Ships often change hands - bought by  new owners, for one reason or another,  

the are often rebuilt and made over  - to varying degrees of success.  

Well you all seemed to love the first 5 terrible  ship makeovers video that I did the other  

week - so let's do it again and look at five more  terrible ship makeovers for your morbid curiosity.

Number 5; the RMS Strathnaver Okay so just so you don’t think I’m  

being biased in my choices for bad ship makeovers  here I’m actually going to start with a ship which  

I actually personally adore. This is the RMS  Strathnaver, a P&O ocean liner introduced in  

1931. I have a personal connection with this  ship because it carried my family to Australia  

in 1959 - but boy did P&O do a number on it. When  the ship was first introduced in the 1930s it was  

a massive step forward for the company;  I’ve actually done a whole video on this,  

it’s an interesting topic, you should go check  it out. But suffice it to say, Strathnaver was a  

huge departure from P&O’s previous ships which all  kind of looked the same; like this. Old-fashioned,  

with a drab dark paintscheme and thin, black  funnels. Strathnaver was totally different  

and radical; the ship was painted white and its  funnels were painted a golden buff yellow colour.  

But it was the ship’s exterior design that was the  most notable difference; it was tall and blocky,  

but beautifully balanced with three, round,  squat funnels and a long, sweeping profile.  

She served through the 1930s and was a really  popular ship for the time, but then the second  

world war came and Strathnaver did its bit  sailing as a troopship. When the war ended,  

P&O found itself with most of its prewar fleet  surviving intact and Strathnaver was set to be put  

back on the old route to Australia from England.  But P&O wanted to modernise its appearance.  

You see Strathnaver was built right at the  very end of the era where the more funnels a  

ship had signified its speed, safety and size;  but by the 1940s and 1950s that era was long  

gone and now it was all about modernity and  minimalism. The fewer funnels; the better!  

P&O had introduced a few running-mates inspired  by Strathnaver’s design like the Stratheden here;  

but they had been designed with only one funnel.  Strathnaver, by 1945, looked like it belonged to  

an older era. So the funnels had to come off. The  ship went in for refit and when it re-emerged, it  

looked…. Sadder. The first and third funnels were  cut off because they weren’t actually functional,  

only the middle on was. This left the ship  looking unbalanced and a little ungainly;  

the chunkiness of its bridge was kind of endearing  when Strathnaver had the three, jolly funnels to  

balance it out. But now the ship just looked like  it had a massive forehead. The war had been hard  

on the ship too; she had travelled millions of  miles by the 50s so her machinery was a bit tired.  

Her interiors were a bit of a shadow of their  pre-war glory too; so P&O put Strathnaver to  

work as a one-class migrant ship, a very far cry  from the silver service the ship had offered in  

the 30s. By the late 50s the ship was frequently  breaking down, so much so that she earned the  

nickname Scrapnaver, so in 1962 the grand old lady  was pulled from service and scrapped in Hong Kong.

Number four; the Castelbianco. In the last video I introduced  

you to Mr Alexander Vlasov, head of the Italian  Sitmar line, who made some considerable success  

in the Australian migrant trade. His MO - and  that of many of his European competitors - was  

simple. Buy one of the thousands of cargo  ships built for the Allied war effort which  

were no longer useful and just sitting  around - and convert it into a humble  

passenger liner to carry hundreds to new lives  in the USA, Canada, Australia or New Zealand.  

Some of these conversions were really  extensive and resulted in some truly  

gorgeous ships makeovers- but others just  outright failed. Castel Bianco was one of these.

In 1947 Vlasov bought the almost brand-new SS  Vassar Victory, a Victory-class cargo ship built  

in 1945 right at the end of the Second World  War. Her wartime service therefore consisted  

only of repatriating American troops before  she was laid up and sold off at a bargain. 

