ALBATROS

The vessel is well remembered in the port as Cunard's former Sylvania, which made her maiden call in the docks more than four decades ago in August 1960.

Since then the ship, built on Clydebank by John Brown and Co. and which first entered service in 1957, has had a long and varied career.

Sylvania was the last in a quartet - the others were Saxonia, Ivernia and Carinthia - originally order by Cunard for the Canadian trade.

She was then swapped to the Liverpool to New York route when Britannic, the last surviving ship of the old White Star fleet, was withdrawn from the service at the beginning of the 1960s.

In 1966 Sylvania was moved to Southampton to undertake a season of cruises out of the port to the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean.

At one point the Cunarder even carried an SRN 6 hovercraft which acted as an experimental tender during voyages.

The ship was renamed Fairwind when she was sold to the Sitmar Line in 1968 with the intention of operating her on the Southampton to Australia emigrant service.

Fairwind, together with Fairland, once Cunard's Carinthia, then became a familiar sight in Southampton laid up together at 101 berth in the Western Docks for more than 16 months before sailing to Italy for conversion.

The ship then passed into the P&O Princess fleet when Sitmar was taken over in 1988 and renamed yet again, this time Dawn Princess.

Under that name the ship returned to Southampton after an absence of nearly 20 years in 1989, but then in 1993 she changed hands once more and since then has been operated, mainly in the European market, by a German company.

The last time Albatros was in Southampton she was dry-docked in 1997 after the vessel ran aground off the Scilly Isles and was seriously damaged.