Italian merchant navy

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Commercial flag with the coats of arms of the Maritime Republics of Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi

The Italian Merchant Navy (Marina mercantile italiana) includes all civil Italian merchant ships and passenger ships .

Duration

According to the Italian shipowners association Confitarma , the Italian merchant navy had a total of 1,619 ships over 100 GT on December 31, 2011  , including 307 tankers, 245 dry freighters and 463 passenger ships, with a total GT of 18,779,000. This placed it in 11th place in an international comparison, with six flags of convenience in front of it, including those of Panama and Liberia . If one uses ship ownership as a criterion, Italy was in 13th place.

Shipping companies

Well-known Italian shipping companies are Costa Crociere , a subsidiary of the British-American Carnival Corporation & plc , Grandi Navi Veloci , Grimaldi Lines , Micoperi , Moby Lines , Saipem and Tirrenia .

Corsica Ferries & Sardinia Ferries is a French company that operates ships under the Italian flag. The Mediterranean Shipping Company , one of the world's largest container shipping companies, and its cruise line MSC Cruises are owned by the Italian Aponte family, but are based in Geneva .

history

The Ferdinando I , the first steamship in the Mediterranean

Origins

As today's trade flag shows, the Italian merchant navy sees itself as the successor to the merchant fleets of the old Italian maritime republics , especially the four largest: Venice , Genoa , Pisa and Amalfi . The history of these republics specializing in maritime trade definitely ended with the Napoleonic occupation of Italy. From 1814, the merchant navies of the kingdoms of Sardinia-Piedmont and the two Sicilies played a more important role in Italy, which was not yet unified . Venice , Trieste and Fiume still belonged to the Austrian Empire and formed the basis for its merchant navy . Shipowners and shipbuilding companies from these three countries contributed significantly to the development and expansion of the Italian merchant navy. Particularly noteworthy are the shipowners Raffaele Rubattino from Genoa and Vincenzo Florio from Palermo as well as the Genoese shipbuilding company of Giovanni Ansaldo , but also the Orlando shipyard in Livorno , which built the first iron ship in the Mediterranean. The gradual transition from sailing ships to steamers was characteristic of this era . The Ferdinando I , built by the Vigliena shipyard in Naples and commissioned in 1818, was the first Italian steamship. The small steamer Sicilia (828 GRT) sailed from Palermo to New York in 1854 , demonstrating the potential of this new type of ship. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies played a leading role in this context; its merchant navy was the third largest in Europe in 1839 with a total tonnage of 243,192. In Pietrarsa near Naples , a steam engine factory important for shipbuilding was established in 1840. A steamship company had already been founded in Naples in 1836.

Kingdom of Italy

Trade flag of the Kingdom of Italy with the coat of arms of the Savoy

What significantly favored the development of the merchant navy of the country united in 1861 was the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the end of the first railway tunnels in the Alps ( Mont-Cenis-Tunnel , Gotthardtunnel ), which facilitated trade between Central Europe, Italy and Asia the Civil War in the United States and the associated economic pressures, the strong emigration to North and South America and the slow onset of tourists from North America to Italy . During this time, a number of shipping companies were founded, including the Lavarello shipping company in Genoa, which set up the first liner service to South America in 1864. The merger of the shipping companies Florio (Palermo) and Rubattino (Genoa) to form Navigazione Generale Italiana (NGI) in July 1881 was of particular importance . The new company specialized in North America, but was also the most important at the turn of the century with over 100 ships other trade routes active. In 1904 the Lloyd Italiano was founded in Genoa and in 1906 in Turin with the support of the Royal House of Savoy, the Lloyd Sabaudo . The passenger ships of these companies were mostly built in Italy in the following years and became increasingly luxurious. State subsidies and new legal regulations promoted this development. A law of January 31, 1901 put an end to the scandalous conditions on Italian emigrant ships .

