All photos are courtesy of Mr. Selim San, Izmir (Turkey). Click on the thumbnail to see the full version.

This pretty much closes the book on the Aquarama. Since we now have a new pile of junk sitting in the Aquarama’s former place on the outer harbor, perhaps we can get Buffalo ReUse to expand and deconstruct floating buildings?

(reverse angle – you can still see the stripe on the side of the hull)

Here’s his tribute video:

The former passenger and auto ferry Aquarama was sold for scrap and towed to Aliaga, Turkey, last summer. The ship had been idle since 1962.

…

The deep-sea tug Aetos Z. took the vessel across the Atlantic and down the Mediterranean to Aliaga, Turkey, arriving at the scrapyard on Sept. 16, 2007. It is shown, with scrapping underway, last November, thanks to a photo by Selim San.

The article references a photo that’s not available online. My searches for one have also come up empty. If anyone finds one, please leave a comment and let me know.

The Marine Star, the rusting passenger ferry that spent more than a decade sitting on the Buffalo waterfront, is on its way to Turkey.

But it is still not known whether the once-proud ship is headed to the scrap yard or new life as a floating casino.

Read the full story…

Click the link or the photo to take you to the port’s webcam.

The current rumor is that it’s going to Malaysia to become a casino, but it’s all just rumors for now.

A Buffalo News report from June 30th quotes James A. Everatt, one of the Aquarama’s owners, saying that the ship would not be sold for scrap.

The mothballed and rusting Marine Star, the very large eyesore disguised as a ship docked for the past 12 years in Buffalo’s outer harbor, was headed “in the very near future” to Anang, India, a major ship dismantling center.

So said a recent report in Maritime Matters, a Web site devoted to seafaring vessels, which quoted “Indian sources.”

Not true, said James A. Everatt, a shareholder in the ship’s owner, Empire Cruise Lines of Delaware.

“No final decision has been made,” said Everatt in a phone interview from his office in St. Thomas, Ont. “I don’t care what people are saying.”

Everatt did say that if the ship, also known as the Aquarama, is moved from Buffalo, it wouldn’t be sold for scrap.

The big question then is, where is the Aquarama going if it’s not being scrapped? If the ship wasn’t going to be scrapped, then everyone would be happy – both those that love the Marine Star and those that wanted to see it gone from Buffalo. I can’t see a reason to conceal plans for it.

We may be able to follow the Aquarama’s progress on boatnerd.com. An update was posted this afternoon:

Aquarama Tow Update

7/16 – 3:00 p.m. Update – The tow of the Aquarama is due at Lock Four around 3:40 p.m.

Plans are to make a stop at Wharf One to take on groceries and supplies, then travel down Lake Ontario at night.

Rumors persist that the Aquarama may not be going directly to the ship breakers as has been suspected. Her present destination is Montreal.

Reported by Wally Wallace

To be continued, it seems.

While this will certainly tug the heartstrings of the many people who sailed on the ship, most Buffalonians won’t miss it. Most people just wanted to see the rusty hulk gone, as the outer harbor is slowly beginning it’s renaissance and this was just blight along it. I certainly would have liked to see the ship resurrected and put to use since it was reportedly in decent structural shape, but past efforts to save it were fruitless. I’m sure the owner was tired of watching it devalue and paying to have it docked along the Lackawanna shore, and decided it was time to cash out. Can’t say I blame him.

Update: Reader “Erik” sent me three photos of the Aquarama passing through the Welland Canal on it’s way out to sea:

Cruise ship news, shipping reports at MARITIME MATTERS

June 15: Hans Hoffman has alerted us that MARAD will be disposing of the George Sharp-designed SS STATE, which was launched in 1950 for American President Lines as the PRESIDENT JACKSON. Intended for service as a deluxe round the world combi-liner, the JACKSON was finished instead as the Korean War troop transport USS BARRETT. In 1973, she was sold to the New York Maritime Academy and renamed EMPIRE STATE V for service as a training ship. In 1978, the 13,319 gt ship was named EMPIRE STATE and in 1990, she was retired, given the name STATE, and laid up at the MARAD reserve fleet at Ft. Eustis. She was last used for tactical training purposes and is scheduled to depart soon for Bay Bridge Enterprises of Chesapeake, Virginia for dismantling. She will followed by the CAPE CLEAR, which will be heading to Esco Marine in Brownsville, Texas.

Another “Sharp Ship”, the AQUARAMA/MARINE STAR, which has been languishing near Buffalo, NY at Lackawana, is scheduled to depart for Alang under tow in the very near future, according to Indian sources.

The Marine Star project website is no longer, seeming to indicate that project is dead. Several sources have stated that the scrap metal value of the ship may be worth in excess of $1 million. Could this be the end for Route 5′s rusty hulk?

The project is at a stand still right now. We have not managed to locate a University to be our partner.

Wish them luck! It’d be better to have the old Aquarama out at sea somewhere than sitting away rusting along the waterfront.

My father was the Captain of the Aquarama, his name was Captain James E. York . I would like to know if there is anybody that knew who he was.

