SS Cristoforo Colombo
{{Short description|Italian passenger ship}}
{{more citations needed|date=May 2022}}
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=Cristoforo Colombo - IMO 5082285 - P Venice 1972.jpg |Ship caption= SS Cristoforo Colombo photographed in the port of Venice, in October 1972 }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country=Italy |Ship flag={{shipboxflag|Italy|civil}} |Ship name=SS Cristoforo Colombo |Ship namesake=Christopher Columbus |Ship owner=Italian Line |Ship operator= |Ship route= |Ship ordered= |Ship builder=Ansaldo Shipyards of Genoa, Italy |Ship original cost= |Ship yard number= |Ship way number= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched=10 May 1953 |Ship completed= |Ship christened= |Ship acquired= |Ship maiden voyage=1954 |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship identification= |Ship fate=Scrapped in 1982 at Kaohsiung, Taiwan |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship class=Andrea Doria-class Ocean liner |Ship tonnage=29,191 gross register tons |Ship displacement= |Ship length=700 feet (216.6 m) |Ship beam=90 feet (27.9 m) |Ship height= |Ship draught= |Ship draft= |Ship depth= |Ship decks= |Ship deck clearance= |Ship ramps= |Ship ice class= |Ship sail plan= |Ship power=Steam turbines |Ship propulsion=Twin screws |Ship speed=23 knots |Ship capacity=*Passengers:
|Ship crew= |Ship notes= }} |
SS Cristoforo Colombo ({{IPA|it|kriˈstɔːforo koˈlombo}}) was an Italian ocean liner built in the 1950s, sister ship of the {{SS|Andrea Doria}}.
History
=Origins and construction=
File:SS Cristoforo Colombo.jpg
World War II was devastating to the Italian Line. Their two newest and largest transatlantic liners, the {{SS|Rex}} and the {{SS|Conte di Savoia}}, had been destroyed. In the aftermath of the war, the Italian Line decided to build moderately-sized ships that would be luxurious, comfortable, and stylish.
The Andrea Doria and her sister ship the Cristoforo Colombo were built in Genoa at the Ansaldo Shipyards. The Doria was launched in 1951 and made her maiden voyage in January 1953, while the Cristoforo Colombo was launched five months later, in May 1953, and made her maiden voyage in July 1954. The Cristoforo Colombo was slightly larger than the Andrea Doria, making her the largest merchant ship in Italian service.
=Italian Line service=
Image:Cristoforo Colombo 1voyage.jpg
The Andrea Doria sank in 1956, following a collision with the {{MS|Stockholm|1948|6}}. The Cristoforo Colombo sailed on her own until 1960, when she was joined by the Andrea Doria's replacement, SS Leonardo da Vinci.
In the spring of 1964, the Cristoforo Colombo carried the Pietà from the Vatican to the 1964 New York World's Fair. The Pietà was put in a crate filled with plastic foam, which was lowered onto a rubber base in the first class pool where the least damage was likely to happen to it. If the Cristoforo Colombo sank during the voyage, the crate would float free from the pool. Only easily removable snap hooks secured the crate so that it could be released in case of accident. During loading, the Cristoforo Colombo was put in dry dock, so she would not move and jeopardize the crate and its contents. In New York, the crate was lifted by a heavy-lift floating crane onto a barge alongside the ship.
The Cristoforo Colombo and the Leonardo da Vinci served as the flagships of the Italian Line on the North Atlantic until 1965, when the new {{SS|Michelangelo}} and {{SS|Raffaello}} entered service{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}}. The hull of the Cristoforo Colombo was painted entirely in 1966, matching the other ships in the Italian Line, which had abandoned black as a hull color. The ship brought many Italian postwar immigrants to the United States and Canada, calling at Halifax and New York in the last decades of large-scale ocean liner immigration to North America. Cristoforo Colombo was the last ship to bring immigrants to the historical Canadian immigration terminal Pier 21 on March 30, 1971, the day before the Pier closed its doors.{{cite book |last1=Schwinghamer |first1=Steven |last2=Raska |first2=Jan |title=Pier 21: A History |date=2020 |publisher=University of Ottawa Press |isbn=9780776631387 |oclc=1138187857 |language=en|page=192}}
In 1973, the Cristoforo Colombo was reassigned from the New York service to the Genoa-Barcelona-Lisbon-Rio-Montevideo-Buenos Aires service, replacing the {{MS|Giulio Cesare}}, which had suffered serious mechanical problems. The South American service accepted older ships with a lower standard of maintenance.
=Later years=
In 1977, the Italian Line sold the vessel to the government of Venezuela, where she was used as an accommodation ship for workers during the construction of the planned city of Ciudad Guayana. She arrived at Puerto Ordaz in September 1977 and was anchored in the Orinoco River and renamed Residencias Cristóbal Colón.
In 1981, the vessel was sold to Taiwanese scrappers. However, upon arrival at Kaohsiung, the Cristoforo Colombo was towed to Hong Kong with hopes of returning to service. As the ship was expensive to operate (she was designed to operate on an Italian subsidy) and was in poor condition after her time in Venezuela, the Cristoforo Colombo was towed back to Kaohsiung in the autumn of 1982 and scrapped in 1983.
In popular culture
The Cristoforo Colombo is prominently featured in the 1962 Warner Brothers film Rome Adventure starring Suzanne Pleshette, Troy Donahue and Rossano Brazzi.
The opening titles of the 1971 film The Burglars ("Le Casse") by Henri Verneuil shows the Cristoforo Colombo at dock in Athens, Greece. The ship's name is clearly seen.
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