T.S. MAKSIM GORKIY

Black Sea Shipping Company (BLASCO)

Soviet Union, Ukraine

 

Docked at Izmir, Turkey, 1979.

 

Built: 1969, Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG, Hamburg, Germany. Refurbished extensively between April and June 1988 at Lloyd Werft in Bremerhaven, Germany.

Technical:  

Overall length: 194.7 m

Beam: 26.6 m

Draft: 8.3 m

Gross Tonnage: 24981 tons

Passengers: 788

Power: 2 x AEG steam turbines, 16900 kW

Service Speed: 23.00 knots

Operating Routes: Originally built for Hamburg - New York line, she has always been used for worldwide cruising.

Sister (or similar) Ships: None

Former Names: T.S. Hamburg (January, 1969), T.S. Hanseatic (December, 1973), T.S. Maksim Gorkiy (January, 1974).

Later Names: T.S Maxim Gorkiy (1991)

Owners:
- 1969-1974: Deutsche Atlantik Linie, Hamburg, Germany.
- 1974-1991: SOVCOMFLOT of Moscow, Soviet Union. Managed by the Black Sea Shipping Company (BLASCO), Odessa, Soviet Union, then Ukraine. Mostly chartered to Phoenix Reisen of Bonn, Germany.
- 1991-Present: Owned by the Belata Shipping Company Ltd, Nassau, Bahamas, for SOVCOMFLOT of Moscow, Russia. Technically managed by the Maxim Gorkiy Shipping Company of Nassau, Bahamas. Operated by the Phoenix Reisen of Bonn, Germany.

History and Current Status: She was ordered as the first German-built major liner in 1966 and launched as the T.S. Hamburg for the Deutsche-Atlantik Linie of Hamburg, Germany, in 1969. She was originally intented for the liner service between New York and Hamburg, but she has operated as a cruise liner since her maiden voyage, which was from Cuxhaven to South American ports. She was making transatlantic crossings only during repositioning voyages. In 1973, when the previous Hanseatic was sold to Home Lines, she was briefly renamed T.S. Hanseatic. However, due to financial difficulties experienced by many cuise lines in 1973, the Deutsche-Atlantik Linie went bankrupt and ceased operations in December, 1973. T.S. Hanseatic was laid up for a short while. After a possible sale to a Japanese firm failed, she was purchased by a New York based comapny called Robin International Corporation on behalf of the SOVCOMFLOT of the Soviet Union on January 25th, 1974 and renamed T.S Maksim Gorkiy.

Between 1974 and 1991, the ship was managed by the Black Sea Shipping Company (BLASCO) of Odessa, mostly under charter to the very succesful tour operator, Phoenix Reisen, of Bonn, Germany. In that sense, she always stayed as a German ship, serving a mostly German clientele. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, she was transferred to SOVCOMFLOT and this move prevented her from being arrested because of the debts of BLASCO later on. In 1991, she was renamed T.S. Maxim Gorkiy and SOVCOMFLOT made a joint-venture with Costa Cruises, called Prestige Cruises, to manage her. The technical management was performed by the Maxim Gorkiy Shipping Company, of Nassau, Bahamas. When the joint-venture was ceased in 1992, SOVCOMFLOT signed an agreement with Acomarit of Geneva, Switzerland, and Unicom Shipmanagement Services of Limassol, Cyprus to operate and supply all SOVCOMFLOT vessels, including T.S. Maxim Gorkiy. In 1999, the technical management was transferred from Unicom to Lothian Shipping Company, Ltd. of London, UK, which is a sister company of SOVCOMFLOT. Her current owner is the Belata Shipping Company of Nassau, Bahamas, for SOVCOMFLOT. She is still making worldwide cruises succesfully, serving a German clientele.

