SS Michelangelo was an Italian ocean liner built in 1965 for Italian Line by Ansaldo Shipyards , Genoa . She was one of the last ships to be built primarily for liner service across the North Atlantic . Her sister ship was the SS Raffaello .
31-460: The Italian Line began planning new ships in 1958. Originally, they were to be slightly larger than SS Leonardo da Vinci , which was then being built, but jet aircraft had not yet had a notable effect on the Mediterranean area and a pair of genuine superliners seemed desirable, both from a commercial point of view and to provide jobs to sailors and shipyard workers. The new ships were to be
62-504: A black hull with a longitudinal thin white band painted two-thirds of the way up from the bottom of the black-painted area. In 1966 her livery (like that of all Italian Line ships) was altered to match the design used on the Michelangelo and Raffaello , with a white hull and a thin green band painted where the upper edge of the black hull colour previously ended. Because of the provisions made for conversion to run on nuclear power,
93-549: A buyer was found who agreed to the terms sought by Italian Line. The Shah of Iran purchased the ships, to be used as floating barracks. The ships that had cost $ 45 million each were now sold at the price of $ 2 million per ship. The Michelangelo ended up in Bandar Abbas , where she was to spend the next 15 years. In 1978, plans were made to reconstruct her as the luxury cruise ship Scià Reza il Grande (in honour of Rezā Shāh ), but an expert team sent from Italy to inspect
124-602: A few hours later, and over 50 people were injured. Among the 1,495 passengers on board this crossing were Admiral Ernesto Giurati, president of the Italian Line and former chief of the Italian Navy , Italian Chief of Protocol Angelo Corrias , who was heading for a vacation in the States, German novelist Günter Grass and his wife Anna, and Bob Montana with his wife and four children. When repairs were carried out after
155-535: A fire started on board on 4 July 1980. She burned for four days and eventually capsized. The burnt-out hull was later righted and towed to the scrapyard at La Spezia where it was scrapped in 1982. The exterior design of the Leonardo da Vinci was very similar to that of the Andrea Doria and Cristoforo Colombo . But she was 19 m (62.34 ft) longer, had a larger forward and aft superstructure , and
186-422: A newly formed subsidiary of the Italian Line. The ship was used on one-night cruises from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas , but proved unnecessarily large and too expensive to operate on a service of that kind. On 23 September 1978 the Leonardo da Vinci returned to La Spezia , Italy to be laid up. Despite numerous rumors to the contrary, she never saw service again. After the ship had been laid up for two years,
217-483: A replacement for their SS Andrea Doria that had been lost in 1956. She was initially used in transatlantic service alongside SS Cristoforo Colombo , and primarily for cruising after the delivery of the new SS Michelangelo and SS Raffaello in 1965. In 1976 the Leonardo da Vinci became the last Italian Line passenger liner to be used in service across the North Atlantic. Between 1977 and 1978 she
248-410: A slightly different-shaped funnel that included a smoke deflector fin. Moreover, she did not have any freight handling equipment on her rear decks, resulting in a larger lido area compared to that of her older near-sisters. Visually one of the most nicely-balanced ships of that (or perhaps any) era, she originally had an identical livery to that used in the Andrea Doria and Cristoforo Colombo , with
279-517: A tender ship (prone to instability) in rough weather.But the Leonardo da Vinci's stability problem was greater because of her larger size, and as a result 3000 metric tons of iron were fitted along her bottom to improve stability. This made the ship excessively heavy for the power of her engines and led to extremely high fuel expenses. On 30 June 1960, under the command of the Italian Line ' s Senior Captain, Com.te Sup. Armando Pinelli,
310-530: A white decorative band. In February 1970 the ship departed on her most extensive cruise, a 41-day journey from the Mediterranean to Hawaii via the Panama Canal and back again. During the 1970s competition from jet aircraft became more and more pressing on the North Atlantic service. In 1975 the Italian Line decided to withdraw both the Michelangelo and Raffaello from service. But despite
