Today is the 50th anniversary of our families arrival at Port of New York City, US with the Ocean Liner Leonardo Da Vinci. What follows is some things I found on the ship and some saved photos.
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. READ MORE ON WIKIPEDIA
This short film was done in 1967. Shows 3 boys sailing to Italy onboard the SS Leonardo Da Vinci. The boys are shown the ship by the crew. The SS Leonardo Da Vinci was built in 1960 to replace the sunken Andrea Doria. Originally the ship had an identical livery to those used in the Andrea Doria and Cristoforo Colombo, with a black hull with a thin white ribbon painted two thirds from the bottom of the black-painted area. In 1966 her livery (like that of all Italian Line ships) was altered to follow the design adapted in the Michelangelo and Raffaello, with a white hull and a thin green ribbon painted where the black hull colour previously ended. Transatlantic Service ceased in 1974 and the ship did cruise service for a limitted time from Florida but this was not financialy viable. Despite numerous rumors the ship never saw service again. After being laid up for two years, a fire started onboard on 4 July 1980. The ship burned for four days and eventually capsized. The burnt-out hulk was later righted and towed to the scrapyard at La Spezia where it then was scrapped in 1982
Other Links:
http://www.lastoceanliners.com/cgi/lolline.pl?ITA
http://www.squidoo.com/SSLeonardoDaVinci
http://www.thefullwiki.org/SS_Leonardo_da_Vinci#related_links
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