One of the world’s last combination cargo and passengerships is ending a long career on a shipbreaker’s beach in Pakistan.
Dubai-based Sontech Enterprises has sold the 5,200-gt general cargo/passengership Sobat (built 1990) for recycling. The vessel was this week anchored off Gadani Beach waiting to be beached.
Capable of carrying general cargo, 79 containers and 248 passengers, the ship had been acquired as Mauritius Pride in late 2004 amid expectations that it would be used to start a new liner and ferry service between the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Despite a refit and a change of name to the Maldives Pride, the expected service never began. Instead, it was operated in a cargo-only role in Asian waters by its Indian managers, SALS Shipping.
More recently the ship was laid up off Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the Sobat.
Regarded as anachronisms
Cargo/passengerships are generally regarded as anachronisms in the modern shipping industry.
Although numerous in the era before containerisation and air travel, today less than a handful remain in service in very niche trades. They are deemed unlikely sales candidates on the rare occasion that they come on to sales lists.
Last September, CPTM of Tahiti sold its 7,400-gt Aranui III (built 2002) to Al Seer Marine Supplies of the UAE. Renamed M2, the ship is currently in Singapore where TradeWinds understands it is being converted into a support/supply vessel for a Middle Eastern superyacht.
The last Royal Mail ship, the 6,700-gt St Helena (built 1990), manages to soldier on while a solution to the problems with the newly built airport on its namesake island remain unsolved.
