SS WINDSOR CASTLE 1960

Windsor Castle was the last flagship of the Union-Castle Line, launched at Cammell Laird in June 1959 by the Queen Mother and briefly the largest liner ever built in England.

At 37,640 gross tons she ran the Cape Mail service from Southampton to Durban for 17 years until the route died in 1977, when Greek tycoon Yiannis Latsis bought her, renamed her Margarita L after his daughter, and moored her at Jeddah as a floating headquarters for his Petrola oil empire.

From 1991 she lay idle in Greek waters, a perfectly preserved time capsule still carrying her Union-Castle silverware, crockery, artwork and even the log books on her bridge, while a British campaign to bring her home as a hotel ship collapsed for lack of money.

After Latsis died, his family sold her for scrap in December 2004 under the shortened name Rita. Engineers spent months reviving turbines that had been cold for over a decade, and on 14 April 2005 she steamed out of Piraeus under her own power, bound for Alang.

Even her final voyage turned into an ordeal. Turned away from the beach while her owners waited for scrap prices to rise, she broke down adrift in the Indian Ocean, then the tug sent to rescue her broke down too.

She was finally beached on 20 July 2005, and cutting officially began on 18 August, forty-five years to the day after her maiden voyage. She had outlived every British liner of her generation, including the Canberra and the Oriana. 

Source: Maritime History