Monterey
1988
(Risawoleska RI-234)
- Type: Passenger
- Displacement: 20,600 tons
- Dimensions: 563 x 76 x 26 ft.
- Machinery: Steam turbine, single screw, 19250 HP = 20 knots
- Passengers: 661 (all first class)
- Builder: Bethlehem Steel Co, Quincy, Massachusetts, 1952
- Service: Built as the C4-S-1a "Mariner" class cargo ship Free State Mariner. Rebuilt at Willamette Steel, Portland, Oregon in 1955 as the deluxe 365-passenger liner Monterey for Matson Line's South Sea service along with sister Mariposa (ex-Pine Tree Mariner). Later took over Matson's Hawaii service in addition to cruises from the West Coast until being transferred to Pacific Far East Line in 1972. When U.S. subsidies ran out in 1976 they were laid up at San Francisco. Mariposa was sold to China in 1983 to become Jin Jiang, sailing between Shanghai and Hong Kong until being broken up in 1996. Monterey was acquired in 1987 by Aloha Pacific Cruises for a new deluxe Hawaii service and rebuilt, first externally at Tacoma and then internally at Wartsila in Turku, Finland, with capacity expanded to 661 passengers. Returned to service in 1988, but the company went bankrupt after only six months and she was laid up from mid-1989 for nearly two years at Honolulu. Then Star Lauro chartered her, and eventually purchased her outright, for cruises in the Mediterranean; they became MSC Cruises in 1994 after the Achille Lauro incident. She sailed on until Aug 2006 before being scrapped later that year.
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