Italian Line

File:ItaliaLineLogo.jpg

The Italian Line or Italia Line, also known as the Società di navigazione Italia, was a passenger shipping line that operated regular transatlantic service between Italy and the United States, as well as Italy and South America. During the 1970s the company was also heavily involved in cruising, later it concentrated on freight traffic.

History

File:SS Conte de Savoia.jpg

SS Conte di Savoia, the first purpose-built ship of Italian Line

SS Guilio Cesare, built in 1923, in Italian Line service 1932-1937

The Società di navigazione Italia was started in 1932 as Italia Flotte Riunite (United Fleets Italy), when the Italian government encouraged the fusion of Genoa-based Navigazione Generale Italiana, Turin-based Lloyd Sabaudo, and Trieste-based Cosulich STN, which was previously an Austro-Hungaric company.

The new company acquired the Cosulich-owned MS Saturnia and MS Vulcania, the Lloyd Sabaudo-owned SS Conte Rosso, SS Conte Biancamano and SS Conte Grande and the NGI-owned SS Giulio Cesare, SS Duilio, SS Roma and MS Augustus. The same year two previously commissioned ocean liners were delivered to the company: SS Rex, who captured the Blue Riband in 1933, and SS Conte di Savoia.

During World War II, the company lost many of its ships, including the Rex and the Conte di Savoia. Other vessels were captured by the United States and converted into troopships; four of them survived the war: SS Conte Biancamano, SS Conte Grande, SS Saturnia and SS Vulcania.

The service was resumed only in 1947, under the company's new name Società di navigazione Italia. In addition to the four vessels returned by United States, two new vessels, SS Andrea Doria and SS Cristoforo Colombo were commissioned in 1953 and 1954, respectively, to show the world that the country had recovered from the war and to re-establish the nation's pride. However the Andrea Doria sunk only three years after she was commissioned, in 1956. The company was swift to order a replacement for its sunken flagship, and the new SS Leonardo da Vinci was delivered in 1960. The ship was based on the same design as Andrea Doria, but enlargened and featured many technical innovations.

In the late 1950's the arrival of the jet aircraft had not yet had a notable effect on passenger numbers in the United States - Mediterranean traffic and the Italian Line decided to order another pair of new ships for the trade. Plans for these were already being made in 1958, but the construction took longer than expected and the ships weren't completeted until 1965, as TS Michelangelo and TS Raffaello. Unfortunately the ships were built too late to be truly profitable on the North Atlantic route. Although planned from the start for alternative cruising, the ships had several design features that made their use as cruise ships very difficult.

Italian Line kept operating the Transatlantic service despite huge losses until 1976, when the Leonardo da Vinci was the last passenger liner of the company to cross the Atlantic. The Michelangelo and Raffaello had already been withdrawn the previous year. The Leonardo da Vinci was used as a cruise ship in 1977-1978, but withdrawn due to high fuel costs. Between 1979 and 1980 the Italian Line operated two ex-Lloyd Triestino liners SS Galileo Galilei and SS Guglielmo Marconi as a cruise ships, but the venture proved unprofitable.

Discouraged by the lack of success, Italian Line decided to concentrate on freight traffic. Italian Line operated its principal container services between the Mediterranean, West Coast North America and Central and South America. It carried about 180,000 teus in 2001. In August 2002 Italian Line was acquired by CP Ships. In July 2003 a new Company logo was designed with very carefull changes keeping recognition of the old one. In 2005 the Italia Lines brand was replacecd by the CP Ships brand following CP's one brand strategy. CP Ships itself was bought out in late 2005 by TUI AG and merged in mid 2006 in the Hapag-Lloyd organization.

