Travellers' Checks | The MS World, ‘the largest residential private yacht on earth’, is coming to Hong Kong
- Arrival to hark back to days when elegant cruise ships, such as the Asama Maru, made front-pages news
- Plus, Hawaiian Airlines relaunches its route between Honolulu and Fukuoka, in Japan
Before the advent of commercial aviation, the occasional arrival of new and ever-more luxurious cruise ships was always big news in relatively remote Hong Kong. Three of the last luxury liners to debut here before Imperial Airways and Pan American Airways aircraft first touched down at Kai Tak in 1936 were NYK Line’s Asama Maru, Chichibu Maru and Tatsuta Maru. The Asama Maru’s arrival, in December 1929, was front-page news, and her similar sister ships were keenly reported when they dropped in a few months later.
The Asama Maru, it was told, contained a Roman-style swimming pool with marble fountain and eight neoclassical columns. The London firm of Waring & Gillow provided interior designs in several historical English styles, and all beds were fitted with the recently invented Simmons Beautyrest mattress.
The interior decor of the Chichibu Maru was detailed by The Hong Kong Telegraph the following May: “Entrance hall, in the late Renaissance style; gallery, style of the glorious Florentine period of Leonardo da Vinci; lounge, modern English; smoking room, the elegant style of the William and Mary period [...] swimming pool, designed after that of the Roman period and decorated in modern French style [...] verandah, the classic style of medieval Japan.”
After comfortably carrying Hongkongers as far as California for more than a decade, all three ships were sunk while on Japanese military transport duty during World War II, with total loss of life reaching almost 4,000.