Hamburg - return of a perennial

 A perennial late season cruise caller in Halifax returned again today (October 28), twenty-six years after its first call (although off by three days).

Now called Hamburg it was built by MTW Shiffswerft Wismar in 1997 for Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. It was to be called "Columbus" but was registered in the Bahamas with the name c.Columbus. The small "c" had to be appended because the Bahamas, like most registries, (Canada included), forbids two ships on its register from carrying the same name, and there already a Columbus on the books.

The 15,067 gt ship has a passenger capacity of up to 420 (in 197 staterooms) and crew of 170 and was built to work on the Great Lakes in summer. In order to meet St.Lawrence Seaway regulations and to prevent damage from transiting the locks, the ship was built without bridge wings. Its boats are also stowed completely inboard and it has small rub rails on the hull near the water line. It also has a relatively shallow draft of 5.15m (16'-11"), allowing it to call at out of the way ports. [It is reporting a 5.6m (18'-5") draft on arrival today.]

The c. Columbus came to Halifax for the first time October 25, 1997 after cruising on the Great Lakes.

 In 2012 Hapag-Lloyd took delivery of a new ship and the c.Columbus was taken on by Plantours Kreuzfahrten and renamed Hamburg. It returned to Halifax with the new name in 2014 and 2015, and returned to Great Lakes cruising in 2022.

In 2023 the ship arrived in Montreal September 20 and made a large loop through the Lakes with almost daily port calls as far as Milwaukee, returning to Montreal October 5. It did a second loop returning to Montreal October 21, just barely getting out of the Seaway before it was shut down by a strike at midnight October 22-23. En route to Halifax it called in Quebec City, Port Alfred and Cap-aux-Meules.

 Aside from replacing the orange and blue strip with yeloow, and a similar finnel marking change, the ship is unchanged in appearance.

The ship's itinerary from here indicates short hops down the US coast to Mexico and on to Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile to begin Antarctic cruises. The ship remains popular with a German speaking clientele, despite being quite old for a cruise ship.

 It does show scuff marks along the waterline, but these will likely be re-touched very quickly.

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