After a total of 161 steamships had been requisitioned by the Italian Navy during the Italo-Turkish War in 1911 and 1912 , the First World War saw the first turning point . 580 steamships were drafted, of which 215 were lost in the war. After the end of the war, the former Austro-Hungarian shipyards, shipping companies and ships made up for the losses. The shipping companies Lloyd Triestino and Cosulich as well as the shipyards Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino and Cantiere Navale Triestino were important .

In the interwar period, the Italian merchant navy experienced a great boom, which was supported by the fascist government for reasons of prestige. This development was symbolized by several luxurious passenger ships, including the Roma and the Augustus and then especially the Rex , which won the Blue Ribbon in 1933 on the south route to New York, which is more pleasant for the passengers . As early as the mid-1920s, Italy ranked second in the world in terms of total tonnage in passenger and merchant shipbuilding after the United Kingdom . While the Italian merchant navy was eighth in total tonnage in 1914, by 1927 it had advanced to fourth place, behind the merchant navies of the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan. The Italian shipping companies had to struggle hard with the global economic crisis . The government intervened between 1931 and 1937 with a partial nationalization and rationalization of a number of shipping companies, from 1936 mostly under the direction of the IRI financial holding Finmare (Società Finanziaria Marittima) . In passenger traffic, the aim of this concentration was to create large shipping companies like in some other countries and to make Italy more competitive, especially in the prestigious North Atlantic traffic:

The Navigazione Generale Italiana , the Lloyd Sabaudo and Cosulich shipping company merged to Italia - Società di Navigazione , internationally better known as the Italian Line . On January 1, 1937, the Genoa-based company had 48 ships with a total of 463,741 GRT. It was assigned the lines between Italy and the American double continent.

The Marittima Italiana and the Società Italiana di Servizi Marittimi (SITMAR) were added to the Lloyd Triestino in Trieste . On January 1, 1937, this shipping company had 97 ships with a total of 615,461 GRT. She took over the connections between the Mediterranean Sea and Asia, Australia and Africa.

On December 21, 1936, the Tirrenia di Navigazione was established in Naples, which included the shipping companies Adria and Sarda di Navigazione . She had 58 ships with a total of 159,014 GRT and took over the lines in the western Mediterranean, between the main Italian ports, Tunisia , Spain , Portugal and Northern Europe.

The Compagnia di Navigazione Adriatica , founded in Venice in 1932 , was merged with the shipping companies San Marco , Costiera di Fiume , Nautica di Fiume , Zaratina and others to form the Adriatica di Navigazione (later taken over by Tirrenia ) in 1936 . At the beginning of 1937 it counted 41 ships with a total of 138,458 GRT. The liner services in the Adriatic, in the eastern Mediterranean, in the Black and Red Sea to East Africa were transferred to her.

The state also intervened in the area of ​​cargo shipping, but most of it remained free ( tramp shipping ). After the founding of the mineral oil company Agip in 1926, oil tankers were built in the 1930s , also for foreign countries. For state banana trading company RAMB ordered to reefer vessels of RAMB class . With the Patria , a Vinnen schooner built in Germany , the Italian merchant navy received its own training ship .

The Conte Grande was acquired by the US Navy in Brazil in 1942

In accordance with the legal regulations for the event of war, the government took over the merchant navy again from 1935. Almost 600,000 people, over 16,000 vehicles and over 1.2 million tons of material had to be brought to East Africa for the Abyssinian War . At the outbreak of World War II , the Italian merchant navy was ranked sixth after those of the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Norway and Germany. It had 786 ships over 500 GRT with a total of 3,318,129 GRT, plus around 1,000 ships between 100 and 500 GRT. At the time of the Italian entry into the war on June 10, 1940, there were 212 ships (the largest and most essential for the war, 1.2 million GRT) outside the Mediterranean, which Mussolini had been informed of by the military command. These ships were interned, drafted or self-sunk. By September 8, 1943, the merchant navy put 204 additional ships into service (0.8 million GRT) and lost 460 (1.7 million GRT) in the same period, many of them in air raids in ports. During the war, the main task of the merchant navy was to supply military units in the Balkans and especially in North Africa, as well as to maintain connections with the Mediterranean islands. In around 4,500 convoys, it transported over 1.2 million soldiers and around 4.5 million tons of goods up to the armistice in Cassibile in September 1943, with nine percent losses in passenger transport and between 14 percent in material transport, depending on the type and (for fuels) 29 percent. More than 7,100 of around 25,000 registered seafarers in the merchant marine were killed. In May 1945 there were only 95 merchant ships over 500 GRT with a total of 336,810 GRT, about ten percent of the tonnage of June 1940. The Italian ports were largely destroyed and the coastal waters were heavily mined .

