rescue operation.
Pierre Loti also sold in 1970 to Greece to Efthymiades and renamed Olympia. Later renamed again to Patra in 1972. Rebuilt as a car-ferry in 1973-74 and employed between Italy and Greece. Sold to Valerios Atramar in 1978, renamned Chrysovalandou II. Last owner was Amelia Martin Naviera from Panama from 1979 to 1986 when she is broken up.
