In the mid-1980s Gdynia-based Polish Ocean Lines (POL) was one of the last operators of a scheduled passenger ser vice across the North Atlantic, using its small but well maintained liner Stefan Batory, the former Maasdam (IV) of Holland America Line. In the summer of 1984, following a four-day train journey across Canada from Vancouver to Montreal, my wife and I, along with our one-year-old son, boarded Stefan Batory at Montreal’s Iberville Passenger Terminal for Europe.
Wearing a black hull after being painted ‘dove grey’ for service ‘East of Suez’, the 1935-built twofunnelled Batory on the St Lawrence river in the mid-1960s while she was operating between Canada and Europe as the oldest liner in North Atlantic service.
HARRY STOTT