Italian Republic

In the first post-war years, the focus was on removing war damage, clearing mines and lifting shipwrecks . Due to the abundance of tasks, a Ministry of Commerce was established in 1946 , which existed until 1993. As a makeshift cover for needs, the United States received over 100 ships on very favorable terms, including many Liberty freighters , and obtained the return of captured Italian ships.

Ro-ro freighter Lazio from Tirrenia

The Italian shipbuilding industry was able to exceed pre-war standards in the area of ​​transatlantic passenger steamers as early as the early 1950s and surprise them with revolutionary designs with the sister ships Giulio Cesare and Augustus . As early as the 1960s, ships of this type could no longer compete with commercial air traffic, which is why liners such as the Michelangelo , which were still in service at that time, were launched and then also used as barges. The state-owned shipping companies Italia di Navigazione and Lloyd Triestino concentrated on freight traffic, Tirrenia and Adriatica on ferry traffic. Quite a few private shipping companies had to give up, but a few managed to overcome the difficult period and establish themselves in the cruise , tanker or container business. Costa Crociere offered its first cruises in the Caribbean as early as 1959. The shipowner and politician Achille Lauro , who had lost almost his entire fleet in the Second World War, had old freighters and two former escort aircraft carriers of the Bogue class , Fencer and Atheling , converted into passenger ships after the war and on this way came back to a 50- Ships fleet. A colorful personality, Lauro was extremely popular in his hometown of Naples and was generally known as the Comandante . His Flotta Lauro did not recover from the oil price crisis of 1973 . The Lauro Line was created out of the bankruptcy estate in 1982 , renamed StarLauro in 1987 and taken over by the Mediterranean Shipping Company . The Grimaldi brothers who (re) founded the Grimaldi Group in 1947 were Lauro's nephews. One of them founded Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV) in 1992 , which is not part of the Grimaldi Group .

What was left of the traditional Italia di Navigazione was sold to the shipping company D'Amico in 1998 when the state holding company IRI and its financial holding Finmare were dissolved . This was founded in the early 1930s by Massimo Ciro d'Amico and his son Giuseppe for timber transport and was rebuilt after the war with two Liberty freighters. In 2016 she operated several Aframax and Suezmax tankers. In 1998, Lloyd Triestino went to Evergreen Marine . The shipowner Gianluigi Aponte moved to Geneva, where he also relocated the legal headquarters of his companies to the Società Navigazione Alta Velocità (SNAV) and the GNV, which has been controlled since 2010.

Misfortunes

Between 1861 and 1946 the Italian merchant navy recorded four serious accidents (without war losses): In 1888 the passenger ship Sud America collided with a French ship in the bay of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and sank, killing 79 people. In 1906 the passenger steamer Sirio ran onto a reef on the south coast of Spain and capsized. Of 822 people on board, 442 died. In 1927 the luxury steamer Principessa Mafalda had an accident off Brazil, killing 312 people. The passenger steamer Orazio had an accident off Toulon in early 1940 , 106 of the more than 600 people on board lost their lives.

Fall of the Andrea Doria

On the late evening of July 25, 1956, the passenger ship Andrea Doria collided with the passenger ship Stockholm in thick fog on the way to New York off the coast of Nantucket . 46 of the 1,706 passengers on the Andrea Doria and five crew members on the Stockholm died. The Andrea Doria capsized and sank the following morning.

