Post #147252 by Satan's Sin on Wed, Mar 16, 2005 2:19 PM

Great detective work, Selector.

At one point in my service in the Naval Reserve I was assigned to a unit that dealt exclusively with merchant shipping issues. What an eye opener. Before about 1980 ships were fitted and refitted often, changing from cruise ship to tanker with some regularity. But then the marine architecture that served cargo shipping, passenger lines, or oil shipping became so refined for each type that converting a modern oil tanker, say, into a cruise ship would cost far more than building a cruise ship from scratch. Indeed, there's no much use for these older type passenger liners as they do not carry as many paying passengers as the modern ones, do not have the amenities modern passengers expect, and have antiquated propulsion systems that cost more to operate, so I'm not surprised to see that these fine old Matson line ships have long since gone to the breakers.

[ Edited by: Satan's Sin on 2005-03-16 14:21 ]