Some events from her past:

- As told by Patrick Wetter of De Malo & Partners of Luxembourg, the T.S. Maksim Gorkiy rammed arctic ice off Norway on June 19th, 1989. At that time, the full charter had just passed on to Phoenix Reisen. The cruise started on June 11th, 1989 at 19:00 at Hamburg, instead of the usual Bremerhaven. She visited Port Edgar (Scotland) on June 13th and Kirkwall (Orkney Islands) on June 14th. She then headed towards Spitzbergen, Norway. Unusually, the ice was very thick and kept getting thicker so as to slow down the vessel almost to a dead stop. At 00:27 hours, she struck two icebergs both of which had larger underwater structures than expected. All passengers and some of the crew abandoned the sinking ship. Luckily, a Norwegian Coast Guard vessel, whose divers helped install pumps and slow down the leaks, arrived at the scene shortly after the accident. It is said that the vessel's bow deck was almost in the water when the leaks slowed down enough to be towed to a bay in Spitzbergen on June 21st. On July 4th, completely stabilized, she arrived under her own power at the Lloyd Werft Shipyard in Bremerhaven for repairs. She returned to service on August the 17th.

- She was the ship M.S. Britannic in the 1974 film Juggernaut, in which she was threatened by a terrorist bomb.

- The movie Juggernaut becoming reality, a bomb exploded on board while cruising off San Juan in 1975.

- On December 2nd and 3rd 1989, she hosted a meeting between the US and Russian presidents Goerge Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, anchored off Malta. The goal of the meeting, organized just after the fall of the Berlin wall, was to discuss the future of the East Germany and the possibilities of its merging with the West Germany.

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

Notes: With her size, unusual funnel and beautiful lines of her bow, T.S. Maksim Gorkiy was not your usual BLASCO ship. To me, she was a true ocean liner that lost herself in the cruise industry, together with the Five Poets (see M.S. Shota Rustaveli). Carrying the name of the great Russian short stories writer Maksim Gorkiy was actually enough for me to like her in the first place (By the way, did you know that "Gorkiy" means "bitter", "sour" in Russian? This is the last name that the writer Aleksei Maximovich Peshkov acquired because of his rough and activist style). She was always shipshape, nicely painted with no rust marks on the hull. Serving the US/Caribbean market most of the summer, she was an occasional sight at Istanbul. However, I was able to see her quite a bit of times, mostly sailing through Bosphorus. Unfortunately, I never had a camera with me on any of those occasions, which are doomed to stay as a memory as opposed to a documentary. The only picture that I have of her is the great photo shown below. This is the view of the docks of Istanbul, on a beautiful autumn day in September 1990, as seen from the Asian side of Bosphorus. I wish I took more pictures of the docks like this one since these are very memorable moments that may never repeat themselves. I also remember missing her passing through the Cape Cod Canal during a New England cruise in September, 2001. Although I intended to take a day off from work to go contemplate her, something came up and I never could. Luckily, she is still very active and in very good condition and there is still hope.

The picture above shows a lucky 12 year old yours truly posing in front of her at the port of Izmir on a bright summer day. I still remember that day very clearly. I had just disembarked from the ferry M.S. Truva of the Turkish Maritime Lines after a trip from Istanbul to Izmir and she was there alongside. I remember begging my mother to have a picture of me taken with her. The result was the picture above, which nicely scales her on the eyes of a 12 year old. In one word, she was gigantesque!...

Links:

- T.S. Maksim Gorkiy from Aleksi Lindstrom.
- T.S. Maksim Gorkiy from Shipphotos website.
- T.S. Maxim Gorkiy from Parnami's cruise page.
- T.S. Maxim Gorkiy from Vintage Liners website.
- T.S. Hamburg/Maxim Gorkiy postcards from Simplon Postcards.
- T.S. Maxim Gorkiy from ShipsOnParade (Photo by Jos Claassens).
- T.S. Hanseatic page from the Ferry Gallery (No T.S. Hanseatic pictures).
- T.S. Maxim Gorkiy page from the Maritime Ship Covers, New Zealand.
- T.S. Hamburg page from the German Passenger Ships website.
- T.S. Maxim Gorkiy review by Raoul Fiebig. (Contains lots of photographs).
- Phoenix Reisen webpage.

Line Drawings: From the book "Soviet Bloc Merchant Ships" by Bruno Bock and Klaus Bock, 1981.

Other Pictures:

Postcards from My Collection: