Semester at Sea: Lost Voyage - Summer of 1974 (Two Lost Ships)

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Lost Voyages … and Lost Ships.

First, a very special thank you to World Campus Afloat alumni Holly Beth Hennrichs-Dahms, as well as Professor Robert J. Sager, for confirming this “Lost Voyage.”   Holly did yeoman work over a two-year period to finally track down the missing dates for the various ports of call for this “unique” bit of history for Chapman College’s World Campus Afloat program.   Thank you!   Thank you!   Thank you!!!

Now to the Lost Voyage of the Summer of 1974!!!

During the summer of 1974, Chapman College’s World Campus Afloat program made arrangements with the Greece-based Chandris Line to share space on two of its regularly-schedule passenger ships to run a month-long Upper-Division summer program (similar to those run during the summer months of 1972 and 1973 aboard the S.S. Universe Campus in the Pacific).   

Rather than repeat the Pacific Rim journey for yet a third summer in a row, Chapman College elected to do a “Mediterranean Voyage of Discovery” program instead.   Students flew to Milan, Italy and subsequently joined the voyage program in Venice (via bus).

Dr. Hilton Bell served as Dean, while Rex Tyner held the position of Associate Dean.  Members of the faculty included Dr. Desmond Bittinger, Dr. Susan V. Lenkey, Robert J. Sager and Joseph Cossman.

The Chandris Line ships used for the Summer of 1974 Voyage were the TSS Regina Prima and the MV Romanza, which were noted for their distinctive Greek letter Chi (X) smoke stacks. 

The TSS Regina Prima departed Venice, Italy on July 6, 1974 and returned On July 20, with port stops at Katakolon (Olympia), Greece; Piraeus, Greece; Yalta, Ukraine (Soviet Union); Odessa, Ukraine (Soviet Union); Constanza, Romania; Istanbul, Turkey; Mykonos, Greece; Iraklion, Crete; Corfu, Greece and Dubrovnik, (Croatia) Yugoslavia.   

Students remained on board the TSS Regina Prima and then transferred to the MV Romanza the next day, July 21.   Ports of call for the MV Romanza were Valletta, Malta; Sfax, Tunisia (with layover for bus trip to Tunis); Palermo, Italy; Syracuse, Italy; Dubrovnik (Croatia); Yugoslavia and Split (Croatia), Yugoslavia … returning to Venice, Italy on July 31, 1974.

About the “Lost Ships” from the Summer of 1974:

TSS Regina Prima measured 493 feet by 64 feet

Originally built in 1938 as the S.S. Panama, the ship became an United States Army transport ship (operated by the Merchant Marine with armed Coast Guard support) and was renamed the USAT James Parker (named in honor of Medal of Honor recipient Major General James Parker) in June of 1941.   All of the passenger ship elements were gutted (lounges, bars, etc.) to created triple-bunk military accommodations. 

Of note, the USAT James Parker was used after the end of World War II to transport both war brides (and babies) and paintings and other works of art rescued from the Nazis and made famous by writer Robert M. Edsel’s book, “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History” (and subsequent film directed by and starring George Clooney). 

After the war the ship was renamed and refitted as a passenger ship, first as the President Hoover, then the Regina and finally in the 1973 as the TSS Regina Prima.   With the Arab Oil embargo, coupled with its size and age, it was docked in Piraeus, Greece in 1979 … where it remained until 1985 when it was sold for scrap.

MV Romanza measured 459 feet x 60 feet

Originally built in 1938 as the MV Huascaran, it made only one voyage as a passenger ship (spring of 1939) before being “acquired” by the German Navy for use as a transport ship and eventually as a repair and tender ship (Norway theatre of operations).   She was captured by allied troops in 1945.

The Canadian government claimed the ship as part of the War Assets Program as reparation for shipping losses that occurred during the war.   She was renamed the MV Beaverbrae in 1948 and served as both a passenger and cargo ship between St. John (New Brunswick) and European ports (London, Antwerp and eventually Bremen, Germany on a regular basis after the port was repaired).

She was renamed the MV Aurelia in 1954 and eventually acquired by the Chandris Line in 1970 and refitted and renamed the MV Romanza in 1970.

After the shared World Campus Afloat voyage, the ship continued in service until 1997 when a fire broke out on board the ship (just after leaving port in Cyprus) on Oct. 4.   673 passengers had to be rescued from the burning MV Romanza.   The hulk was scrapped in 1999.

The two ships, over a 26-day period, covered 5,619 nautical miles and made — for the Semester at Sea (aka: World Campus Afloat) program — 16 port calls, which included 12 first-ports.

Semester at Sea: Lost Voyage - Summer 1973

Semester at Sea: Fall 2014 Voyage

Semester at Sea: Summer 2014 Voyage

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The Summer 2014 Voyage featured three ports visited for the first time by any Semester at Sea voyage … Glasgow, Scotland; Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland.

This is what it looks like when the ship is just drifting in the Baltic Sea on a “class day,” before making its run to Stockholm.

Using http://www.marinetraffic.com and the webcam for the North Sea locks of the Kiel Canal at Brunsbüttel, Germany ... these two screen captures show the position of the ship as it approaches the locks and a view of the ship (taken one minute apart) on August 19, 2014.

Semester at Sea: The Lost Voyage of Interterm 1973-1974 (Voyage 20A)

Three units of credit were offered by Chapman College during gap or "Interterm" Voyage between the completion of the Fall 1973 Voyage (arrived Los Angeles on Dec. 23) and the departure of the Spring 1974 Voyage (departed Los Angeles on Feb. 5).

The S.S. Universe Campus departed Los Angeles on Dec. 26, 1973 and returned 34 days later on Jan. 28, 1974.   What is unique about this voyage is that it occurred prior to 1978 ... prior to the Galapagos Islands begin declared a World Heritage site.   The S.S. Universe Campus was actually able to dock at Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island.

For the time being this Interterm Voyage is 20A.

Here are the brochures for the Interterm Voyage 1973/1974

Semester at Sea: The Lost Voyage of Summer of 1972 (completed)

A special thank you to Pat Trow for providing the various port-call dates.  

Although the ship docked in Hong Kong during the afternoon of July 27, 1972, the summer session did not end until July 31 (Hong Kong was treated a port of call with activities planned).

Semester at Sea: The Lost Voyage of Summer of 1972

Beginning in 2008 I began the task of reconstructing each of the voyages of the Semester at Sea program (including those of the University of the Seven Seas, World Campus Afloat, etc.).    The official count is 115^th voyages (through Spring of 2014) … but I have serious doubts about that count and that is the subject of this posting. 

Lost Voyages of Semester at Sea!!

All I really wanted to know, out of a sense of curiosity, was where the program had and hadn’t been (ports of call and countries) since I first sailed way back in the Spring of 1966.  I had come across old yearbooks on the MV Explorer one evening while on the May of 2008 Enrichment Voyage and that simple question became a six-year journey.  A glass of wine and a laptop and the beginnings of a database of the various voyages from the Fall of 1963 forward was born.

I soon discovered that much of the information regarding the early voyages was simply not correct.    It appears, and I’m only guessing (although I do have copies of the original work sheets), that in 1992 — as the program approached its 30^th Anniversary — someone got the notion that it would be a good idea to reconstruct a history of the program to that point.

They had moved from Chapman College to the University of Colorado to the University of Pittsburgh.   Records, materials and brochures were either lost or in storage.

The first researcher turned to yearbooks that had been collected over the years and tried to piece together the early voyages.  I went down the same road and discovered that the yearbook staffs were wildly uneven in their approach to documenting their voyages.  

There were also printing errors, with 8 and 16-page forms sometimes being printed out of order.  They were pasted up and sent off for printing and the students who prepared them scattered to the four winds.  

Some even made the yearbook their own personal documentation of their experiences … if the ship went to London for four days and they spend the time in Edinburgh, then the ship magically went to Edinburgh.

It was a good starting point.   But the best method to piece together the various voyages was to actually ask students from each voyage where they went and when were they there.   What changes were made?   What happened?  