Dan York
dyork48843@sbcglobal.net

Dear Derek,

Thank you for your interest in the Marine Star Project. We do have the option from the vessel owner, to market the ship, purchase the ship, and versee its restoration. The ultimate goal is the University at Sea School Project. We have not yet reached agreement, with any schools to oversee or to be the funnel for accreditation of the administartive portion of the program.

At this point all we are looking for is a University that is accredited that will say “Yes to sanctioning and marketing a University at Sea Program aboard the Marine Star.” Money to restore the Marine Star is not the issue. If we can secure a University Agreement, we are certain that the bond financing will be an easy step to restore the ship. We have the full and complete support of the owners in this endeavor. This has never before happened in the last 20 years.

With the vessel looking unsightly, it is hard to market the vision, and yet it is structurally sound. This is a ship that has not even found its purpose

We are looking at an interim plan to secure a Ferry Agreement for Marine Star for a line across Lake Erie or Lake Michigan. The primary pupose being to have an economically viable reason for its restoration, and then in Phase II, in the off season implment the Seas School Project. We are in discussions with four different cities at this time in this regard.

In our view, any person that has ever seen this ship sail would tell you it is the grandest thing the Great Lakes has ever experienced. A tremendous ship that was 50 years ahead of its time.

Thank you for your support, and feel free to write anytime,

We may need your concurrence, if we start moving the ship towards federal grants. The United States should not lose this ship. IT is a rarity. We only have a short time to bring a project to the table, otherwise we could lose it.

God Bless,

Larry Lallo

Their plan sounds pretty solid to me. I don’t know the difficulties involved in gaining accreditation, but it can’t be much more difficult than trying to raise the money needed to actually do the restoration, and they don’t sound very concerned about that.

I wish the project the best of luck, because it’s a win for everyone – a win for Buffalo to have one more blight removed from the waterfront, a win for the ship as it gets to continue to serve it’s purpose and not be destined for a scrap yard, a win for all the people who have sailed on it in the past who’s memories of the ship won’t end with a vision of a rusting hull, and a win for all the future occupants who get to build off that history and add their own experiences to it.

Afterwards, I was searching around the internet for some history on the ship, and ran across something I hadn’t heard about before. There’s a new group that’s looking to restore the ship and turn it into a floating mission and university.

The Project purpose is firstly to restore the ship Marine Star. And secondly, to convert the Marine Star into an active Mission University at Sea Campus. Imagine a 520 foot 60 year old ship that has only been in use for less than ten years of its history, with its hull preserved in fresh water. This is a ship searching for its destiny.

The Marine Star SEAS School Project has two phases. The first Phase of the Project is dedicated to the preservation and adaptive retrofitting of the WWII era Ship known as the Marine Star, and also known as the Aquarama, during her service on the Great Lakes from 1956 to 1962.

The second Phase of the project will be the establishment of the University at Sea campus and curriculum. That is to carry passengers and carry cargo. These passengers however would not be soldiers or vacationers, but they would be students of all ages enrolled in a Christian Faith based on board accredited school, studying to obtain college credits. The ship when in port, would serve as an active outreach station for the students to apply what they have learned in their classes, in real life sustainable education ways. Even teaching others what you have learned. For example, nursing students would do nursing humanitarian outreaches. Computer students would train others how to do what they have learned and complete selected projects for local schools or businesses. Hydrology students could work with a missionary team to dig wells for those that may have to walk a mile to obtain potable water.

Wow. That’s a big task, but it seems that they have done quite a bit of planning and at least some hunting for funding. Their blog hasn’t had any updates since March, but it seems that there are other similar successful projects that have already been realized. It would certainly be a better option than scrapping it, or letting it sit there continuing to rust.

Incidentally, those silos that sit next to the Marine Star seem to be in pretty good shape, should someone want to turn them into a waterfront attraction of some sort. Think of the awesome waterslides you could have coming out of the top of that thing!

We decided to take another shot at Made ya look by the infamous local cache hider WILKEYJR, who’s hides tend to be on the difficult side. Since it was a beautiful day, it seemed to make sense to try and hunt down a cache on the lake.

We took a little detour and got a bunch of photos of the Aquarama/Marine Star which I’ll post when I retrieve my camera from my in-laws’ house.

Back to the cache, though, we hunted for around an hour and still were unable to find the first leg so we gave up and decided to head over to Cazenovia Park. Made fairly quick work of two caches, including one by WILKEYJR which countered some of the frustration of not finding the first one. We were going to try for a third cache in the Caz Park golf course, but the course was packed with golfers. Someone kept chanting “ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM!” until I was forced to stop at Custard-Lite in OP on the way to her parents’ house for dinner. All in all, a nice day for geocaching, even though we’ve got a second multi-DNF on our list now.

P.S. – along the same route – I see some grafitti taggers made it onto the Aquarama. I don’t condone grafitti at all, but I know it’s a hell of a feat making it onto that ship, because climbing the mooring lines is the only way on. I just wish it was some urban explorers that can take decent pictures (see above) that did it instead.