There are ships that over the years for one particular reason or another have turned into legends of their own. It happened within contemporary Portuguese ships with the Portuguese Navy sailing frigate D. FERNANDO II E GLÓRIA, the sail training ships SAGRES and CREOULA, the hospital ship GIL EANNES and the passenger liner FUNCHAL.
The FUNCHAL is the last survivor of the once famous Portuguese Liners fleet and one of three ships introduced in 1961: the PRINCIPE PERFEITO and the INFANTE DOM HENRIQUE, both 20.000 gt, 1000 pax, 21-knots Africa liners operated by CNN and CCN (Cia Nacional end Cia Colonial) until 1975, and the smaller but handsome FUNCHAL (10.000 gt, 400 paz, 21-knots) built in Denmark for the Atlantic Islands service of the old Empresa Insulana de Navegação. She did serve the Madeira, Azores and Canary Islands for many years and has been cruising successfully since 1976. She is one of a very small group of ships still sailing under her original name and flag, and for that we have to thank the Greek shipowner who purchased the FUNCHAL in 1985 from CTM, the Portuguese state owned shipping company then closing doors: Mr. George P. Potamianos, who moved to Lisbon, opened an office here and has been running his independent classic cruise ships business in a very successful way ever since. After the FUNCHAL he was able to buy the INFANTE DOM HENRIQUE that became the VASCO DA GAMA in 1988 and the Seawind Crown in 1995, and in 1996 the PRINCESS DANAE was bought to replace the VASCO DA GAMA. She was followed by the ARION in 1999 and the ATHENA more recently in 2004...
Photograph: the FUNCHAL arriving Lisbon this past April
Photo and text by Luís Miguel Correia - 2006
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