Nautica

Nautica sailing past Velsen Noord at the 6th of june 2012. She is the last former R-class ship to have joined the Oceania fleet before the Oceania Class was built.

At the 29th of january 2000, Renaissance Cruises took delivery of their fifth ship in their new R-class. She was named R Five and measured 30.277 tons. She has a lenght of 181 meters, a width of 25,50 meters and a draft of 6 meters. She was designed for 684 passengers and 400 crew at nine decks and her normal service speed lies somewhere around 20 knots. The ship had been built at the Chantiers de L'atlantique wharf at Saint-Nazaire, France under yardnumber P31. The ship saied on her positioning voyage to the Mediterranean for her first cruise, that started at the 1st of february. Her services for Renaissance Cruises were of course a little short, because of the bankrupcy of the company at the 25th of september 2001. With many of her sisterships and some of the other, earlier ships of the line, the R Five was laid-up at Gibraltar and taken over by Cruise Invest, a company that had been set up by the builders yard as Cruise Invest Five. The company was but into action to sell or charter the ships of Renaissance Cruises and in this way make some money out of the remains for the creditors.

In 2002, the R Five was chartered out to Pullmantur Cruises as their Blue Dream. Pullmantur didn't use a certain namingstrategy at that time, but for the former Renaissance Cruises ships that were on charter for them, they used named like Blue Moon, Blue Star and Blue Dream.

Another charter came in 2004, when the ship was chartered to Oceania Cruises, a company that was set up in 2002 by Joe Watters and Frank del Rio, the latter being the former vice-President of Renaissance Cruises. They already sailed with two of the former Renaissance R-class ships, the Insignia and the Regatta. But before Nautica entered service for Oceania Cruises, she was sub-chartered to the French company TMR. This had also been done with the first ship that was about to sail for Oceania, the later Regatta. At the 28th of november of 2005, Nautica joined the Oceania Cruises fleet and was repainted in Oceania colours. Her first cruise was a lenghty one, opening a new chapter for Oceania Cruises when sailing to the Far East from the Greek port of Piraeus to Singapore. Nautica now sails worldwide cruises for Oceania.

Nautica just left the locks at IJmuiden in this picture, dated the 7th of august 2004. She is sailing in the colours of TMR, very much like the colouring that was used for the ships in the time they sailed for Renaissance Cruises.