The freighter Marina di Equa (22,901 GRT) sank on December 29, 1981 about 280 km northwest of A Coruña in a hurricane. All 30 crew members were killed. On April 10, 1991, the Moby Prince ferry collided with the Agip Abruzzo tanker in the port of Livorno , killing 140 people on the ferry. The cruise ship Achille Lauro caught fire off Somalia on November 30, 1994 and sank three days later. Passengers and crew were evacuated.

On January 13, 2012, the cruise ship Costa Concordia hit a rock near the island of Giglio , hit a leak and was unable to maneuver by the wind towards the island, where it ran aground and tilted to 65 degrees. The accident claimed 32 lives. The master had driven a negligent course close to shore and left the ship prematurely after the accident.

The container ship Jolly Nero hit a control tower in the port of Genoa on May 8, 2013. The 54 meter high tower and an adjoining administrative building then fell into the harbor basin. In the accident a total of nine people were killed in the control tower and four others were injured.

A fire broke out on the Norman Atlantic ferry in the early morning of December 28, 2014 on its way from Patras to Ancona . Due to suspected stowaways, the number of victims is unclear. At least eleven people died at sea, two seamen died in the recovery operations in the port of Brindisi, where the badly damaged ship had been towed. 18 people are missing.

On the night of March 10th to 11th, 2019 , a fire broke out on the ConRo freighter Grande America , which was in the Bay of Biscay on the way from Hamburg to Casablanca , which could not be extinguished with on-board resources. There were 26 crew members and one passenger on board the ship who were evacuated. The Grande America sank on March 12th.

Ranks

Officers

The rank insignia of ship officers in the Italian merchant navy are generally based on the rank insignia of the Italian navy . However, there are (overall) fewer ranks and other rank designations. Below is an overview of the ranks and insignia of the nautical officers (other officers have a different colored border on the sleeves; supply officers light red, technical officers dark red, electrical engineering officers brown, ship doctors white, radio officers green)

Sleeve braid Italian rank German name (notes) Military equivalent (Italy)
Rank insignia of aspirante guardiamarina of the Italian Navy.svg Allievo ufficiale Officer assistant (ships from 500 GT) Officer
Candidate (Aspirante Guardiamarina)
( Ensign / Oberfähnrich )
Rank insignia of guardiamarina of the Italian Navy.svg Terzo ufficiale Third officer Lieutenant of the Sea
(Guadiamarina)
( Lieutenant )
Rank insignia of sottotenente di vascello of the Italian Navy.svg Secondo ufficiale Second officer Oberleutnant zur See
(Sottotenente di Vascello)
( Oberleutnant )
Rank insignia of tenente di vascello of the Italian Navy, svg Primo ufficiale First Officer
( Chief Engineer up to 750 kW)
Lieutenant Captain
(Tenente di Vascello)
( Captain )
Rank insignia of 1st officer commander of the Italian merchant Navy.svg Comandante Captain (ships up to 3,000 GT) Corvette Captain
(Capitano di Corvetta)
( Major )
Rank insignia of capitano di corvetta of the Italian Navy, svg Comandante in seconda Deputy captain (staff captain) (on passenger ships over 20,000 GT)
(chief engineer up to 3,000 kW, purser, direttore sanitario / ship's doctor)
Corvette Captain
(Capitano di Corvetta)
(Major)
Rank insignia of Comandante of the Italian merchant Navy.svg Comandante Captain (ships from 3,000 to 20,000 GT) Frigate Captain
(Capitano di Fregata)
( Lieutenant Colonel )
Rank insignia of capitano di fregata del Genio Navale of the Italian Navy.svg Direttore di macchina Chief engineer (from 3,000 kW; staff captain if before that already a captain to over 20,000 GT) Frigate Captain
(Capitano di Fregata)
(Lieutenant Colonel)
Rank insignia of Comandante superiore of the Italian merchant Navy.svg Comandante Captain (ships over 20,000 GT) Captain of the Sea
(Capitano di Vascello)
( Colonel )

In the Italian merchant navy there were among others the ranks of captain (Capitano) and captain on a long voyage (Capitano (superiore) di lungo corso) , among the technical officers among other things the Capitano (superiore) di macchina . In the course of reforms, these were replaced by names such as Comandante and Direttore di macchina , with the respective badges remaining unchanged.