First Vlasov employed the Vassar Victory as a  cargo ship for service around South America and  

renamed her Castel Bianco, but soon he had designs  to use her for the migrant trade so he set out to  

convert the ship. It hadn’t been smooth sailing  though; on Castel Bianco’s first round-the-world  

voyage in 1947 the ship collided with two other  cargo ships, ran aground and then got caught in  

a horrendous storm which badly damaged her. She  limped into Sydney harbour and had to stay for  

two months while repairs were carried out.  It was here that the ship received its first  

large scale passenger accommodation, with very  humble quarters for 480 people being fitted.

The next few years Castel Bianco run a number of  passenger voyages for poor migrants and refugees  

and was rebuilt a couple of times; the first, in  1950 - didn’t look great- but it did the job and  

the ship could now carry 1,132 passengers. But  by 1952 it was seven years after the end of the  

second world war and migrant passengers could  be a little bit more discerning about how they  

travelled to the new world; Vlasov and SITMAR  realised they might have been a bit conservative  

with the 1950 Castel Bianco makeover, so they  got to work rebuilding her again. And boy, did  

they take to their new task with gusto; two whole  new decks were added on top of the superstructure  

featuring promenades and sports decks. The  clunky cargo masts and booms were got rid of;  

the old cylindrical funnel was replaced with  a slick modern one. Tall crane-like davits now  

carried 24 huge lifeboats high up on the decks and  even more passenger cabins were put into the hull.  

Inside the ship received slick new  interiors and comfy passenger lounges.  

Basically the new Castel Bianco was almost  recognisable and looked actually really nice.

But wait a minute. Mike - I hear you say -  isn’t that ship kind of… I don’t know, too  

tall? If you noticed that, then congratulations  because you picked up on something the Castel  

Bianco’s engineers didn’t; all the excess weight;  the two new decks and the rows of lifeboats,  

which all weighed tons each - caused Castel  Bianco to become HOPELESSLY top-heavy, and the  

ship became renown as a terrible roller in even a  flat calm. So if you were travelling to Australia,  

this probably wasn’t the ship you’d want to hop  on if you had sea-sickness. The ship only lasted  

two years with SITMAR before it was placed on the  market and bought by Spanish Line who didn’t seem  

to care too much about the top-heaviness and the  bad rolling. The ship was again renamed Begona  

and the ship sailed for another few years until  being sold for scrap after an engine fire in 1974.

Number three; the MV Georgic. There are some shipping lines whose  

names alone just inspire visions of luxury  and glamour; names Cunard Line, French Line,  

Italian Line - and White Star Line. But White Star  Line’s MV Georgic, once the toast of its fleet,  

was a mere husk of its former self  by the 1950s. Here’s what happened.

In the late 1920s the White Star Line planned  to introduce a superliner competitor to Cunard’s  

Queen Mary and CGT’s Normandie. The ship was  going to be a thousand foot long three-funnel  

behemoth much in the style of White Star’s  previous ships, prioritising luxury and comfort  

over speed. But then the Great Depression hit  and the plan came to a grinding halt. The new  

ship who was supposed to be named Oceanic  was cancelled due to the economic downturn  

and White Star had to go back to the drawing  board. The company had been building a smaller,  

more economic diesel-powered ship to  serve alongside Oceanic named ‘Britannic’.  

Now with Oceanic having been cancelled, White  Star instead decided to build a similarly-sized  

running mate to Britannic using parts of Oceanic’s  incomplete keel. The new ship was named ‘Georgic’,  

and like Britannic she was a medium-sized,  nicely appointed diesel-powered motor ship.  

The ship had two squat funnels which were very  in-vogue at the time, but only the second one was  

actually functional; the forward funnel contained  the radio room and the engineer’s smoking room.

Introduced in 1932, the Georgic proved to be  a reliable and popular rival alongside her  

running mate Britannic; but then in 1934  White Star Line merged with its old rival  

Cunard who commanded the majority share  of the new organisation known as Cunard  

White Star. Regardless of the new ownership,  Georgic and Britannic plied the transatlantic  

trade until 1939 when the Second World War  rudely interrupted things. In 1940 Georgic  

was converted into a troopship and got to work,  evacuating troops and civillians from France in  

the wake of the nazi invasion, moving troops  between the UK, Canada and the middle east.  

