St Helena (the ship) update

St Helena at Valencia, Spain, in 2021

(credit: Manuel Hernandez Lafuente)

Having out curiosity followed my ex ships destinies I got some news as follows below, read on. 

As many may know, St Helena was originally launched as RMS St Helena and replaced the previous St Helena as the royal mailship and lifeline to the British crown colony on St Helena Island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Originally she brought cargo from ol'Blighty to St Helena and back with ports of calls on Ascension, Tristan da Cunha and Capetown which towards the end of her life became just the islands and Capetown. Eventually time caught up on her and she was replaced by a cargo ship 'Helena' as the airport was built in 2014 and opened on the island and it was envisaged that no passenger service was needed anymore. The cargo ship brought supplies to the colony mainly from Capetown.

The old St Helena at Bristol in 1983

(credit: Mike Nash)

St Helena was eventually sold in 2018, many thought as scrap, but she went to work as a floating armory in the Middle East but she quickly turned out to be a poor money maker and then was quickly flogged on to the Extreme E team in 2019 that then went on to refurbish her to operational status that was completed in 2021 at Cammell Lairds yard in Birkenhead. 

This was where I was also involved, I joined for the whole refit when nobody else wanted the job. Eventually I got my reward and was asked to leave after I had loaded her her the first time with the rally cars and paddock gear to the best stability and not to the aesthetic solution the Owner thought looked best. Hey-ho, life went on and I got myself other gigs and St Helena went sailing onto her new short lived rally career. 

Then the ship was quietly removed from the Extreme E website in 2023 as it seems the E concept flopped and there was probably no more racing seasons on the calendar, Extreme E started advertising their next idea of hydrogen cars. She was maybe not in a very good condition as she was detained by Port State Control in Italy before she made her way through Suez canal. St Helena was then quietly brought to KSA to attract clients and then subsequently sold onto undisclosed buyers before the next special survey. The buyers reflagged then under Djibouti registry and let her class lapse with Lloyd's and since then she seemingly has been trading in the Middle East, most likely as a floating armory in the maritime security sector.

In 2025 a cruise actor, the Australia based Terra-Nova Expeditions announced they will acquire St Helena and start cruises in the Antarctic with her. After a while the story changed that they will only charter her. I followed her story in the media and a lot of people doubted she would even be fit for the Antarctic as she was never built for such climates not to mention that there was any refit on the horizon to make her more suitable for trading in subzero temperatures. 

The CEO of Terra-Nova, Mr Greg Carter, thought that everything was going according to plan publicly.  When the issues at Hormuz started I did query on his LinkedIn that what are the plans as the vessel was still in the area and cruises scheduled to start imminently, I got no answer and my comment was deleted. 

I did then see that the timetable on their website kept being pushed further into the future until Cruisemapper came with an article on 8th September 2026 that St Helena had been 'replaced' with another older vessel, m/v Expedition because she could not exit the Middle East due to the crisis surrounding areas of Strait of Hormuz. Easy to replace as she was never their property in the first place but it now looks like the Vestland Adventurer's Norwegian Owners are going to get themselves a 3 years charter contract. 

m/v Expedition

(credit: Cruisemapper)

The m/v Expedition or Vestland Adventurer, is a 54 year Danish build (1972) that served for many years between Finland and Sweden as a ferry until sold in 2008, she was then refitted for arctic cruising and might be a much better choice as opposed to St Helena despite being older, at least she's built for the colder climes with better ice class (St Helena has 1C = none) and I think she was re-engined in 2015. I did have a look at Equasis and she has 34 inspections on record with very little findings so looks like she has been well taken care of. True to the generation of today, St Helena's AI renderings from the Terra-Nova website were removed with a click of the mouse to be replaced by others that of m/v Expedition.

AI vision of Expedition under new livery and name

(credit: Terra-Nova Expeditions)

It struck my eye that Cruisemapper writes following: "Terra Nova Expeditions plans to refurbish the vessel before her first season. The work will include new soft furnishings and interior décor, remodelling of the bar and lounge areas, and the installation of a Jacuzzi and new sauna on Deck 5.

The company said the refurbishment is intended to retain the ship’s established expedition capabilities while updating the onboard environment to reflect Terra Nova Expeditions’ approach to small-ship polar cruising."

To me it sounds they have very little experience about running large passenger ships if their refurbishment focus is on cushions and decor, especially an older lady requires lot of technical maintenance, even if re-engined they'd be 10 years old now so not exactly a spring chicken anymore. She seems to be currently in Poland so they got a long way ahead to reach the Antarctic, if the charter agreement ever gets signed, it'll cost a bit more than a few AI renderings on a website.

Then the real news came from Tradewinds news on 15th September 2026 that St Helena had been hit by an unknown projectile from Iran. Perhaps it is not very recent news as Terra-Nova had dumped St Helena a week earlier so I guess they must've known that she is not going to make it anywhere without a refit or they got tired of waiting for her. Looking at Marinetraffic it appears that her AIS transponder has gone dark for 40 days already, perhaps that was the day she was hit or she had just operated dark until now. Hopefully more news will emerge as details will be gotten available, I hope nobody was hurt by the projectile and that St Helena will keep on trading.

UKMTO report of the unknown projectile

Looking at news it appears Iran did fire missiles on 7/8th Aug and hit an UAE vessel but no further news of the time. The strike occurred on the exact same day that Iran publicly issued aggressive demands to the United States regarding the ongoing regional blockade. Tehran stated that it would not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping until the U.S. naval blockade was lifted, sanctions were removed, and American military forces withdrew from the region.