The fate of an abandoned cruiseship that has spent the better part of six months sitting partly submerged at an Indian shipyard is due to be decided in a pre-Christmas hearing at Bombay High Court.

The 35,100-gross-ton Qing (built 1982) is likely to have attracted only scrap bids when a second auction was held last week.

The result of the auction was supposed to have been announced shortly afterwards, but Mumbai legal sources closely linked to the case tell TradeWinds that the matter has to go before Bombay High Court judge Justice SJ Kathawalla on 23 December.

This would suggest that, as with a previous auction attempt in November, there were no bidders willing to offer anything near the minimum reserve bid stipulated by the court. It is unclear what that reserve bid was, but it is unlikely to have been close to the trading value of the ship.

The Qing has been sitting semi-submerged alongside a pier at Goa’s Western India Shipyard Ltd (WISL), a subsidiary of ABG Shipyard, since June.

For this second auction, the court appointed Mumbai ship surveyor Ericson & Richards to prepare a fresh valuation report after deducting the ship’s salvage cost to be incurred by the prospective buyer.

The cruiseship arrived at WISL shortly after it had been acquired from MSC Cruises by Lucknow-based Sahara India Pariwar in November 2013.

The yard was supposed to have converted it into a luxury floating hotel, but financial problems of the owner intervened and the ship was left sitting in a virtually abandoned state.

In June, the vessel took on a substantial list. Officials attributed this to heavy rainfall at the time, but there have been strong suggestions in the Indian media that the hull had ruptured below the waterline. These accounts made allegations of bureaucratic bungling that prevented immediate action being taken to stop the leaks.

The list was eventually corrected, but although the ship is upright, it remains partially submerged, with water lapping at its dining room windows.

WISL petitioned in October for the ship to be sold at auction.

The Qing was built as the Atlantic for Home Lines and later traded as Premier Cruise Lines’ StarShip Atlantic before spending years operating for MSC Cruises as the Melody.