In 1941 though the ship’s luck ran out; at  anchor waiting to take on a load of Italian POWs,  

German aircraft spotted the ship and bomber her.  She was hit twice with bombs, the first which  

glanced off her side and detonated in the water,  damaging her hull plating and causing flooding.  

The second plunging deep into the ship’s hull and  detonating in a cargo hold, sparking a raging fire  

that engulfed the ship’s stern section as oil  and ammunition began to explode. Somehow though  

the ship’s crew and captain Greig, who were  absolutely madlads, realised they could still  

start the ship’s engines and steer her so they got  the blazing ship underway and beached it on a reef  

so it couldn’t sink. She was abandoned and left to  burn for two days; flooded, resting on the bottom,  

with her blackened superstructure and  her hull totally gutted by the fire.

That’s where the Georgic story should have ended;  the ship was a write-off. Except; it wasn’t.  

Surveys of the hulk found that while the ship’s  interior was a gutted wreck, the basic structure  

and machinery were still somehow intact so it was  decided to salvage her. In what has been described  

as one of the greatest feats in the history of  salvage, the hulk of Georgic was strippped-down,  

plugged and refloated. The ship was towed to  Karachi where for eight months the ship was  

repaired in the most basic sense of the word.  Still gutted by the fire, the ship’s engines and  

generators were brought back up to working order  and some very basic crew accommodation was put  

into her. In March 1943 Georgic was able to sail  under her own power into Liverpool at an average  

speed of 15 knots which is pretty remarkable. She  was sent back to her builders Harland and Wolff  

in Belfast for total overhaul and re-conversion  into a troopship. The workers had to strip out  

5,000 tons of fire-gutted and twisted steel;  the superstructure had to be completely rebuilt.  

The ‘new’ Georgic, completed in 1944, looked  completely different to the elegant motor vessel  

of the 1930s. This once-great lady of the sea was  now a utilitarian workhorse and when the war ended  

in 1945 the ship was actually owned by the British  government and operated by Cunard White-Star.  

She was converted again into a very basic  migrant ship and her White Star Line  

colours were reinstated, although that  is just about where the makeover ended.

Sadly the ship’s profile had been  totally ruined; the forward dummy  

funnel was never replaced so the ship now  had a strange, off-balance silhouette. Her  

foremast was shortened to just a stump and  the luxurious interiors were never re-fitted.  

Instead the ship carried only one class of  passenger in basic dormitory bunks. There was  

one obvious telltale mark of the fire though;  the ship’s hull plates had warped and bent and  

never been replaced or straightened out so the  side of the ship was all wobbly-looking so she  

was nicknamed the ‘Corrugated Lung’ which I don’t  think is exactly the PR Cunard White-Star was  

looking for. Anyway this migrant trade didn’t  last long for Georgic and she completed some  

more trooping voyages for the Korean War before  being pulled from service and scrapped in 1955.

Number two; SS Norway Oh boy, okay. I know this  

one is going to upset a lot of you because people  have really fond memories of the Norway. She was  

a good and happy ship - but this video is all  about vapid aesthetical judgements and dozens  

of you brought this ship up in comments  on the last makeover video so here she is.

Norway’s story as a cruise ship is as unlikely  as it is triumphant; essentially she just wasn’t  

designed with the role in mind. In the 1950s  CGT, known as French Line, realised they needed  

a superliner to replace the Normandie which had  been lost during the second world war. To recreate  

that ship in spirit the company built an enormous,  sleek and elegant liner named France. Introduced  

in 1960 the ship was the longest passenger vessel  in the world, a record she held until 2004,  

and was, quite simply, eye-achingly beautiful.  The ship was so long and her profile perfectly  

balanced by two, enormous funnels which had  wings. Who doesn’t like wings? Just look at them.

