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The Royal City Star – Fraser River Casino Cruise Ship

The ship was brought from New Orleans, on the Swan, a heavy lift ship and off-loaded at Royal Roads (near Victoria) where she underwent some conversion and overhaul work. She was moved to New Westminster and began casino operations on October 6, 1999 as the Royal City Star Casino. The Royal City Star, was the ex–Queen of New Orleans ON 820950 built in 1993 by Halter Marine Inc., at Lockport LA USA and powered by twin screw 1600hp diesel engines. She displaced 4165gt 1249rt and measured 66.48m x 18.29m x 3.66m, her hull was carvel flush in steel. In 2011 she was owned by Gateway Casinos & Entertainment Inc., Burnaby BC. The Royal City Star closed the doors to the casino on December 9, 2007. The casino operation moved ashore and the vessel remained tied up on the Fraser river waterfront for several years. She disappeared from the New Westminster waterfront without fanfare.

The Royal City Star laid up at Duncan Bay (Photo from the Lynn Salmon collection. )

The Royal City Star is berthed at the closed Elk Falls Pulp Mill just north of Campbell River. She was purchased by Art Belliveau of Campbell River BC who apparently originally intended that she function as an accommodation vessel for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. This use did not pan out and on December 3, 2009 she was towed to Campbell River. Belliveau is said to have purchased the ship for significantly less than the original $5 million asking price.

Site News: December 21, 2024

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,824 vessel histories (with 16,274 images and 13,929 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).

Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).

The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).

Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.

Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.

My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

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