1960s Stewardess |

AUSTRALIAN Coastal Cruises aboard the MV MOONTA…

The advertisement for the Adelaide Steamship Company’s popular Gulf Trip features the MV Moonta which operated from 1931 to 1955.

The Gulf Trip was one of the most popular South Australian holiday tours for fifty years.

Moonta is the best remembered of the several ships which operated on the Gulf Trip, which in addition to passengers, carried cargo.

The ship visited Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie, leaving Port Adelaide on Saturday and returning on Friday morning. Tours would be arranged in each of the towns in addition to the relaxation and entertainment offered on board ship. Good meals and service, comfortable accommodation, deck games, swimming pool and fancy dress dances provided all the ingredients for a romantic holiday. Life partners were met, honeymoons taken and anniversaries celebrated aboard the Moonta and her sister ships Rupara and Paringa.

The Moonta was built by Burmeister & Wain of Copenhagen in Denmark in 1931. She arrived in Adelaide in November of that year and made her last run of the Gulf Trip in January 1955. At 2,693 tons gross, Moonta carried 150 passengers was 288 feet long and had a cruising speed of 12.5 knots.

Video of the MV MOONTA as the Casino Le Lydia – very interesting view of the ship during a pop concert…

THE MUCH LOVED MV MOONTA

By Reuben Goossens – be sure to visit his excellent website at: ssmaritime.com

The much loved Australian coastal passenger cargo liner, MV Moonta was built in 1931 by Burmeister & Wain shipyard in Copenhagen Denmark for the Adelaide Steamship Company.

She was known for her comfortable accommodations and public rooms and she accommodated 150 passengers.

The ship featured three lounges that included the Social Hall, Smoke Room and the ever popular Wintergarden.

In addition there was the walk around promenade deck and a spacious sports deck above…

Click here to read more at ssmaritime.com:

COSTA CONCORDIA DISASTER: Bell Disappears From Shipwreck Site. The RMS TITANIC’S Bell Was Saved.

Underwater thieves have evaded an array of laser systems that measure millimetric shifts in the Carnival Corp’s Costa Concordia shipwreck and 24-hour surveillance by the Italian coast guard and police to haul off a symbolic booty – the ship’s bell. The giant cruise liner capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio after hitting a rock on January 13, killing at least 25 people. Seven people are still unaccounted for.

(Left: The bell from the crow’s nest was rung moments before the RMS Tittanic struck an iceberg.) The bell from the RMS Titanic was saved.

Prosecutors have accused Captain Francesco Schettino of causing the accident by bringing the multi-storey Costa Concordia, which was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew, too close to the shore.

Now prosecutors have opened an investigation to find out who filched the modern-day Titanic’s bell.

Judicial sources said on Thursday thieves nabbed the ship’s bell more than two weeks ago from one of the decks of the Costa Concordia, which is submerged in 8 meters (26 feet) of water.

Investigators suspect more than one person was involved in stealing the heavy bell, etched with the ship’s name and 2006, the year it was christened. Ships bells were traditionally used to signal half-hour intervals in a four-hour watch.

“I can only guess that someone took it as a sort of morbid memento,” Giglio’s mayor, Sergio Ortelli, told Reuters.

“In my mind, the missing bell is of no importance. We have the ship’s statue of the Madonna in our church, and that for us has much more symbolic meaning.”

Divers recovered the meter-tall plaster statue of the Madonna in January from the ship’s chapel and gave the statute to the parish priest of Giglio.