The Life of SS Michelangelo #history #ship #oceanliner #italy #passengership #roguewave #aluminum

Launched: 16 September 1962 Maiden voyage: 12 May 1965 Out of service: 5 July 1975 Fate: Sold to Iran in 1977 & scrapped in 1991 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 SS Raffaello. 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 & a pair of genuine superliners seemed desirable, both from a commercial point of view & to provide jobs to sailors & shipyard workers. The new ships were to be the largest built in Italy since SS Rex in 1932. 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 & received new propellers & some modifications to her transmission. She clocked 31.59 knots during her post-refit trials, making her the fifth-fastest passenger ship in the world at the time. On Tuesday morning, April 12, 1966, 5 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 & killed passengers Dr. Werner Berndt of Hamburg, Germany & John Steinbach of Chicago. 1 crew member, Desiderio Ferrari, died a few hours later & over 50 people were injured. When repairs were carried out after the accident, the aluminum plating in the superstructure was replaced by steel plates. Similar reconstruction was carried out on the Raffaello & other contemporary ships such as SS United States & 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passenger numbers in the transatlantic trade declined steadily due to competition from the air & more & more ships were withdrawn. The Michelangelo spent more time cruising to warmer waters, but she made a poor cruise ship with her windowless cabins & 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 the ship's shortcomings & 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 the ships, but did not wish to buy them due to the costs required to modernise them to cruise-ship standard. 1 serious buyer, Home Lines, wished to buy the ships & 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, 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 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 Michelangelo#Ocean liner#Italian Line#Rogue wave#Transatlantic#Ship#Italy