Built for the

French Line French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, ''Antilles'' was a near-sister to of 1952. Her construction was completed and her maiden voyage made in 1953. She differed from her sister mainly because she was painted white. She was placed on

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

cruise service in the 1960s. Her career was much shorter than her sister's. On 8 January 1971, she struck a reef near the island of

Mustique Mustique is a small private island in the nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which is part of the Grenadines, a chain of islands in the West Indies. The island is located within Grenadines Parish, and the closest island is the uninhab ...

in the Grenadines while attempting to navigate Lansecoy Bay, a shallow and reef-filled bay on the northern side of Mustique. Why ''Antilles''′ captain decided to sail into the narrow, shallow strait is still not known. But on hitting the rocks the impact ruptured a fuel tank and she caught fire. All of her passengers and crew evacuated the ship safely to the island of Mustique and they were rescued by the Cunard Line′s '' Queen Elizabeth 2''. The burnt-out hulk could not be freed from the reef, so the ship lay there for several months, eventually breaking in half. Many years later she would be partially scrapped on the spot and moved just a few hundred yards to her final resting place in the channel off Lansecoy Bay. The wreck site is submerged off Mustique and is barely visible on Google Earth at ; the mast protrudes from the water during low tide. Although the ship wrecked on a reef, reaching the site is dangerous because of the

rip tide A rip tide, or riptide, is a strong offshore current that is caused by the tide pulling water through an inlet along a barrier beach, at a lagoon or inland marina where tide water flows steadily out to sea during ebb tide. It is a strong tidal flo ...

s that form in the area.

Popular culture

Either or ''Antilles'' appeared in stock footage in the 1964 ''

Perry Mason Perry Mason is a fictional character, an American criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in works of detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason features in 82 novels and 4 short stories, all of which involve a c ...

'' television episode "Nautical Knot", set near Acapulco,

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. The scenes on board were filmed on a studio set. P&O Line's equally popular also appears in the episode.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Antilles 1951 ships Cruise ships Maritime incidents in 1971 Ship fires Ships of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique Shipwrecks in the Caribbean Sea Ships sunk with no fatalities January 1971 events in North America