At the end of August Cruise and Maritime Voyages announced that they had secured a charter of Voyages of Discovery’s Discovery (1971/20,216gt) for the UK’s 2013 cruising season. From Discovery’s owners’ point of view, this is very much seen as a joint venture or partnership arrangement, with Voyages of Discovery actively marketing the ship as Discovery Sailaway for the 2013 CMV cruises, while for its own 2012 cruises she remains as Discovery.
The ship will begin her CMV service on 28 February 2013, following a major refit over the coming winter, and continue until early November 2013, after which she does not currently appear in either operator’s programme. Voyages of Discovery will be utilising the newly refitted Voyager (1990/15,396gt) throughout 2013.
For CMV, Discovery replaces the seasonally chartered Ocean Countess (1976/16,795gt), which has been returned to her owners. Discovery is a slightly larger ship, similar in size to CMV’s Marco Polo (1965/22,080gt), but has a significantly lower passenger capacity, at 700, than both that ship and Ocean Countess.
