An Inauspicious Year
Despite Caronia's career having been a resounding success up to now, it was probably 1958 that highlighted just how quickly and badly things can go wrong. On the 5th of her annual visits to Yokohama since resumption of calls to Japan after WWII, the worst accident in her career was to take place, delaying her arrival back in New York by 12 days.
The knock-on effect of this accident was to delay and curtail the very popular Mediterranean Spring Cruise. All the reparations that had to be made with the Japanese Authorities and the US Navy, and of course all the passengers on both the Great World and Spring Cruises would have been a complete financial and administrative nightmare for Cunard.
As if that wasn't bad enough! Just two months before departure, cancellation of the Autumn Mediterranean Cruise was forced upon Cunard due to tensions in the Middle East. All of sudden, a new programme of 3 Caribbean Cruises had to be arranged and marketed. By the end of 1958 I'd imagine that the Cunard admin staff were a lot less pleased to hear the word Caronia mentioned than they'd been hitherto.
Sterling Cruise
Great World 