Personal logs, letters home, Helms and pack rats, like me, who kept everything from their voyage have helped me to flush out the original 1992 “backbone” research.   Former students have sent me tons of stuff and have been helpful in filling in the gaps.

I also got permission to spend two days in Charlottesville to plow both the archive that is maintained in a set of files in the conference room at the offices of Semester at Sea in Charlottesville.   A former librarian from the University of Pittsburgh has done an excellent job in establishing these files for each voyage … she drives down from Pittsburgh to Charlottesville from time to time, on her own dime, to work on the archive (I wish I knew her name).

During my stay there I was also given access to the storage facility about three miles away and was able to retrieve additional materials which I copied and then placed the originals in the appropriate voyage files in the archive.  

Of note, I also found the original daily newsletters from the original 1926 student voyage.   They had access to an off-set printing press and produced an amazing voyage newspaper … I turned this find over to Dean Mike Zoll for safekeeping in the archives.   I believe that all of the students who sailed on this experimental voyage are now no longer with us … but the history of their voyage is there in print.

Lastly, once the first draft of what I thought the voyages looked like was prepared I began circulating “the book,” along with two full notebook binders with copies of all the materials I had assembled for each voyage (in chronological order), for alumni to review on the Semester at Sea-sponsored alumni voyages. 

This book quickly became marked up with fresh news, bunkering ports, last minute changes in itineraries and then I met alumni Holly Beth Hinnrichs-Dahms, who examined the book and informed me that she had sailed on voyages not listed in the book.  

Holly is quite the traveler … a bug she caught while a student sailing on the Spring 1967 voyage aboard the Ryndam.   On this night she wore a vest to the alumni reception aboard the MV Explorer that was covered with country patches for every place she has visited from that voyage onward.   Every inch was covered!

She told me that she had sailed on summer voyages during the early 1970s.   I had information on these, but they didn’t fit anywhere and details were very sketchy, so I did not include them in the book.  

A follow-up exchange of emails after the alumni voyage eventually led me to Dean Martha Madden, who had served as “visiting Dean of Students” on the Spring 1970 voyage aboard the Ryndam.    She had collected materials for these summer voyages and was kind enough to copy everything she had and then forward those copies to me.

The first of these “missing voyages” took place during the Summer of 1972.   The SS Universe did a “Pacific Swing” during the summer, departing Los Angeles on June 18^th with stops in Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines and ending in Hong Kong on July 31.  

Classes were offered, for “transfer credit” to upper-division undergraduates and graduate students.  There were 13 faculty members along with a dozen staff members and roughly 60 students.   This World Campus Afloat program shared the ship with other paying passengers.  

The Helm was published on a daily basis and a small yearbook was published featuring the ports of call and other ship-board activities, including Neptune Day (see pages below).  

Two legs were planned, but only enough students were signed up for the first leg … the ship completed the second leg back to Los Angeles with regular paying passengers (and arrived back in time for the Fall 1972 voyage departure), while the students, faculty and staff flew home from Hong Kong.

I have the ports of call, the departure date and arrival date, but lack the actual port call dates (although I can approximate those based on sailing distances and patterns from previous voyages).   For now I am marking this as Voyage 17A, but haven’t included any of the ports of call or nautical mileages in the databases.

Once Dean Madden’s package arrived, I was able to do a bit of detective word using the Semester at Sea 2011 Alumni Directory.   The thought occurred to me that there might be students that were listed in the yearbook for this Summer 1972 Voyage who also sailed on other voyages.  

Sure enough there were a few alumni and they were contacted by email and those that replied (thus far) have confirmed that they sailed on this voyage and received course credit for doing so (the location of personal logs, letters and Helms are a work in progress).   I also was able to track down one of the professors (very young at the time), who also confirmed his participation in the program and the classes he taught on the ship.  

Here is the yearbook from the Summer of 1972 Voyage.   At the end are faculty and students … if anyone can provide further information on the details of this World Campus Afloat voyage it would be greatly appreciated.