341-440: The Leonardo da Vinci had a somewhat unusual interior layout. Space for a reactor was reserved amidship, in and around the ship's steam turbine power plant. This made it necessary to locate the dining rooms and galleys one deck higher than usual, and separated from the ship's main working passage. No passenger corridors passed through the area reserved for a reactor, which meant the forward and rear passenger-accessible sections on
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#1732783980462372-411: The Leonardo da Vinci set out on her maiden voyage from Genoa to New York City , where she received the traditional festive welcome accorded liners arriving in the city for the first time. Soon after she entered service, the Italian Line announced that by 1965 at latest the ship would be refit to run on nuclear power. This however did not come to pass, and anyway at the time of the announcement it
403-470: The Italian Line was divided into three groups: one group participated in the court hearings about the disaster, the second concentrated on running the company's existing operations, and a third group drew plans for the new ship needed to replace the Andrea Doria . In order to save time in constructing the new vessel, the plans of the Andrea Doria were used but adapted to a somewhat larger design. Several innovations and new safety features were introduced on
434-515: The Mediterranean, but also sometimes to the Caribbean , South America , and North America . The majority of her Tourist-class cabins were considered too spartan for cruise service and remained unused when the ship was used for cruising, further cutting the profitability of the ship. In 1966 she was re-painted in the new livery of the Italian Line, a white hull with a longitudinal thin, green decorative band, instead of her original black hull with
465-536: The accident, the aluminum plating in the superstructure was replaced by steel plates. Similar reconstruction was carried out on the Raffaello and other contemporary ships such as SS United States and SS France . In May 1972, Alfred Hitchcock took a voyage on this ship from New York to his screening of Frenzy at the Cannes Film Festival . During the following years, passenger numbers in
496-603: The designers of her sister Raffaello . After several delays, the Michelangelo , under command of Senior Captain Mario Crepaz, was finally ready for service in May 1965. During the sea trials, some vibrations were detected on the stern of the ship. Michelangelo was drydocked in December 1965 and received new propellers and some modifications to her transmission. She clocked 31.59 knots during her post-refit trials, making her
527-569: The fifth-fastest passenger ship in the world at the time. On Tuesday morning, April 12, 1966, five days after having departed Genoa, Michelangelo , under command of Senior Captain Giuseppe Soletti, was hit by an unusually large wave during a storm in the mid-Atlantic, which caused the forward part of her superstructure to collapse, or to be pushed backwards, and killed passengers Dr. Werner Berndt of Hamburg , Germany and John Steinbach of Chicago . One crew member, Desiderio Ferrari, died
558-507: The largest built in Italy since the SS Rex in 1932. Accommodations aboard the ships were to be divided into three classes. For some reason, the three bottom-most passenger decks would not have any portholes. This was claimed to make the ship's sleek hull shape, but that seems unlikely to be true as ships of similar length/width ratio have been built with windows along the entire hull. Whatever
589-666: The new ship, eventually named Leonardo da Vinci . The new safety features included extended watertight bulkheads, lifeboat davits capable of launching lifeboats against a 25 degree list, motorized lifeboats, and separation of the engine rooms into two compartments, with each engine driving its own propeller and capable of powering the ship independently from the other. Other notable features were infrared-heated swimming pools (but only in first class), retractable stabilizer wings, full air-conditioning, and private bathrooms in all cabins in first and cabin class, as well as in 80% of tourist-class cabins. Moreover, provisions were made to convert
620-496: The prestigious SS Rex and SS Conte di Savoia . All of the ships that did survive the war dated from the 1920s. In 1949 the company received subsidies from the Italian government to build two new liners of approximately 30,000 gross register tons for the transatlantic service to New York City . These were delivered in 1953 and 1954 as SS Andrea Doria and SS Cristoforo Colombo , respectively, re-establishing Italy in
