FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM The former ms Patriot has been docked in Honolulu Harbor since American Classic Voyages filed for bankruptcy in October.

Ex-Patriot bids
aloha to Hawaii today

Holland America has renamed
the former American Classic vessel
the Nieuw Amsterdam

---

By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com

The last trace of American Classic Voyages' bankrupt round-the-islands cruise business will leave Hawaii today when the ms Patriot sails for Freeport in the Bahamas for a refit.

The 1,212-passenger vessel is already an ex-Patriot. Owner Holland America Line has officially renamed it Nieuw Amsterdam, said Bill Thayer, president of Waldron Steamship Co., which has been handling the ship's port arrangements. That was the name it carried for 17 years before American Classic bought in 2000.

It has been reflagged and now carries a Bahaman registry, Thayer said.

Holland America Line won the ship back in a bankruptcy auction in Honolulu Jan. 28, when it bid $79.8 million, the amount it was owed by American Classic, which filed for bankruptcy in October.

Because it was a debt wipe-out, the shipping line buyer, part of Carnival Corp., did not have to pay any money. In essence, it was a repossession. Lately, the ship has been tied up at Pier 29 in Honolulu Harbor.

Holland America Lines officials could not be reached for comment on their plans for the ship.

The Patriot arrived in Honolulu in early December 2000, operating as United States Lines, a name the parent American Classic had purchased. American Classic bought it for $114.5 million and had a $21 million refurbishing done on the West Coast. It was part of an ambitious $1 billion-plus plan to build two new 1,900-passenger liners in the United States for service in Hawaii.

Special legislation exempted the ship, which was built in Europe, from laws keeping foreign vessels out of U.S. domestic trade, because the huge shipbuilding job was considered more important.

The other American Classic vessel that had operated in Hawaii, the 860-passenger S.S. Independence, left for the mainland Oct. 30 and is for sale. That ship, which operated under the American Hawaii Cruise Lines brand, is 50 years old and had worked Hawaiian waters since 1980.