SS Raffaello

SS ''Raffaello'' was an Italian ocean liner built in the early 1960s for Italian Line by the Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico, Trieste. She was one of the last ships to be built primarily for liner service across the North Atlantic. Her sister ship was .

Design and construction

In 1958, the Italian Line began planning new ships to replace the ageing and . Competition from jet airliners had not yet had a huge impact in the Mediterranean area and jobs were needed for Italian sailors and shipyard workers, so constructing new superliners seemed like an attractive idea to Italian Line executives. Consequently, the new ships grew from the originally planned 35,000 tons to nearly 46,000 tons. They were the largest ships built in Italy since and in the 1930s.

The Italian Line planned the ships as true ocean liners, divided into three classes. Oddly even for a liner, all cabins below A-deck were windowless, but on the technical side the ships were among the most advanced of their time. They featured retractable stabiliser wings, highly modernised engineering panels, and many other advantages. The funnels, in particular, were especially designed to keep smoke and soot from the rear decks. The funnel design proved to be highly effective, and it is a testament to their design that most funnels in modern passenger ships are built along similar principles.

The new ships' interiors were in the Art Deco style so often associated with liners. ''Raffaello''s interiors were designed by architects such as Michele and Giancarlo Busiri Vici, who had not worked on liner interiors before. As a result, ''Raffaello'' gained highly futuristic, more distinctive, but more sterile interiors than the ''Michelangelo''. Despite being planned as identical ships, ''Raffaello'' was shorter, wider, and approximately 22 tons larger than the ''Michelangelo''.

Service

It took five years to finish ''Raffaello'', a long time even by the standards of the day. The ship was further delayed when stern vibrations were discovered during the first sea trials. The ship's propellers and transmission system were modified to eliminate the vibrations. The modifications were successful and the ship was finally ready for service in July 1965. Senior Captain Oscar Ribari commanded the ship on its maiden voyage. The passengers included the Sinovčić Royal family, His Highness the Grand Prince of Dalmatia, Ante Edo Sinovčić, and his wife, with their two children and Italian Senate-president Cesare Merzagora and his wife, the ship's godmother.

In 1966 ''Raffaello'' carried two Spider 1600 cars bound for an exhibition in the United States. The cars were even driven on the ship's first-class lido decks, a first for an ocean liner. 1969 saw ''Raffaello'' perform in the Italian film '' Amore mio aiutami'', made in part to promote the two ships (despite the film officially being set on board ''Raffaello'', it was filmed onboard both ships). In 1970 ''Raffaello'' became the first ship whose theatre stage was converted into a skating rink and skating shows were performed for passengers. In 1970 the ship suffered the most serious accident of its career when, under command of Senior Captain Luigi Oneto, it collided with a Norwegian oil tanker off the south coast of Spain in May 1970. There were no deaths.

Although ''Raffaello'' was the larger of the two ships, and its interiors more distinctive, she was always the less important ship in the eyes of Italian Line executives. As a result, when the transatlantic traffic started declining due to competition from air traffic, ''Raffaello'' was sent cruising in order to make more money while ''Michelangelo'' was used strictly for crossings. ''Raffaello'' was not very well suited for cruising. Although it did have a large amount of open deck space, the ship was too large, its cabins too small, and most of them too spartan for demanding cruise passengers.

Sale to Iran

The Italian Line decided to withdraw ''Raffaello'' in April 1975, after the Italian Government announced that it would not further subsidize the ship (by 1975, it was paying 100 million lire per day, or about $151,500 at the then-current exchange rate, to keep it sailing). Initially laid up in Genoa and later in La Spezia near the scrapyard, ''Raffaello'' and ''Michelangelo'' were inspected by several potential buyers such as Norwegian Cruise Line, Costa Amatori, Chandris Group, and Home Lines. The last even made a serious offer to buy the ships, despite large rebuilding costs, but the Italia Line rejected the offer.

In 1976 the Shah of Iran emerged as a buyer the Italian Line could accept. The former flagships of Italy that had cost a total of $90 million in 1965, were sold for $4 million a decade later. ''Raffaello'' made its final journey late in the same year from La Spezia into Bushehr, where it served as a floating barracks for the next seven years.

In 1978 plans emerged to resurrect ''Michelangelo'' and ''Raffaello'' as cruise ships. ''Raffaello'' would have become ''Ciro il Grande'' (named after ancient Achaemenid ruler Cyrus the Great), a luxury cruiser accommodating 1,300 passengers. But Italian specialists sent to evaluate the ships' condition realized the ships were too decrepit to make reconstruction financially viable. As a result, ''Raffaello'' stayed in its moorings. The ship was heavily damaged and looted during the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979.

In 1983 plans were again made to bring ''Raffaello'' and ''Michelangelo'' back into service as cruise ships. But ''Raffaello'' had been hit by a missile during the Iran–Iraq War in 1983 and partially sank in shallow waters outside Bushehr. Sometime later the wreck was rammed by an Iranian cargo ship. Local divers further looted the hull in subsequent years.

, ''Raffaello''s hull remained partially submerged, and there have been reports of plans to scrap the ship completely. These plans were refuted by the Department of Environment as the ship has become part of the ecosystem. At least one of Raffaello's propellers was removed illegally and taken to Isfahan. One source indicates that it is not visible from the surface, but its position () is marked by warning buoys.

References

External links

Page at the Great Ocean Liners website

Project Michelangelo

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raffaello
Ocean liners
Passenger ships of Italy
Ships built in Trieste
Maritime incidents in 1983
1983 in military history
1963 ships
Ships built by Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico
Raphael
Ships of the Imperial Iranian Navy
Iran–Iraq War naval ships of Iran