The jinxed cruise liner Aurora was heading back to Southampton today after P&O Cruises cancelled her already delayed round-the-world cruise.

After ten days of hold-ups due to a faulty propulsion system, the £200 million cruise liner left dock for a final round of tests last night.

This morning, however, the company said that the sea trials conducted during the night had shown that the repairs to the motor had failed.

The company said the tests had "not been successful enough to allow her to achieve the required speed to complete the Grand Voyage".

Aurora is expected to berth at the Mayflower Terminal in Southampton at midnight tonight, and the remaining 1,367 passengers will be invited to disembark from 8.30am tomorrow.

A P&O spokeswoman said the ship had travelled 110 miles along the Channel before turning back. She said: "We were undergoing the testing. We had always said that we would take testing of power and speed. Once she'd come up to power unfortunately it became clear that the repairs weren't successful.

"On the grand cruise there are quite a few long passages which require her to maintain a certain level of speed and it looks like she would be unable to achieve this.

"We anticipate that she will be out of service for a month. She will then be used for shorter cruise holidays but we have no reason to believe that at a future date that she will not be able to undertake another grand cruise."

The company added in a statement: "P&O Cruises apologises for the disappointment this has caused passengers and offers its assurance that everything possible was done to get Aurora's Grand Voyage under way before this difficult but unavoidable decision was taken.

"Passengers will be refunded their full fare together with compensation of 25 per cent of the amount paid for their holiday to be used as a future cruise credit on a cruise holiday booked before the end of January 2007. We would like to thank passengers for their support and patience during this time."

The cancellation is likely to cost P&O Cruises more than £20 million and is a further blow to the company which has endured a number of problems with Aurora. The vessel was meant to depart on January 9 from Southampton port with 1,752 passengers on board, for a world cruise taking in 23 countries and 40 ports of call.

But in the ten days of delays, as the boat remained either tied up at the quayside or venturing out no further than the Isle of Wight, 385 passengers lost patience and abandoned ship. They had paid between £9,800 to £41,985 for the 103-day trip of a lifetime.

Around 1,350 passengers remained on board, enjoying free drinks, accommodation and entertainment. P&O Cruises brought in what was described as the "comedy cavalry", including Jimmy Tarbuck, Paul Daniels and Tom O’Connor, to console the long-suffering passengers.

Last night as the Aurora set off a few lone passengers wrapped up in wintry clothes emerged optimistically from below decks, to wave goodbye to the docks for what they hoped was the last time before starting the cruise.

Until this morning's announcement, the company had kept hopes alive that the cruise would go ahead, altering its itinerary to miss out some of the 40 stops and to return home via the Suez Canal rather than the Panama Canal.

Acapulco, Barbados, Honolulu and San Francisco were among some of the 16 ports that were being missed out.

The German-built ship entered service in 2000 after being launched by the Princess Royal. As she blessed her, the traditional champagne bottle failed to break on the ship's side and fell into the sea, which was considered a bad omen.

Ill fortune quickly followed when the liner broke down in the Bay of Biscay on her maiden voyage and limped back into Southampton. Passengers were given a free cruise and the compensation bill topped £6 million.

In October 2003, the liner was dubbed the "plague ship" after an outbreak of the contagious norovirus on board laid low 600 passengers and crew.

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