| IMO | 8919245 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 55,877 GT |
| Length | 219.21 m |
| Beam | 30.8 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 1613 |
| Service speed | 20.3 knots |
| Builder | Fincantieri |
| Hull number | 5881 |
| Launched | 1992 |
| Maiden voyage | 1993 |
| Class | Statendam-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Nicko Cruises |
| Status | Active |
| All names | Vasco da Gama; Pacific Eden; Statendam |
Overview
Vasco da Gama is a 1993 Fincantieri-built cruise ship now operated by Germany's Nicko Cruises, and one of the most travelled hulls in this directory: she has carried four brands in three decades without ever changing her fundamental character as a mid-sized, traditionally styled ocean ship. She began as Holland America Line's Statendam, lead ship of its S class; became P&O Cruises Australia's Pacific Eden in 2015; took her present name — honouring the Portuguese explorer — for Cruise & Maritime Voyages in 2019; survived that line's pandemic collapse and an auction in 2020; and emerged in 2021 as Nicko Cruises' ocean flagship. Her dataset row still carries the debris of the roster she was parsed from — a garbled names field, now cleaned in the spec box above to the three names she has actually borne — and one outright error, addressed in the specifications section below.
Key specifications
The dataset records 55,877 GT, 219.21 m length, 30.8 m beam, maximum capacity 1,613, speed 20.3 knots, Fincantieri hull 5881 and IMO 8919245. Her own article gives a registered tonnage of 55,451 GT against the dataset's 55,877 — a variant also visible in CruiseMapper's registry-derived 55,877 GT figure; the dataset figure is retained in the spec box and the variant logged. The article adds draught 7.5 m, capacity 1,258 passengers at standard occupancy, crew 557, and maximum speed 22 knots against the dataset's 20.3-knot service figure. The dataset's clear error is its launch year: it records launched 1994, but the ship was launched on 3 April 1992, delivered in January 1993 and made her maiden voyage in 1993 — which the dataset's own maiden-voyage field states correctly. The 1994 figure appears to be a roster year-built artefact; it is logged in this batch's notes and the corrected chronology is used throughout this guide. Her article also classes her as S class rather than the dataset's "Statendam-class" label; the two describe the same four-ship design, of which she was the first.
Design and construction
She was built by Fincantieri at Monfalcone as yard number 5881, at a reported cost of US$180 million: ordered in November 1989 per the Dover Ferry Photos ship history, keel laid on 30 July 1991, launched on 3 April 1992 and completed in January 1993. The S class was Holland America's early-1990s standard-bearer: a hull of about 55,000 GT with fourteen decks, diesel-electric drive built around Sulzer engines, and a traditional profile with a single funnel and a proper promenade, sized for worldwide itineraries rather than one region. She was delivered to Holland America's Dutch parent company on 7 January 1993, per the Dover Ferry Photos ship history, and began cruising that month.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She was launched as Statendam — a name Holland America had carried on earlier ships, drawn from the Statendam near Rotterdam — and entered service under it in 1993, initially registered in Nassau and transferred to Rotterdam registry in 1996 as the line reflagged its fleet to the Netherlands. Her two later names each came with a ceremony. As Pacific Eden she was given godmother Kate Ritchie, the Australian actress, for her P&O Australia debut in November 2015. As Vasco da Gama — a name chosen by Cruise & Maritime Voyages' Columbus Club members from a shortlist of explorers that also included Pytheas, Henry Hudson and Amerigo Vespucci — she was christened at Bremerhaven on 9 June 2019 by German singer Annett Louisan.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 1993–2015 | Statendam | Holland America Line |
| 2015–2019 | Pacific Eden | P&O Cruises Australia |
| 2019–2020 | Vasco da Gama | Cruise & Maritime Voyages |
| 2021–present | Vasco da Gama | Nicko Cruises |
Twenty-two years as Statendam made her a Holland America fixture before Carnival redeployed her within the group: transferred in November 2015 to P&O Cruises Australia as Pacific Eden, she sailed from Fremantle on her first P&O cruise on 15 November 2015. In March 2018 Carnival sold her onward to Cruise & Maritime Voyages, with delivery in April 2019; renamed Vasco da Gama, she sailed her inaugural CMV voyage from Singapore on 23 April 2019. CMV's collapse in July 2020 stranded her at Tilbury, and in October 2020 she was sold at auction to Mystic Invest — parent of Mystic Cruises and Nicko Cruises — for US$10,187,000, per her article. Under Nicko she returned to service in 2021, keeping the Vasco da Gama name, and has remained Nicko's sole ocean cruise ship.
Onboard character
The S class embodied Holland America's early-1990s idea of premium cruising: a ship large enough for a full theatre, multiple lounges and restaurants and generous open deck, small enough to keep a country-club intimacy that the line's regulars valued. Her public-room layout — show lounge, atrium, wraparound promenade — was carried through each of her rebrandings with refreshment rather than reinvention: P&O Australia marketed her on the same intimate scale with Australian-styled venues, CMV sold her as a traditional British-style ship for its explorer-themed fleet, and Nicko presents her to the German market as a classic ocean liner in miniature. That continuity is her defining onboard trait: three decades and four brands have changed her liveries, signage and menus, but the ship a passenger walks around today is recognisably the 1993 Statendam.
Major refits and incidents
Two refits mark her transfers. In October–November 2015 she underwent rebuilding and restyling at SembCorp Marine, Singapore, emerging as Pacific Eden with P&O Australia's interior identity. In April 2019 she dry-docked again in Singapore for her CMV makeover before the Vasco da Gama debut voyage. Her defining incident was not mechanical but corporate and epidemiological: in March 2020, mid-pandemic, she exchanged passengers at sea off Phuket with her CMV fleetmate Columbus so that Australians and New Zealanders could travel home together, docking at Fremantle on 27 March 2020, where her Western Australian passengers were ferried to a quarantine station on Rottnest Island despite no positive cases aboard. She then crossed to Tilbury without passengers, arriving 30 April 2020, and did not sail commercially again until the Nicko relaunch — a sixteen-month silence that ended her CMV career and very nearly her life, given how many of her contemporaries went to the breakers in the same period.
Sister ships and class
The S (Statendam) class comprised four Monfalcone-built ships: Statendam (this hull, 1993), Maasdam (1993), Ryndam (1994) and Veendam (1996). All four have outlived Holland America service in second careers — Maasdam as CFC Renaissance, Ryndam as Celestyal Journey and Veendam as Aegean Majesty in their most recent identities — making the class one of the most durable of its generation. Vasco da Gama is the class leader, the first delivered and, in Nicko service, arguably the most continuously employed of the four.
Fate and where she is now
Vasco da Gama is in active service for Nicko Cruises, flagged in Madeira, Portugal, owned by Mystic Invest — the dataset's status, current operator and current name are all confirmed by her article. Bought at auction in 2020 for a fraction of her US$180 million build cost, she has since settled into the role her size suits best: a single-ship ocean programme for a German operator whose main business is river cruising, where a proven, traditionally styled 1,600-passenger hull is an asset rather than a liability. Her fate, unusually for a 1993 ship, is not in immediate question.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama_(ship), https://www.doverferryphotosforums.co.uk/mv-vasco-da-gama-past-and-present/?redirect_uri=https, https://www.cruisemapper.com/ships/Vasco-da-Gama-Nicko-575