No ship in the 1970s list is a grand liner, and that is the decade's truth: the big-ship era had ended, and what survived was small, useful and adaptable. The largest entry, Knyaz Vladimir of 1971, began as a Royal Caribbean ferry-cruiser and still works in the Black Sea. Aegean Odyssey found a second life in educational and cultural cruising, while Ocean Adventurer of 1975 became an expedition ship — an early sign of the small-ship polar trade to come. Around them are coastal and regional survivors: Scotland's Glen Massan, Alaska's Wilderness Explorer, Russia's Klavdiya Yelanskaya, still serving Arctic communities, and the preserved Rex Fortune. Modern mass-market cruising was founded in this decade, but its first purpose-built ships are gone; these modest vessels are its remaining witnesses.
