M.S. NEPTUNE

Epirotiki Lines

Piraeus, Greece.

 

Photo taken in Istanbul, Turkey. 1988.

 

Built:

1955. Aalborg Vaerft A/S, Aalborg, Denmark.

Technical:

Overall length: 90.2 m
Beam: 13.75 m
Draft: 5.64 m
Gross Tonnage: 2402 tons
Passengers: 208
Power: -
Service Speed: 18.5 knots

Operating Routes:

Under Bergen Line colors, mostly Northern European cruises, including Baltic countries and New Zealand. Also, liner cruises along the western coast of Norway (Hurtigrute). Under the Epitoriti colors, world cruising but mostly in the Mediterranean and in Europe.

Sister (or similar) Ships:

None.

Former Names:

- M.S. Meteor (1955, Bergen Line).
- M.S. Zephiros (1971,Epirotiki Lines).

Later Names:

None.

Owners:

- 1955-1971: Bergen Line, Bergen, Norway.
- 1971-January, 2002: Epirotiki Lines, Piraeus, Greece.

History and Current Status:

She started her life as the M.S. Meteor of Bergen Line, partly cruising and partly serving as a liner in the overly popular Hurtigrute service. In 1971, she was bought by Epirotiki Lines of Piraeus, Greece and completely rebuilt as a luxury cruising yacht. She was briefly renamed M.S. Zephiros before being rechristened M.S. Neptune. She spent rest of her life cruising, mostly in the Mediterranean and Aegean. After the merger of Epirotiki Line and Sun Line into the Royal Olympic Cruises in 1996, she stopped being active in multiple-day cruising. She got involved in daily cruises out of Piraeus for a very short term under the Epirotiki venture of "One Day Cruises" but then she was classified as surplus property and taken out of service. She has been laid up and rusting since at Eleusis, Greece. In March 2001, Maritime Matters reported that she was being sold for scrap. However, her final trip to the Turkish ship breakers at Aliaga, Izmir, did not occur until January 25th, 2002. She was scrapped in the following months.

As reported by Kaiser of the www.cruisepage.com bulletin board:"While on an Alaska cruise from Vancouver in 1971, she caught fire and was badly damaged. About a dozen people (mostly crew I think) lost their lives. The Meteor was subsequently declared a total loss and sold (by the insurance company, I think) to Epirotiki, who then rebuilt her."

(email all info about her to ata.bilgili@dartmouth.edu)

Notes:

As I say over and over again, I adore small passenger vessels at human scale. They have more character, better service/food, more intimacy, time spent on them is always more romantic and memories are unique and forever!... At 2000 GRT, anything smaller than M.S. Neptune would not be called a ship anymore!... Easily redefinable as a "cruise yacht", instead of a "cruise ship", she was a always a pleasure to watch and although I have never been on her, I bet she offered all the things I mentioned earlier! I ran into her on a number of times in Istanbul while she was cruising for Epirotiki. The best one was to see her alongside between M.S. Stella Solaris and M.S. Stella Maris II of Sun Line. Such a beautiful trio, don't you think? I bet I still have that picture sometime in my files. Let's just hope I'll find it soon!...

Links:

- M.S. Meteor/Neptune page by Aleksi Lindstrom.

Line Drawings:

Other Pictures:

Postcards from My Collection: