Irish Pete

I went on Ocean Monarch as a 4 year old in October-November 1974

RealEnglishman,

 

Slight clarification:

 

If your father worked on a ship named the Ocean Monarch in the 1950's, then he was on the Furness Withy liner of that name built in 1951, which mostly sailed between New York and Bermuda in conjunction with the slightly larger Queen of Bermuda.

 

 

 

The Ocean Monarch that Yorkslady sailed on was with the Shaw Savill Line, and was an entirely different ship.

She started out life as The Empress of England for Canadian Pacific in 1957, and sailed under that name until 1971 when Shaw Savill bought her and called her Ocean Monarch

After 1967, Furness Withy had packed in their Bermuda service from New York and sold the first Ocean Monarch to the Bulgarians, of all people, who called her Varna (did you know that Varna is the "sea capitol" of Bugaria?)

This ship sailed for the Bulgarians regularly until 1970 wnen she was laid up for an entire decade and finally scrapped in 1981.

 

Interestingly, the slightly newer ship (the former Empress of England, that is) was a crashing failure as the Ocean Monarch. Everything she did for Shaw Savill absolutely bled money, so they scrapped her in 1975.

I was on Ocean Monarch in Oct-Nov 1974 aged 4

I was on SS Ithaca in Oct-Nov 1975 aged 5 ~ same route as below

I was on Achille Lauro in Oct-Nov 1976 aged 6 (it suffered hijacking in 1985 and later sunk)

 

Ulysses Line's Ithaca