SS Southern Cross was an ocean liner built in 1955 by Harland & Wolff, Belfast, Northern Ireland for the United Kingdom-based Shaw, Savill & Albion Line for Europe—Australia service.

In 1975 she was rebuilt as a cruise ship and subsequently sailed under the names Calypso, Azure Seas and OceanBreeze until 2003 when she was sold for scrap to Ahmed Muztaba Steel Industries, Chittagong, Bangladesh.

The Southern Cross was the first passenger ship of over 20,000 gross register tons to be built that had the engine room (and as a result of that, the funnel) located near the stern, rather than amidships.

Sanderson eventually managed to persuade the board of the viability of his idea, and on 16 July 1952 an order for the new all-passenger liner was placed at the Harland & Wolff shipyard.

These features didn't win high accolades at the time, a contemporary review describing her as being "not very beautiful, but very efficient",[4] but P&O's SS Canberra of 1961, ordered one year after Southern Cross entered service, was built to an almost identical design though on a larger scale.

In 1953 Basil Sanderson approached Buckingham Palace, asking if Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II would be willing to launch the new ship and choose a name from a list of suggestions.

[1] Southern Cross emerged in the new Shaw Savill liner livery of a pale-grey-painted hull and familiar dark-buff funnel with a black top.

[1] During the 1960s competition from other passenger liners - and from the jet aeroplane - increased on the Australian run, putting financial pressure on Shaw Savill's around the year service to Australia and New Zealand.

In a surprising move, parent company Furness Withy transferred three 20,300 GRT former Royal Mail Lines cargo/passenger ships to Shaw Savill in 1968/69, each with capacity for 464 passengers.

In early 1970, Shaw Savill also acquired the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company's transatlantic liner RMS Empress of England.

As SS Ocean Monarch, this unaltered ship promptly sailed for Australasia, to undertake two long cruises ex-Australia to Japan, timed to coincide with Expo'70.

Mainly due to Southern Cross's diminishing returns, after just five months of cruising, Shaw Savill decided to lay up the ship in November of the same year.

[1] The ship's early withdrawal proved to be her salvation as she escaped the poor maintenance which afflicted her fleet mates over the next few years resulting in them being sold for scrap by 1974 in spite of being younger than Southern Cross After spending over a year laid up, first in Southampton and then at River Fal, Southern Cross was sold to Greece-based Ulysses Lines in January 1973.

[1] Painted in cruise-like whites with an attractive blue/white funnel, Calypso entered service for Ulysses Lines in March 1975, initially cruising around the Mediterranean with Piraeus as the origin.

[3] With her funnel painted dark blue, Azure Seas was placed on three- and four-night cruises from Los Angeles[6] to Ensenada and Catalina, and soon became highly popular.

[1] Renamed SS OceanBreeze and sporting a new white-funnelled livery with curving blue stripes along the hull, the now 36-year-old ship started cruising on a seven-night itinerary from Aruba in 1992.