Unless a ship is exceedingly fortunate and enters preservation they will end up in a breakers yard somewhere in the world.
Having been one of the last great liners to be built in Britain, Canberra had served as a supremely successful ship for P&O and had been instrumental in getting troops to the Falkland Islands when they were invaded in 1982. With newer, larger cruise ships entering service, Canberra was looking old by 1995 and she was retired in 1997. It is interesting to note that to the day of her decommission she held P&O's Golden Cockerel as a mark of her being the fastest ship in the fleet.
She was sold to the Gadani Ship Yard in Pakistan for breaking up, but like a number of great ships before her gave considerable trouble in her final moments, proving too large to beach in the manner most other ships were at the yard and then taking almost four times the estimated three months to break up.
Robert G. Lloyd's marine painting art print shows her awaiting her fate, still resplendent and proud in the White livery she had worn for nearly forty years.
