It was supposed to be a fitting final chapter to a great shipping tradition — the farewell voyage of the legendary passenger-carrying Royal Mail Ship St Helena.
Having sailed more than 1.1 million miles during a 26-year lifetime, the 6,767-gt, 156-passenger vessel was being retired with a grand party on its last trip from London because the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena, 1,210 miles (1,950km) off the southwest coast of Africa, would be served by a new airport.
But
