Built for the French Line, ''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 an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

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 private island in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It 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 uninhabited Petite Mustique, ...

in the

Grenadines The Grenadines () is a chain of small islands that lie on a line between the larger islands of Saint Vincent and Grenada in the Lesser Antilles. Nine are inhabited and open to the public (or ten, if the offshore island of Young Island is counted ...

while attempting to navigate Lansecoy Bay, a shallow and reef-filled bay on the northern side of Mustique. Why ''Antilles''′

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

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 The Cunard Line ( ) is a British shipping and an international cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been r ...

′s ''

Queen Elizabeth 2 ''Queen Elizabeth 2'' (''QE2'') is a retired British ocean liner. Built for the Cunard Line, the ship was operated as a transatlantic liner and cruise ship from 1969 to 2008. She was laid up until converted into a floating hotel, operating sin ...

''. 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 f ...

s that form in the area.

Popular culture

Either or ''Antilles'' appeared in stock footage in the 1964 '' Perry Mason'' television episode "Nautical Knot", set near

Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , ; ), is a city and Port of Acapulco, major seaport in the Political divisions of Mexico, state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Located on a deep, semicirc ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. 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 in North America