Postcard of RMSSaxonia
History
Name	1954–1962: RMSSaxonia 1962–1973: RMSCarmania 1973–1999: SSLeonid Sobinov[1]
Owner	1954–1973:Cunard Line 1973–1990:Black Sea Shipping Company 1990–1999:Transorient Overseas[1]
Operator	1954–1971: Cunard Line 1973–1995: Black Sea Shipping Company[1]
Port of registry	1954–1963:Liverpool, United Kingdom 1963–1973:Southampton, United Kingdom 1973–1990:Odessa, Soviet Union 1990–1999:Valletta, Malta[1][2]
Builder	John Brown and Company ofClydebank,Scotland
Yard number	692[1]
Launched	17 February 1954[1]
Completed	August 1954[1]
Maiden voyage	2 September 1954[1]
Out of service	6 October 1995[1]
Identification	Call sign: 9HDU3 (Carmania call sign : GSJS) IMO number: 5064324
Fate	Scrapped in Alang, India in 1999.[1]
General characteristics (as built, 1954)[2]
Class and type	Saxonia classocean liner
Tonnage	21,637 GRT 8,836 DWT[1]
Length	608 ft (185 m)
Beam	80 ft (24 m)
Draught	28 ft (8.5 m)[1]
Installed power	24,500shp
Propulsion	Geared turbines from builders, Twin screw
Speed	20 knots (37.04 km/h; 23.02 mph)
Capacity	125 first class, 800 tourist class
Crew	461
General characteristics (as rebuilt, 1963)[1]
Type	Ocean liner/cruise ship hybrid
Tonnage	22,592 GRT (1969, 21,370 GRT)
Capacity	117 1st class, 764 tourist class
Notes	Otherwise the same as built

RMSSaxonia was a Britishpassenger liner built byJohn Brown & Company at Clydebank, Scotland for theCunard Steamship Company for their Liverpool-Montreal service. She was the first of four almost identical sister ships built by Browns between 1954 and 1957 for UK-Montreal service. The other three were theIvernia (1955),Carinthia (1956) andSylvania (1957)

TheSaxonia andIvernia were extensively rebuilt in 1962-63 as dual purpose liner/cruise ships. They were renamedCarmania andFranconia respectively and painted in the same green cruising livery as the olderCaronia.Carmania continued transatlantic crossings and cruises until September 1967 when she closed out Cunard's Montreal service. She andFranconia, had been painted white at the end of 1966 and from 1968Carmania sailed as a full time cruise ship until withdrawal after arriving at Southampton on 31 October 1971. In August 1973 she was bought by theSoviet Union-basedBlack Sea Shipping Company and renamed SSLeonid Sobinov. The ship was scrapped in 1999.

Prior to World War II, Cunard's Canadian services had been maintained by a group of six similar 14,000 GRT liners of theAndania class built between 1922 and 1925. One of these was a war loss and another four were purchased by the Admiralty during the war and converted to naval repair ships. None of these ever returned to commercial service. This left Cunard with one ship,Ascania from its pre war Canadian fleet. She was joined in the post war service by three of the surviving units of the 20,000 GRTScythia class which had been built for the Liverpool-New York service. Of the four, onlyAscania was able to reach Montreal, draught causing the others to turn around at Quebec. With this unsatisfactory situation and the age of the ships, it was inevitable that the decision to build would be taken and at the end of 1951 Cunard announced its intention to order two new ships for the Canadian service (the other two came later).

Saxonia was launched on 17 February 1954 by Lady Churchill, wife of the then Prime Minister, and revived a name previously used for the Cunard linerRMSSaxonia, which had been launched in 1899 and scrapped in 1925. Completed early in August 1954,Saxonia arrived in Liverpool on the 23rd of that month and was prepared for her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Montreal which began on 2 September 1954.^[3] She was joined by her sisters,Ivernia in July 1955,Carinthia in June 1956 andSylvania in June 1957. The ship was refitted in 1962 and given another Cunard name from earlier in the century,Carmania. AsCarmania, the vessel continued service on theRotterdam -Le Havre - Southampton - Canada route for several years, and cruised in theCaribbean andMediterranean in the winters.

In 1968, the ship had a major breakdown at the mouth of theSaint Lawrence River when she appeared to ‘throw’ a propeller shaft, and then had difficulties with US fire regulations that resulted in the cancellation of a winter cruise fromPort Everglades. Cunard made some minor modifications to the ship before the next sailing in January 1969. On a later cruise the vessel ran aground on a sandbank offSan Salvador Island in theBahamas. Three months after returning to service the ship collided with the 3,900-ton Soviet tankerFrunze,^[4] but damage to both vessels was apparently minor.

She was laid up atSouthampton in 1971. In August 1973 she was bought by the Soviet Union-based Black Sea Shipping Company and renamed afterLeonid Sobinov. In January 1979, as the ship lay inSydney Harbour, an 18-year-old crew member,Liliana Gasinskaya, slipped out of a porthole wearing only a red bikini, and swam across the harbour to claim political asylum. She rapidly achieved fame as theRed Bikini Girl, and, amongst other things, was the first nudecenterfold in Australia's edition ofPenthouse Magazine.^[5] By 1995, the liner was laid up, and in 1999, she was brought toAlang, India and scrapped after a long and varied career.

• Saxonia on Chris' Cunard Page

• Ships of the Cunard Line
• Cruise ships
• Passenger ships of the United Kingdom
• 1954 ships
• Maritime incidents in 1969
• Passenger ships of the Soviet Union
• Ships of Black Sea Shipping Company

• CS1 Swedish-language sources (sv)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• EngvarB from January 2018
• Use dmy dates from January 2018
• IMO numbers