International identifiers

SCAC Code: ITAU
BIC Code (Container prefixes): ITAU

Vessels

Passenger ships

Built	Name	Tonnage	Shipyard	Operated/Comments
?	MS Augustus	?	?	1932-1939, largest diesel-engined liner of her time
1925	SS Conte Biancamano	24416 GT	William Beardmore & Co., Scotland	1932-1940, 1947-1960
1932	SS Conte di Savoia	48502 GT	Cantieri Riuniti del'Adriatico, Italy	1932-1940
1927	SS Conte Grande	25661 GT	Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, Italy	1932-1940, 1947-1961, Scrapped in 1961.
1927	SS Conte Rosso	25661 GT	William Beardmore and Company, Scotland	1932-1940, Torpedoed and sunk 24 May 1941
?	SS Conte Verde	?	?	1932-1940
?	SS Duilio	?	?	1932-1937, transferred to Lloyd Triestino
1923	SS Giulio Cesare	21657 GT	Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Ltd, UK	1932-1937, transferred to Lloyd Triestino
1931	SS Rex	51062 GT	G. Ansaldo & Co., Italy	1932-1940, Destroyed by Allied bombers in 1944
?	SS Roma	?	?	1932-1939
?	MS Saturnia	?	?	1932-1940, 1946-1965
1926	MS Vulcania	23970 GT	Cantiere Navale Triestino, Italy	1932-1940, 1947-1965, sold to Siosa Lines
?	MS Neptunia	?	?	1937-1940
?	MS Oceania	?	?	1937-1940
?	MS Giulio Cesare	?	?	1951-1973
?	MS Augustus	?	?	1952-1976
1951	SS Andrea Doria	29083 GT	Ansaldo Shipyards, Italy	1953-1956, Capsized and sank on July 25, 1956 after colliding with the MS Stockholm
1953	SS Cristoforo Colombo	29191 GT	Ansaldo Shipyards, Italy	1954-1977, Scrapped 1982 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan
1960	SS Leonardo da Vinci	33340 GT	Ansaldo Shipyards, Italy	1960-1978, burned 1980, scrapped 1982
1965	SS Michelangelo	45911 GT	Ansaldo Shipyards, Italy	1965-1975, Scrapped 1991
1965	SS Raffaello	45933 GT	Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico, Italy	1965-1975
1963	SS Galileo Galilei	27888 GT	Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico, Italy	1979, Sunk 21 May 1999
?	SS Guglielmo Marconi	?	?	1979-1980

Container ships

Built	Name	Tonnage	Capacity	Shipyard	IMO number	Call sign	Flag	Status/Comments
1989	Cristoforo Colombo	32630 GT	2200 TEU	?	8618449	ICYS	Italy
1989	Amerigo Vespucci	32630 GT	2200 TEU	Fincantieri-Cantieri Navali Italiani S.p.A., Italy	8618451	ICBA	Italy
1991	S. Caboto	15783 GT	1100 TEU	?	8618413	ICMS	Italy
1992	California	17123 GT	1200 TEU	Naikai Zosen Corp., Japan	8901743	ICFC	Italy
1994	Cielo del Cile	?	1500 TEU	?	9046253	ELVB3	Liberia
1997	Dollart Trader	16165 GT	1600 TEU	MTW Schiffswerft GmbH, Germany	9162356	V2OD5	Antigua & Barbuda
1998	Cielo di San Francisco	25359 GT	2500 TEU	Volkswerft Stralsund GmbH, Germany	9153408	DGZO	Germany
1998	Cielo del Canada	25361 GT	2500 TEU	Meeres-Technik-Wismar, Germany	9138290	V2PE2	Antigua & Barbuda
2000	Cielo del Caribe	13066 GT	1300 TEU	Flensburger Schiffsbau-Gesellschaft MbH & Co. KG, Germany	9202053	ELXN2	Liberia
2002	Cielo d'America	23540 GT	2500 TEU	Stocznia Gdansk S.A., Poland	9146302	IBJH	Italy
2002	Cielo d'Europa	25535 GT	2500 TEU	Thyssen Nordseewerke GmbH, Germany	9236664	ICCP	Italy

• GT = Gross Tonnage / BRT / BRZ

See also

• CP Ships
• Hapag-Lloyd

References

• Bureau International des Containers (Container prefix codes, now linking Italia Lines units to Hapag-Lloyd due to the merger)
• CP Ships: press release - CP Ships Completes Acquisition of Italia Di Navigazione, 06. August 2002
• CP Ships: Press release - CP Ships Adopts a Single Brand, 28. April 2005
• Italia Lines: Official website - page offline - please refer to History of CP Ships