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Type of site | Travel News |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Martin Cox |
| Editors | Peter Knego and others |
| URL | Homepage |
| Launched | 1997 |
| Current status | offline |
Maritime Matters was a website dedicated to news concerning ocean liners and cruise ships, launched in 1997 by writer and professional photographer Martin Cox.
Cox is the founder and web master of the site, much of the content on Maritime Matters is written by travel writer and liner expert, Peter Knego. Post and blogs cover contemporary cruise ships, stories of preserved or laid up ships, shipping news, such as an announcement of a newbuild for a cruise line, or updates on what ships are being scrapped. Maritime Matters went through an upgrade to a different format at one point, its old pages available via Google until the site was moved to a new server in May 2010. [1] Knego was one of many press members who were on board the Norwegian Epic for a short cruise upon arrival in New York, and was able to post a large blog chronicling the ships interior, from the pool deck, public spaces, and suites. [2] If visitors of the site enter their name and email to a commenting engine they would be able to comment on posts. In September 2010 Google announced that news posts from the website would be featured on the news aggregator Google News. [3] It was also announced that the site would be undergoing an upgrade, which would include the option of changing pages to different languages. [4]
In May 2013 The Steamship Historical Society of America awarded Martin Cox the "C. Bradford Mitchell Award" for services to maritime history in a presentation in Long Beach, CA.
In 2020 the site was closed. [5]
Martin Cox grew up in the major British port of Southampton, inspiring him to create the site. He went to art schools in Winchester and Devon, launching Maritime Matters in 1997 and later moving to Los Angeles to launch his career in photography in 2000. [6] Cox co-wrote the book Hollywood to Honolulu: The Story of the Los Angeles Steamship with maritime author and researcher Gordon Ghareeb which was published in 2009. Cox was given the C. Bradford Mitchell for services to maritime history in May 2013 by the Steamship Historical Society of America and his photographic series, "Stranded" was exhibited at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum from June 2012 to January 2013.
Peter Knego was born in Los Angeles to a fashion model and an actor, and graduated from UCLA with a BA in Theater Arts. [7] While still a school boy in early 1974, he began photographing every passenger ship that came to dock in Los Angeles, sparking interest in the passenger shipping industry. He traveled on many classic ships in the 1990s, including the Achille Lauro weeks before it sank in 1994.
Knego has, since 2003, annually visited scrapyards at Alang, India, to document ships, mostly classic liners, being scrapped. [8] His home near San Diego, California, is decorated with a large quantity of fittings rescued from the former Elder Dempster Lines flagship, the Aureol, when it was broken up at Alang. [7] Knego has also produced several films chronicling passenger ships of the world. [9]
Peter Newall, author of books about Union-Castle Line and Orient Line.
Alang is a census town in Bhavnagar district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Its beaches are currently the world's largest ship graveyard.
CS Salamis Glory was a cruise ship registered in Limassol, Cyprus. She cruised the Eastern Mediterranean Sea visiting countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Greece and Egypt out of Limassol. Entering service in 1962 for a Brazilian shipping company as Anna Nery, the cruise ship was involved in two collisions off Haifa, Israel during its career, one in 1963, 25 km off of Rio de Janeiro with a tanker, and again in 2007. The vessel was sold for scrap in 2009 and broken up.
The fifth SS Rotterdam, also known as "The Grande Dame", is a former ocean liner and cruise ship, and has been a hotel ship in Rotterdam, Netherlands since 2010. She was launched by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands in a gala ceremony on 13 September 1958, and was completed the following summer.
RMS Empress of Britain was a transatlantic ocean liner built by Fairfield Shipbuilding at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland in 1955-1956 for Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP). This ship — the third of three CP vessels to be named Empress of Britain — regularly traversed the trans-Atlantic route between Canada and Europe until 1964, completing 123 voyages under the Canadian Pacific flag.
SS Oceanic was a cruise ship owned and operated by Peace Boat. She was built in 1963 by Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico, Monfalcone, Italy for Home Lines. Between 1985 and 2000, she sailed for Premier Cruise Line under the names Starship Oceanic and Big Red Boat I, before being sold to Pullmantur Cruises and reverting to her original name. In 2009 she left the Pullmantur fleet for Peace Boat.
MS Saga Ruby was a cruise ship that was last operated by Saga Cruises. She was built as the combined ocean liner/cruise ship Vistafjord in 1973 by Swan Hunter Shipbuilders in the United Kingdom for the Norwegian America Line. In 1983 she was sold to Cunard Line, retaining her original name until 1999 when she was renamed Caronia. In 2004 she was sold to Saga and sailed as Saga Ruby until sold in 2014 for use as a floating hotel and renamed Oasia. This never came to fruition. Her owners went bankrupt, and in April 2017 she arrived at Alang, India for scrapping.
SS The Emerald was a cruise ship owned by Louis Cruise Lines. She was built in 1958 by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock company in Newport News, Virginia, United States, for the Grace Line, as the ocean liner Santa Rosa. Between 1992 and 1995, she sailed for Regency Cruises as Regent Rainbow and between 1997 and 2008, she sailed for Thomson Cruises as The Emerald. Before retiring in 2009, she was the last passenger ship built at a U.S. shipyard that was still in active service.
SS Independence was an American built passenger liner, which entered service in February 1951 for American Export Lines. Originally, she plied a New York-Mediterranean route, specializing in a high-end clientele, sailing one way while her sister ship, SS Constitution, plied the route the opposite. Starting in 1980 she sailed as a cruise ship. She was shortly joined by her similarly graceful counter sterned sibling, the pair sharing the Hawaiian islands together for the better part of two decades until their retirements.
