Luxury Liner to Leave Germany for New Life

The Norway cruise liner, once one of the most glamorous vessels in the world, is to be towed from its port in Germany to Malaysia, its owners Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) said on Tuesday. Star Cruises, the Singaporean parent company of NCL is taking the giant liner to Port Klang in Malaysia "and intends to utilize the ship in a new venture, details of which will remain undisclosed for the time being," a statement said. The company said the Norway "did not fit into the company's well-advanced fleet modernization program." A report in the French newspaper Ouest-France on Tuesday said the ship would be turned into a floating training school for hotel staff in China, but a spokeswoman for NCL's Germany operation dismissed this as "speculation." The Norway began life as the France and served the glamorous transatlantic route for a decade until 1974. When it came into service in 1961 it was, at 313 meters (1,027 feet) long, the biggest liner in the world. The Queen Mary 2 currently holds the record at 345 meters (1,132 feet) long. It was sold in 1979 and renamed the Norway but has been consigned to port in the northern German city of Bremerhaven since an explosion in a boiler in 2003 killed eight crewmembers. It has been costing around $500,000 (385,000 euros) a month to keep the Norway in port.