Also the French Line’s paintscheme just  looked stunning on France; the crimson  

funnels and black and white hull really enhanced  her swooping hull form. On introduction the ship  

was one of the chicest afloat and the toast  of France - except she’d just been introduced  

a touch too late. The world was moving on and jet  aircraft were taking over the transatlantic trade,  

so French Line put France to work on some  winter cruises and world cruises but it was  

the 1973 oil crisis which doomed the ship and  she was pulled from service and put up for sale.

The world’s longest passenger ship sat idle and  unsealed for four years, basically a time capsule,  

until 1979 when she was sold to the Norweigan  Carribbean Line. The Norweigians took their new  

purchase in for overhaul and renamed her SS  Norway. Initially they didn’t do too much to  

alter the massive ship’s external profile; many  of the changes were internal. But the paintscheme  

was changed and the ship was now all blue and  white. She still looked pretty gorgeous though;  

and stayed that way until 1990. The  Norway had proved a smash hit and was  

beloved around the world and NCL wanted  to improve on their formula for success.  

It was this 1990 makeover that damaged the ship’s  external profile; on top of the old bridge a huge,  

blocky structure was added; basically two  new decks containing 135 new passenger cabins  

and suites. Just like the Strathnaver, now  Norway looked like it had a huge forehead;  

but the plan worked. The new cabins were very  popular and it kept the Norway in service for  

a good few years yet. At the ship’s stern a new  overhanging pool deck was installed which also  

didn’t do much for the ship’s external appearance.  All up by the late 90s the Norway’s squat exterior  

was a far cry from the sweeping floating  palace French Line had introduced in 1960.  

But regardless she was a VERY popular cruise ship  and is still remembered fondly by many. In 2004  

Norway cruised for the last time before being sold  for scrap and dismantled at Alang, India, in 2008.

Number one; the SS Ryndam II aka the Atlas. This one is a bit of a head-scratcher for a couple  

of reasons. In the 50s, the Holland-America Line  was really building and introducing a suite of  

fine modern ocean liners and one of them was the  SS Ryndam 2. The ship was originally intended to  

be built as a freighter but was instead completed  as a liner for the company, so her lines were a  

little stout; but given the ship was converted  mid-construction, the end result was quite  

pleasing on the eyes. Ryndam was a pretty ship  with a single tall funnel towering over a modern,  

sleek superstructure. She wasn’t a big ship; 500  feet long and 15,000 GRT, but she was functional  

and served as a reliable postwar migrant ship  taking passengers for new lives in the US. When  

that trade dried up, however, the ship was put  on the market for sale and snapped up by a Greek  

cruise line named Epirotiki Line and extensively  rebuilt. The designers and engineers really leant  

into a 1970s aesthetic for this one and what  emerged from the shipyard in 1973 was… this.  

They decided to make everything… curvy. A curve  here, a curve here. Why not? It’s the 70s! Oh  

and they turned the funnel into whatever  this is. Why?It's the 70s! From the side  

the ship now kind of looked like some kind of  spaceship and… hold on a minute, what is that?  

What is that? I’ve been researching this ship  for a little while and still have no idea what  

this is. It’s painted black at the top, maybe to  hide soot, and in a few photos I swear I can see  

smoke coming out of it. Was it a funnel? I don’t  know - if you know, leave a comment. Anyway,  

the newly named Atlas was introduced as a cruise  ship with interiors that can only be described as  

peak 1970s - it was eventually sold to become a  floating casino and ended up named the Pride of  

Galveston, which is funny because by the 1990s the  ship was a neglected, floating wreck. Permanently  

moored on the Mississippi and now named Copa  Casino, the ship was run down and an absolute eye  

sore. Port authorities ordered the ships removal  so she was sold to the scrappers; under tow for  

destruction in India however the ship decided to  go out on its own terms and promptly sank in 2003.

Well what did you think of these 5  makeovers? Were they terrible? Do  

you disagree with me? I am sure a lot of you  will hate me for putting Norway on this list,  

but uh - I kind of had to. Just look at  that forehead! If you have other ideas  

for terrible ship makeovers you’d like me to  cover, leave a comment below and I'll go and  

have a look. But until then, stay safe and  stay happy and I’ll see you again next time!