MV Geysir is a U.S.-flagged general cargo/container ship owned by TransAtlantic Lines LLC. Originally named Amazonia, the 90-meter ship was built by American Atlantic Shipping in 1980 to serve a route from the United States to Brazil. In 1983, the ship was seized by the United States Maritime Administration for nonpayment of government loans.
In 1984, it was renamed Rainbow Hope and leased by a small startup company to serve a route between the United States and the American military base at Keflavik, Iceland. As Rainbow Hope the ship was central in an international disagreement between the United States and Iceland that would span years, be compared by The Chicago Tribune to the plot of the movie The Mouse That Roared, and involve political personalities including Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ken Starr, Elizabeth Dole, George Shultz, and Ronald Reagan.
After finally losing the Iceland route, the ship was renamed Juno, bought by Norwegian owners and worked in the Norwegian trade from 1996 to 1999. In 1999, it was bought by TransAtlantic Lines, renamed Geysir and put back on the U.S.–Iceland route, leading to further tensions between the United States and Iceland. After the 2006 closing of the United States Naval Station in Keflavik, the ship has gone on to carrying cargo to U.S. activities in the Azores.
Construction
Then named Amazonia, the ship's keel was laid on 1 January 1977 at Equitable Shipyard in Madisonville, Louisiana. Its hull, constructed from ordinary strength steel, has an overall length of , a beam of , and a moulded depth of . Its three general cargo holds have a total bale capacity of or grain capacity of . The ship has a gross tonnage of 2,266 GT and a total carrying capacity of .
Amazonia was built with eight ballast tanks, having a total ballast capacity of . Other major features of the ship's structure include its five diesel oil tanks, two lubricating oil tanks, two potable water tanks, a chain tank, and a waste water tank. The ship was built with two cranes, which have since been removed.
The ship features a MAN B&W Diesel A/S 8L28/32A main engine with eight cylinders with a stroke for maximum continuous power of driving a bronze propeller. Electrical power is generated by two auxiliary generators. Construction of the ship was completed in 1980.
History
In the early 1980s, the company American Atlantic Shipping, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Maritime Industries, built three 2,000 DWT multi-purpose ships to carry cargo between the United States and Brazil: the Amazonia and her two sister-ships, America and Antilla. In 1983, the United States Maritime Administration took possession of the three ships after American Atlantic defaulted on Title XI payments.
Rainbow Hope
In May 1984, entrepreneur Mark W. Yonge of Monmouth County, New Jersey founded Rainbow Navigation for the sole purpose of serving the route between the United States and United States military base at Keflavik, Iceland. Using money he earned from a ship-chartering company, Yonge chartered Amazonia from the Department of Transportation and renamed it Rainbow Hope. The company consisted of one ship, a crew of 22, and seven full-time employees. Icelandic companies had serviced the Iceland route since the late 1960s. Yonge submitted a bid quoting the same rates that the Icelandic companies were charging and invoked the Cargo Preference Act of 1904. Rainbow won an $11 million contract to carry 70% of the cargo on the route, and immediately began to work the route under contract to the Military Sealift Command.
According to an official of the U.S. State Department speaking on the condition of anonymity, "Almost right at the start, Iceland let their feelings be known about losing the business... For the Icelanders, who are entirely dependent on seagoing trade, it was an issue of national sovereignty." Minister Counselor for the Icelandic Embassy in Washington, Hordur Bjarnason informed the Reagan Administration that Iceland "could not accept that a foreign shipping company would have a monopoly on carrying the cargo to Iceland."