Galileo Galilei (ship, 1963)
 As a meridian
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The Galileo Galilei , which entered service in 1963, was a liner passenger ship operated by the Italian shipping company Lloyd Triestino . After the ship was decommissioned in April 1976 and an extensive conversion to a cruise ship in October 1977, the former Galileo Galilei sailed for the Italian Line and Chandris, among others . In 1999 the ship, which has meanwhile been renamed Sun Vista , went down after a fire in the engine room, the cause of which could not be precisely clarified.
period of service
The ship was commissioned by Lloyd Triestino in 1960 to be used on the route from Genoa to Australia . It was built by Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico in Monfalcone . The launch under the name Galileo Galilei took place on July 2, 1961. In March 1963, the ship finally completed its maiden voyage to Australia. In November 1963, the Galileo Galilei added her new sister ship Guglielmo Marconi on this route. Initially, the ships sailed exclusively through the Suez Canal , later also through the Panama Canal .
Both ships were successfully in service until the 1973 oil crisis . The oil crisis, however, in addition to the ever increasing competition from scheduled aircraft, led to falling passenger numbers. On January 13, 1975, the Galileo Galilei ran aground on the coast of West Africa and had to return to her home port of Genoa for repairs . In April 1977 the ship was finally retired.
From October 1977 the Galileo Galilei in Palermo was converted into a cruise ship and put into service on March 24, 1979 for the newly founded shipping company Italia Crociere (an offshoot of the Italian Line ). After only a few voyages, however, the ship was taken out of service in September 1979 and laid up in Genoa .
After four years of lay-in, the Galileo Galilei was bought in 1983 by the Greek shipping company Chandris and renamed Galileo . It was then rebuilt and provided with additional structures, which greatly changed its appearance. From 1984 the ship was used for cruises in the Caribbean . After Home Lines had been taken over by Holland-America Line in 1988 and had ceased operations, Chandris decided to found a new shipping company to replace it. The Galileo was then modernized at the Lloyd shipyard in Bremerhaven and equipped with additional cabins. On March 1, 1990, she was finally put into service under the new name Meridian as the first ship of the newly founded Celebrity Cruises and again mainly used in the Caribbean.
In 1997 the majority of the shares in Celebrity Cruises were acquired by Royal Caribbean International and Chandris kept a minority stake. The new management then modernized the fleet and therefore sold the Meridian to the newly founded shipping company Sun Cruises . The ship was renamed Sun Vista and used in the Strait of Malacca .
The downfall
On May 20, 1999, on the way from Phuket to Singapore, a fire broke out in the engine room of the Sun Vista for unknown reasons . The now propulsionless ship was evacuated shortly afterwards. All 472 passengers and 672 crew members were rescued. Although the damage to the ship did not seem particularly severe and the fire was limited to the engine room, the Sun Vista listed on the night of May 21 and sank a little later at around 1:21 a.m. The exact cause of the downfall could not be clarified. The shipping company Sun Cruises filed for bankruptcy a little later and was dissolved.
The wreck
The wreck of the Sun Vista is still around 30 meters deep, 40 miles west of Penang , at position 4 ° 37 ′ 1 ″ N , 99 ° 54 ′ 6 ″ E. and is a popular destination for amateur divers.
literature
- Jaroslav Coplák, Pavol Pevný: passenger ships. Dausien 1996, ISBN 3-7684-0570-2
- Tony Gibson: The world of ships . Basserman Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8094-2186-3 , page 166
Web links
- Picture gallery with photos and postcards from the ship
- Report on the sinking with pictures of the ship
- The wreck on wrecksite.eu
Footnotes
- ↑ T / S GALILEO GALILEI. Retrieved June 4, 2015 .
- ↑ Jaroslav Coplak, Pavol Pevny: passenger ships. P. 172.
- ^ Reuben Goossens: TN Galileo Galilei & TN Guglielmo Marconi. Retrieved June 4, 2015 .
- ^ Martin Cox: The sinking of the SUN VISTA. February 20, 2010, accessed December 22, 2015 .
- ^ Sarah Hall: Holiday cruisers sing as ship sinks. May 22, 1999, accessed June 4, 2015 .
- ↑ Stephen Burton: Big Wrecks off Malaysia. Retrieved June 4, 2015 .