RMS Saxonia was a British passenger liner built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank, Scotland for the Cunard Steamship Company for their Liverpool-Montreal service. She was the first of four almost identical sister ships built by Browns between 1954 and 1957 for UK-Montreal service. The first two of these ships, Saxonia and Ivernia were extensively rebuilt in 1962/3 as dual purpose liner/cruise ships. They were renamed Carmania and Franconia respectively and painted in the same green cruising livery as the Caronia. Carmania continued transatlantic crossings and cruises until September 1967 when she closed out Cunard's Montreal service. She and her sister had been painted white at the end of 1966 and from 1968 Carmania sailed as a full time cruise ship until withdrawal after arriving at Southampton on 31 October 1971. In August 1973 she was bought by the Soviet Union-based Black Sea Shipping Company and renamed SS Leonid Sobinov. The ship was scrapped in 1999.
USS Crescent City (AP-40/APA-21) was the lead ship of the Crescent City-class attack transports that served with the US Navy during World War II. The ship was built as the cargo and passenger liner Delorleans for the Mississippi Shipping Company's Delta Line. After brief commercial operation the ship was among 28 vessels requisitioned in June 1941 for the Navy and the Army. The Navy renamed the ship Crescent City, a popular nickname for New Orleans, Louisiana, upon commissioning 10 October 1941. The ship was decommissioned and laid up in 1948 before being loaned to the California Maritime Academy to serve as a training ship 1971–1995 and then transferred to a foundation in a failed art colony project. The ship left California for Texas scrapping in 2012.
TS Maxim Gorkiy was, until 30 November 2008, a cruise ship owned by Sovcomflot, Russia, under long-term charter to Phoenix Reisen, Germany. She was built in 1969 by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, Hamburg, West Germany for the German Atlantic Line as TS Hamburg. In late 1973 she was very briefly renamed TS Hanseatic. The following year she was sold to the Black Sea Shipping Company, Soviet Union and received the name Maksim Gorkiy in honour of the writer Maxim Gorky, renamed to Maxim Gorkiy after collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. On 20 August 2008 Maxim Gorkiy was sold to Orient Lines. She was due to enter service with her new owners on 15 April 2009 under the name TS Marco Polo II, but in November 2008 the relaunch of the Orient Lines brand was cancelled. On 8 January 2009 the ship was sold for scrap, and she was beached at Alang, India on 26 February 2009.
USS Aeolus (ID-3005), sometimes also spelled Æolus, was a United States Navy transport ship during World War I. She was formerly the North German Lloyd liner SS Grosser Kurfürst, also spelled Großer Kurfürst, launched in 1899 that sailed regularly between Bremen and New York. At the outset of World War I the ship was interned by the United States and, when the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917, was seized and converted to a troop transport.
MV Kungsholm was built in 1966 by the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland as a combined ocean liner / cruise ship for the Swedish American Line. She was later rebuilt as a full-time cruise ship sailing under the names MVSea Princess, MVVictoria, MV Oceanic II. and MV Mona Lisa. In September 2010 she was retired from service as she did not fulfill requirements to SOLAS 2010, and becoming the floating hotel Veronica, before being scrapped in 2016.
The Los Angeles Steamship Company or LASSCO was a passenger and freight shipping company based in Los Angeles, California. The company, formed in 1920, initially provided fast passenger service between Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1921, LASSCO added service to Hawaii in competition with the San Francisco-based Matson Navigation Company using two former North German Lloyd ocean liners that had been in U.S. Navy service during World War I. Despite the sinking of one of the former German liners on her maiden voyage for the company, business in the booming 1920s thrived, and the company continued to add ships and services. In 1922, the City of Los Angeles, a renamed and refitted liner, was one of the largest American ships sailing in Pacific waters. The worsening economic conditions in the United States, and the burning of another ship in Hawaii, caused financial problems for the company. After beginning talks in 1930, the Los Angeles Steamship Company was taken over by Matson Navigation on January 1, 1931, but continued to operate as a subsidiary until it ceased operations in 1937.
RMS Ivernia was a Saxonia class ocean liner, built in 1955 by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland for Cunard Line, for their transatlantic passenger service between the UK and Canada. In 1963 she was rebuilt as a cruise ship and renamed RMS Franconia, after the famous pre-war liner RMS Franconia. She continued to sail for Cunard until being withdrawn from service and laid up in 1971. In 1973 she was sold to the Soviet Union's Far Eastern Shipping Company and, renamed SS Fedor Shalyapin, cruised around Australia and the far East. In 1980 she was transferred to the Black Sea Shipping Company fleet, and for a time returned to cruising in the Mediterranean and around Europe. In 1989 she was transferred again, to the Odessa Cruise Company, and continued her career as a cruise ship until 1994. She was then laid up at Illichivsk, a Black Sea port 40 km southwest of Odessa, until 2004 when, as the Salona, she sailed to Alang, India, where she was scrapped.
SS Stella Solaris was an ocean liner built for Messageries Maritimes in 1952. She mainly provided passenger service between France, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Japan.
MV Coral was a cruise ship in service for Louis Cruises until 2011. She was a Cunard Line cruise ship that operated from 1971 to 1977. She was the first of the company's vessels in the 20th century to bear a name that did not end in "ia" or begin with "Queen."
MV Aurora is a cruise ship built in Germany in 1955. After several changes of ownership and name, as of 2020 she is moored in Stockton, California, and undergoing restoration.
MVTahitien was a 1953 built ocean liner and later cruise ship originally built for the French shipping company Messageries Maritimes along with her sister the Caledonien.
Alang Ship Breaking Yard is world's largest ship breaking yard located at Alang, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India.