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HISTORY
SS Leonardo da Vinci was an
ocean liner built in 1960 by Ansaldo Shipyards, Italy for the
Italian Line as 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 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 Leonardo da Vinci, the
ship featured numerous technological innovations, including
provisions for conversion to run on nuclear power.
Concept and construction
The Italian Line lost most of its passenger liners during World
War II, including 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. These
were delivered in 1953 and 1954 as SS Andrea Doria and SS
Cristoforo Colombo, respectively, re-establishing Italy in 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 (1948). 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 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 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 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 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.
Service history
On 30 June 1960, under the command of the Italian Line 's Senior
Captain, Com.te Sup. Armando Pinelli, the Leonardo da Vinci set
out on her maiden voyage from Genoa to New York, 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
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 almost
exclusively for cruising, mostly around 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 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 withdraw both the Michelangelo and Raffaello from
service. But despite 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), 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, a fire
started on board on 4 July 1980. She burned for four days and
eventually capsized. The burnt-out hulk was later righted and
towed to the scrap yard at La Spezia where it was scrapped in
1982.
Design
Exterior
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 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 identical livery to that
used in the Andrea Doria and Cristoforo Colombo, with 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.
Interior
Because of the provisions made for conversion to run on nuclear
power, 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 the
lowest decks were entirely separated from each other.
The public spaces of the ship were designed by several Italian
designers, including Vincenzo Monaco and Amedeo Luccichenti who
were responsible for the ballroom and cocktail bar. |
