Just Over A Month From Being Sold For Scrap, Cruise and Maritime Voyages Astor is Beached in Turkey.

The intimate, luxury cruise ship MV Astor was beached in Aliaga, Turkey on November 23, 2020, after being sold at auction on October 15,2020 in the UK for $1.71M. The auction was conducted to liquidate the assets of Cruise and Maritime Voyages which went into administration earlier in the year due to the extended pause in operations. The MS Astor left Tilbury England on November 7,th and proceeded directly to Turkey. Most recently the MS Astor sailed for Cruise & Maritime Voyages' Transocean Tours subsidiary, sailing to Europe, South Africa, and Australia.

The ship was originally built as the MS Astor in an effort to re-kindle the Capetown South Africa to England cruise operations. The ship had a yacht like feel and limited passenger capacity which gave the ship an upper-class built feel. Originally built in 1987 under the name Astor by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW), Kiel in West Germany for the South African Safmarine Corporation, she was sold to the Mauritius-based Marlan Corporation, before being completed.

In 1988, she was sold to the Soviet Union-based Black Sea Shipping Company and renamed Fedor Dostoevskiy. Under her Soviet owners she spent most of her time under charter to various West German cruise lines. In 1995, she reverted back to the name, Astor. From 1996 until 2020, she operated under charter to Transocean Tours.

The MS Astor was to be renamed Jules Verne in 2021- hand-over to French CMV subsidiary Croisieres Maritimes et Voyages. This was canceled due the financial issues encountered by CMV and the sale of the ship for scrap.