ASTOR CRUISES / JAMES RAWES & Ca, Lda., Lisboa, Portugal. Calendar 1988

ASTOR CRUISES
[Cruise & Maritime Voyages]
MS Astor

JAMES RAWES & Ca, Lda.
R. Bernardino Costa, 47
1200 Lisboa

Calendar 1988.

Cruise & Maritime Voyages (CMV) was a British passenger shipping company Transocean Tours subsidiary, formed in 2009  and headquartered in Purfleet, Essex. The company ceased operations in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

MS Astor was a cruise ship that sailed for Cruise & Maritime Voyages, under which she operated voyages to Europe, South Africa, and Australia. The ship was originally built in 1987 under the name Astor by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) in Kiel, Germany. On 3 October 1988, she was sold to the Soviet Union-based Black Sea Shipping Company, and renamed Feodor Dostoevskiy; the ship was chartered to the West German Transocean Tours in December 1988. She stayed in Transocean Tours service until March 1990. In 1996 the ship was sold to Astor Shipping Co., she and again chartered to Transocean Tours and reverted to the name Astor. In December 2014, Cruise & Maritime Voyages purchased the vessel and announced it would rename Astor as Jules Verne and would deploy the ship in the French market beginning in May 2021. However, Cruise & Maritime Voyages entered administration in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ship was sold at auction by CW Kellock London. She beached in Aliaga for scrap, and  on 30th March 2021, she has been completely scrapped.

James Rawes is a successor group to a company born in the early 1860s from a partnership between the British Richard Knowles and James Rawes Jr., who established businesses together as merchants in Lisbon under the name "Knowles, Rawes & Co". In 1866 the company was appointed Agent for the Royal Mail Lines, which at the time operated a regular service from the UK via Lisbon to/from South America, as well as Agents for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (now P&O Cruises). He has been Agent of Lloyd's of London since October 1873. In January 1896 the company name was changed to “James Rawes & Co” and in 1946 to “James Rawes & Ca Lda”. At the end of 2009 it was decided, for commercial reasons, that the structure of the company had to change and from March 2010 James Rawes became a Holding Company under the name of James Rawes SGPS, Lda holding three companies; James Rawes – Navegação, Lda (Shipping Division), James Rawes – Peritagens, Lda (Inspections and Claims Division) and James Rawes – Turismo, Lda (Tour Operators Division). In August 2015, James Rawes Turismo was sold back to the Rawes family and left the Holding Company.

Traveler's collection.