Both vessels, STAVROS S NIARCHOS and PRINCE WILLIAM were originally built by Abeking & Rasmussen at Bremen, Germany for a company belonging to A &R. The proposed names were NEPTUN PRINCESS and NEPTUN BARONESS (I don’t know which one became PRINCE WILLIAM).

At the time of building the shipyard was the mother company of the Neptun Werft in Rostock. A & R run into financial difficulties and have misused subsidies granted for the former East German shipyards of which Neptun was one. The hulls with their super structures in place were the last ones to be launched before A &R had to be closed down.

Both hulls were towed to Rostock were they were moored at the Neptun facilities on the eastern shore of the Warnow river. I’ve seen one hull there on May 11, 1996 while on a sailing trip. On July 8, 1996 I was out there with my kayak. This time both hulls were there lying side by side and I could paddle close to them. There were no names on both hulls, just their building numbers. One of them had the building number "NB 6442", the other number is not in my pictures. From a magazine I have the plain numbers somewhere in a big pile of paper. Currently I don’t know what "NB" stands for, it might be "Neubau / new build" or "NEPTUN BARONESS".

When both vessels emerged from the Appledore Shipbuilders, they looked quite different, see my latest posts:
http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=793862
and
http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=793859

Regards,
Werner

Hi Joao

She was built as Prince William and had no previous name.

IMO number : 9222326
Name of ship : PRINCE WILLIAM
Call Sign : ZNAG2
Gross tonnage : 493
Type of ship : Sail Training Ship
Year of build : 2001
Flag : United Kingdom
Status of ship : In Service
Last update : 2006-11-20


Regards

Bob