Fire and Loss
On her fourth trip back to Southampton, she stopped at Piraeus in late March 1963 with serious engine trouble, disembarking and flying her passengers onward to their destinations. Brittany was moved to a drydock for overhaul by Hellenic Shipyards in Skaramagas. Repairs were nearing completion on 8 April 1963 when a welder's torch set off a fire that burned quickly out of control. Fears of explosion from her own fuel tanks meant Brittany had to be towed out to harbor and beached to let the fire burn out the next day. The ship was a total loss; her hulk was sent to La Spezia for scrap in March 1964.
The loss of Brittany led to the Chandris Lines purchase of SS Lurline in September, 1963; that ship was renamed Ellinis.
Read more about this topic: SS Bretagne (1951)
Famous quotes containing the words fire and/or loss:
“You can much sooner dry you by such a fire as you can make in the woods than in anybody’s kitchen, the fireplace is so much larger, and wood so much more abundant.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Our loss put six feet under ground
Is measured by the magnolia’s root;
Our gain’s the intellectual sound
Of death’s feet round a weedy tomb.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)