Youth With A Mission health ship up for sale

It was a cruise liner, a medical centre and now the YWAM PNG is for sale again as the organisation behind the mobile health service looks for more nimble watercraft. See why.

MV YWAM PNG is a 60m former cruise liner which acts as a health centre in Papua New Guinea. Picture: MATT TAYLOR.

The former cruise liner that sails from Townsville as a floating medical centre in PNG is up for sale.

Youth With A Mission’s 60-metre YWAM PNG is on the market as the organisation looks to use a higher number of smaller ships to cover PNG’s 5,000km coastline.

Despite the tourism industry finding its feet after the Covid-19 pandemic and still missing the lucrative Chinese market, the broker in charge of the sale says the $7.5m vessel would be an attractive proposition for buyers.

YWAM is an interdenominational Christian training organisation and has been operating the vessel since 2015.

YWAM Townsville managing director Ken Mulligan said the organisation would look to replace the YWAM PNG with five or six smaller ships.

MV YWAM PNG is a registered health facility in Papua New Guinea and acts as a mothership, helping to support multiple teams working ashore simultaneously.

The PNG vessel has a dental clinic, day procedure unit and laboratory. It is a mothership for health workers to get on shore and help people as well.

Papua New Guinea’s hundreds of islands meant one ship was not enough, Mr Mulligan said.

The YWAM PNG arrived in Townsville on Wednesday after dry-docked maintenance in Brisbane.

At the moment there were two 18-person Norwegian-bought vessels in PNG providing medical services, Mr Mulligan said.

Ship broker John Lane said YWAM approached him in September/October 2022, and since then national and international interests had made themselves known.

Interested parties had inspected the vessel, Mr Lane said, which could be sold for a “not unrealistic” $7.5m plus GST.

YWAM had paid for an international-level survey from Lloyds Marine, which meant it could be easier to sell, he said.

The tourism industry was “having it pretty bad” with fewer Chinese visitors but the general tourism situation was better than 12 months ago and better again than a year before that, Mr Lane said.

“Obviously if tourism is down and people are less likely to invest in large assets then people are less likely to invest in an asset of this class.”

Originally published as Youth With A Mission health ship up for sale