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St Helena Line

RMS St Helena

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Reviewed by:Peter Stafford
# previous cruises: 41 to 50
Date of Trip: February 7, 2005
Itinerary: Africa

A gem of a voyage on the last British registered Cargo Passenger ships crewed by a mixture of British and St Helenians "Saints". The ship acts as the supply boat to St Helena and to Ascension and currently is based in Cape Town doing 3 week round trips to Ascension and back calling each way at St Helena, Walvis Bay and Luderitz. She is planned to make a round voyage back to Portland UK in October November this year and again next year in February and March.

The ship was built at the Hall and Russell Yard in Aberdeen in 1990 specifically for the St Helena run and replaced a second hand ship of the same name, which had been bought to fill the gap left when the Union Castle Mail run ceased.

She is 105m long with a beam of 19.2m powered by twin diesels and carries up to 128 passengers with a crew of xxx.

There are basically 2 crews on our sailing the Captain had started out with Ocean Steamships and had been captain on the first St Helena and taken her to the Falklands, the Chief Purser was ex Union Castle, the Catering Purser was ex Canberra and the Doctor British and most of the rest of the crew were Saints as was the other Captain.

If you have the chance don't miss a sail on her its like turning the clock back 50 years in style and atmosphere and if the airport is ever built on St Helena as is threatened it will go.

The fore half of the ship is for cargo handling and stowage and the stern part is given over to accommodation. The top deck has the bridge with the open wings accessible, except when docking, to passengers, shuffleboard and open deck space.

The deck below is crew accommodation but at the stern there is some seating for passengers protected by a plastic awning to give some protection from the sun.

The next deck down is the promenade deck open at the stern with a teak laid deck and swimming pool and furnished with plastic tables and chairs. The stern deck is screened off from the side decks, which are painted metal and provide addition seating and viewing areas. The inside accommodation on this deck comprise a veranda lounge with a bar used for quizzes, passenger briefings and films in the evening and for buffet lunches, continental breakfasts, mid morning bullion and biscuits and afternoon teas. Forward on the starboard side is a small children's playing room and on the portside a cabin which can take up to 5 persons.

The deck below, A deck, contains passenger cabins and at the forward end, overlooking the hatch cover the main passenger lounge one wing of which can be curtained off to show films. The other side has a bar. A small gym converted from part of the hospital is also on this deck.

B deck has passenger cabin accommodation, a small shop and the purser's bureau.

The lowest passenger deck, C deck, has the dining saloon on the starboard side with the galley on the port side and the remainder of the passenger accommodation.

All public rooms were well laid out and furnished.

All meals are served in the dinning room with additionally continental breakfasts, buffet lunches and afternoon teas also available in the veranda lounge. Dinner was usually two sittings with assigned table which where usually changed after each port of call. Whilst not haut cuisine meals where invariably on average good with very few being poor, at least to our taste, and some particular on gala nights being really excellent. In addition during the round voyage we had two evening deck BBQs that were splendid. These are held on the outward run because of the prevailing winds. A curry deck lunch was served on deck on Sundays.

The standard of service was excellent with some wonderful individual touches such as the wine stewardess approaching you at lunch to let you know whose turn it was to buy wine for the table in the evening and to take the order so it was correctly served. In the evening on the return voyage they always set up a card table for four of us with an ice bucket waiting for the wine to be ordered in the lounge.

A total range of cabins from 2 berth through 2 bedded to 4 berth and one 5 berth all with a shower and WC. The cabins where well laid out with sufficient wardrobe and drawer space and seating. The cabins appeared well insulated and you couldn't really tell whether the engines were running or not.

This is not your typical mega liner. This is a small specialized ship without a theatre or live entertainment. The scenery and the excursions through Patagonia are the entertainment. The crew did provide a culinary demonstration, cocktail demonstration and daily seminars on the history and geography of our travel area.

Sailing up the coast from Cape Town to Luderwitz on to Walvis Bay across to St Helena and on to Ascension Island. Shore excursion were organised with outside companies at Luderitz and Walvis Bay, which were varied and very interesting. At St Helena, passengers tended to organise there own as most of the passengers disembarked here and stayed on the Island until the ship returned if they were doing the round trip. Only 10 passengers did the complete round trip to Ascension without staying ashore. At Ascension where we were only anchored for 8 hours the Chief Purser took us round the island in a hired 12-seater van.

Landing at both St Helena and Ascension can be difficult as there is no harbour and the ship drops anchor in a bay at each place, which can offer under certain condition little shelter from the Atlantic swell. Landing is by tenders provided by the islanders and even the small boat landing is quite exposed with ropes hanging down from an overhead gantry to offer some help in jumping ashore if the weather is bad. Luckily on our voyage we had good weather.

A completely different mix of people from a normal cruise. First it is the only way that Saints can get on and off St Helena so they form part of the compliment and on the St Helena to Ascension leg a much larger proportion of the total and the ship was nearly full both ways. From Ascension they can fly to work in the Falklands or the UK or remain on Ascension itself. Then there are those going out to work either paid or on a voluntary basis on one of the Islands and finally the round trip passengers from mainly Ireland, UK and South Africa and yes some we would have round to dinner.