651-439: The rear decks. The smoke deflectors became popular in ship design during the 1970s and 1980s, whereas the idea of allowing wind to pass through the funnel was picked up again in the late 1980s and is almost the norm in modern shipbuilding. The Michelangelo ' s interiors were designed by naval architects Nino Zoncada , Vincenzo Monaco , and Amedeo Luccichenti , who gave the ship a less adventurous, more traditional look than
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#1732783980462682-512: The ship came to the conclusion she was too badly deteriorated to make rebuilding a viable option. Similar plans were made again in 1983, but they, too, fell short. Finally, in June 1991, she was scrapped in Gadani ship-breaking yard , Pakistan . SS Leonardo da Vinci (1960) SS Leonardo da Vinci was an ocean liner built in 1960 by Ansaldo Shipyards , Italy for the Italian Line as
713-604: The ship to run on nuclear power . Construction of the new ship was awarded to the Ansaldo Shipyard at Genoa , where on 7 December 1958 she was launched and christened by Carla Gronchi , the wife of Giovanni Gronchi , the President of the Italian Republic . The ship was delivered during the first half of 1960. Like the Andrea Doria and Cristoforo Colombo , the Leonardo da Vinci proved to be
744-614: The ship's shortcomings, and Italian Line did not have enough funds to rebuild the ship to make her a more usable cruiser. Additionally, she was considered to be too large to be a cruise ship by that time's standards. Italy's flagship SS Michelangelo made her last Atlantic crossing in July 1975, under command of Senior Captain Claudio Cosulich. Afterwards, she was laid up at La Spezia alongside her sister. Several buyers (including Knut Kloster of Norwegian Cruise Line ) inspected
775-405: The ships, but did not wish to buy them due to the costs required to modernise them to cruise-ship standard. One serious buyer, Home Lines , wished to buy the ships and keep them under Italian flag for cruising in the Caribbean . The Italian Line refused to sell the ships, reportedly because they felt keeping the Italian flag would have associated the "embarrassing money-losers" with them. In 1976,
806-465: The shortcomings in their initial design, though, the new sisters were advanced on the technological side. The most striking feature in the ships was their Turin polytechnic -designed funnels, which consisted of an intricate trellis-like pipework (instead of the traditional even surface) to allow wind to pass through the funnel, and a large smoke deflector fin on the top. Although criticised, the funnel design proved to be highly effective in keeping smoke off
837-549: The transatlantic service business with the finest ships to serve on the New York— Mediterranean run. But the Andrea Doria sank after just three years of service on 25 July 1956 after colliding with the Swedish American Line ship MS Stockholm . This left the Italian Line in need of a second ship on the North Atlantic run. Immediately following the sinking of the Andrea Doria the board of
868-400: The transatlantic trade declined steadily due to competition from the air, and more and more ships were withdrawn. The Michelangelo spent more time cruising to warmer waters, but she made a poor cruise ship with her windowless cabins and three-class layout. She had large lido decks that were superior to even most purpose-built cruise ships of the time, but that was not enough to compensate for
899-428: The withdrawal of state subsidiaries, the Italian Line did not withdraw from the North Atlantic service altogether and the Leonardo da Vinci returned to her original route for a short period until June 1976, when she too was withdrawn from service and laid up. In 1977 the Leonardo da Vinci was brought back into service, this time for cruising under the banner of Italia Crociere (also known as Italian Line Cruises),
930-405: Was already known to executives of the company that by 1965 the Leonardo da Vinci would be supplanted on the North Atlantic service by the new SS Michelangelo and SS Raffaello , the planning for which already had started in 1958. After the Michelangelo and Raffaello were delivered in May and July 1965, respectively, the Leonardo da Vinci was used primarily for cruising, mostly around
961-399: Was used as a cruise ship by Italia Crociere but was laid up from 1978 onwards until 1982 when she was scrapped. Named after the famous Italian inventor and artist Leonardo da Vinci , the ship featured numerous technological innovations, including provisions for conversion to run on nuclear power . The Italian Line lost most of its passenger liners during World War II , including