Balanga Queen

Thanks for sharing this rare photo; she only sailed as BALANGA QUEEN for a year or two. I had sailed on her several times previously, when she was CARIBE and SCANDINAVIAN SUN; also after she came back to South Florida in 1994, numerous times aboard her as DISCOVERY SUN.

Rich

Hello Rich - Pleased to be able to post a photo for your interest that you haven't come across before. Derek

Was she at one time named FREEPORT? She looks so familiar...
Mike - The Sun Viking

Yes, I think she was the FREEPORT too. I sailed her in the early 1980s as the SCANDINAVIAN SUN; I enjoyed that cruise out of Miami-Freeport-Miami run. I wish she was still around because of the new cams set up at Port Everglades.

Thanks for the info - and I agree with you! Gone are the days when you could get up close and take pictures. Today You'll have harbor cops on your tail. Thanks, Homeland Security!

However - this ship does not in any way belong in the cruise ship sector here - she was a pure ro/ro-ship and a passenger ferry on the then new opened Karlskrona-Gdynia line in early 1990's. Interestingly this company later became a daughter company to Petersburg based Baltic Lines and she and the KONSTANTIN SIMONOV were planned for lengthenening and a radical reconstruction. However this plan some to an end in 1995 and 1996 when the early gangster capitalism of Russia plundered the large Baltic Shipping Company and was totally bankrupt. Even a Russian presidental "ukaz" demanded that the BMP/BaltSCo should survive as a national treasure -but this didn't work either, and Russia's largest shipowner disappeared in sudden death (the Odessa based and a bit larger BLASCO/CMP belonged to the Ukraine). In 1974 and 1975 the FREEPORT was chartered to Birka Line for their Stockholm-Helsinki and Stockholm-Leningrad lines, and was after this sold to Helsingborg based Svea Lines for Helsingborg-Köbenhavn-Travemünde line under the name SVEA STAR, now rebuilt with a bow visor. In 1974 this ship got a half sister ship, the delivered in 1975 m/s ODESSA -with no car deck. Her first line in service was the Baltic Sea based Stockholm-Leningrad and Stockholm-Tallinn lines, then handed over to all over the world based cruise arrangements.

BALANGA QUEEN as a Cruise ship - not by my judgement.

Thats an MS Odessa (Copenhagen) funnel

They are built on the same blueprints and GA-plan from Knud E. Hansen design firm of Copenhagen.