In the shipping companies that belonged to the former state holding Finmare , Comandante superiore was an honorary title for merited captains with at least 26 years of service and at least two years in command of ships with at least 28,000 GT and a maximum speed of over 20 knots, which were used in transoceanic traffic. He was roughly equivalent to the commodore or the senior captain .

The ship's crown over the stripe of the merchant marine captains corresponds to a stripe on the military rank insignia. Accordingly, two stripes and a ship's crown are equivalent to three stripes in the Italian (war) navy. Compared to the four stripes more common worldwide for (merchant marine) captains, the Italian system allows differentiation in terms of ship size.

More sailors

The totality of seafarers (gente di mare) is divided into three categories: The 1st category includes deck personnel, machine personnel, multipurpose personnel and medical personnel; The 2nd category includes, in particular, supply, kitchen and tourism specialists who work in passenger shipping; the third category consists of seafarers from coastal shipping and the inshore fishing industry . Seafarers in the 1st and 2nd category receive a nautical book (libretto di navigazione) , those of the 3rd category (as well as shipyard and dock workers ) receive simple IDs. The equivalent of German seaman's offices in Italy is located at the port captain's offices of the coast guard .

Badge of rank Nostromo (boatswain)

In particular for teams and NCOs of the 1st and 2nd category there are different rank designations in the respective rank levels, which are mostly based on the respective job description . When deck personnel are the lowest rank Mozzo ( Deck Young ), giovanotto (Jung man) and Marinaio ( Seaman , at least 18 years, two of them at sea and of which one in the deck service), the other ranks are based on different job. The boatman is in the Italian Merchant Navy Nostromo called about it can make a Primo nostromo give, including there was the Sotto-nostromo . Safety tasks on board can be delegated by the ship's command to a non-commissioned officer with the designation Capitano d'armi (English master-at-arms ), who is hierarchically on a level with the (secondo) nostromo .

In the 2nd category, lower rank designations are among others Piccolo , Garzone ( Garçon , Kellner ) and Cameriere (head / waiter), to which further rank and technical terms can be added (Piccolo di camera / di cucina, Garzone di prima) . At the top of the hierarchy in the cruise business is the Maître d'hôtel , known as Maggiordomo , in the kitchen there is the usual kitchen hierarchy up to the chef , the catering manager is called Maestro di casa or Food and Beverage Manager . Quite a few shipping companies use English terms in this category instead of Italian.

The educational requirements for teams and NCOs (taking into account the side entry) range from compulsory schooling to university entrance qualification with several years of relevant professional experience, for example in grand hotels . In some cases it is necessary to graduate from a technical college specializing in seafaring (formerly called Istituto tecnico nautico ), otherwise minimum on-board service times or corresponding course qualifications are required for advancement to the next higher rank.

Web links

Commons : Italian Merchant Navy  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. La navigazione mercantile italiana nel 2011  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on confitarma.it@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.confitarma.it  
  2. ITF Seafarers' Bulletin 26/2012 p. 8 ( Memento of the original of August 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.itfseafarers.org
  3. La Marina Mercantile del Regno delle Due Sicilie on quicampania.it
  4. I primati del Regno delle Due Sicilie on unina.it
  5. Angelo Savoretti: La marina mercantile durante il ventennio fascista. (P. 134f) marina.difesa.it
  6. Angelo Savoretti: La marina mercantile durante il ventennio fascista. (P. 150ff) marina.difesa.it
  7. Comprehensive listing of the ranks and the respective entry requirements on cliclavoro.gov.it (Italian)