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»	Cruise Talk » Ocean Liners and Classic Cruise Ships » Raffaello Wreck

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Topic: Raffaello Wreck

lasuvidaboy
First Class Passenger
Member # 4527

posted 03-23-2004 10:03 PM

Has anybody seen (or has) a photo of the wreck of the Italian Line's Raffaello in Iran and is she completely submerged? Or has she been scrapped?

Posts: 7654 | From: Hollywood Hills/L.A. | Registered: Mar 2004 | IP: Logged

Ocean Liners
First Class Passenger
Member # 4013

posted 03-23-2004 10:17 PM

From Project Michelangelo

quote:

The would probably have laid there until she would have been sold for scrap, but in 1983, during the Iraq/Iran war, Iraqi bombers hit her and she partially sank in the harbour waters. Not long after a tug accidentally rammed her, finishing off the job the Iraqi had begun. The Raffaello lays on the spot where she sank, and no breaking up of the shipwreck has ever commerced.

[ 03-23-2004: Message edited by: Ocean Liners ]

Posts: 4502 | From: Japan | Registered: Jul 2003 | IP: Logged

sslewis
First Class Passenger
Member # 3649

posted 03-24-2004 11:07 AM

Fairplay reported in 1994 that SMIT salvage was bidding for the wreck. A very nice picture of the Michelangelo was published in an Oil advertisement for weeks afterwards, which broke my hart.
Nothing more since, the Government f Iran had more urgent planning to do.
With the rebuilding weel underway, they now need to expand the port of Bushir(Busher), and a London-based concern may bid successfully.
They are now working on raising the poor World Discoverer in the Solomon Islands(source: Fairplay again).
IMO, the vessel could not be raised after 21 years, but then again, a WWII German battleship is about to be lifted from the River Plate....
May I day dream that Raffaello avenges Italy by becoming a floating hotel in Lybia?

Posts: 2513 | From: Shipspotting Solent shores when weather allows.... | Registered: Feb 2003 | IP: Logged

Aris
First Class Passenger
Member # 1718

posted 03-24-2004 04:10 PM

Here are some details on her wreck I found in the web:

"Biggest passenger liner currently on the seabed is the Raffaello (904.6 X 101.9 X 36.2) which, after being bombed by Iraq and half burned out was allowed to sink 17 miles off the Iranian coast in about 120 feet of water. A while back an Iranian tanker grounded on the wreck and was damaged at which point she (Raffaello) was offered for sale as scrap, but at the time there were no takers."

Posts: 82 | From: Athens, Greece | Registered: Dec 2000 | IP: Logged

sslewis
First Class Passenger
Member # 3649

posted 03-26-2004 01:13 PM

The question is : is she upright?
Righting and raising a ship after 20 years seems a waiste to me.
I knew a student from Bushir..but he spoke little English..the word for ports in Persian is Bandar!
Michelangelo was moored off Bandar Abbas, probably the port of Abbas.
What key convert websites into Persian???

Posts: 2513 | From: Shipspotting Solent shores when weather allows.... | Registered: Feb 2003 | IP: Logged

Kelly D Payne
First Class Passenger
Member # 4205

posted 03-31-2004 01:59 PM

Are there any pictures of the wreck?

Posts: 57 | From: louisville ky | Registered: Oct 2003 | IP: Logged

linerguy
First Class Passenger
Member # 4289

posted 04-02-2004 03:59 PM

Not Raffaello but, here's a sad photo of Michelangelo.....

Russ

Posts: 1486 | From: Bright, Indiana | Registered: Dec 2003 | IP: Logged

linerguy
First Class Passenger
Member # 4289

posted 04-02-2004 04:03 PM

Here's a shot of Raffaello after she rammed the Norwegian tanker, Cuyahoga, in May of 1970

Russ

Posts: 1486 | From: Bright, Indiana | Registered: Dec 2003 | IP: Logged

linerguy
First Class Passenger
Member # 4289

posted 04-02-2004 04:13 PM

Not wreck shots of Raffaelo I know but, these pics do prove just how cruel fate can be and was to these two lovely ships.....

Russ

[ 04-02-2004: Message edited by: linerguy ]

Posts: 1486 | From: Bright, Indiana | Registered: Dec 2003 | IP: Logged

sslewis
First Class Passenger
Member # 3649

posted 04-06-2004 07:04 AM

There might be hope of raising Raffaello from Bushir harbour after 20 years..
Just read about the battleship Admiral Graf Spee wreck to be raised from the River Plate, in South America after 60 years!
This is of course the work of military enthusiast hoping to preserve a rare historic ship, that liners are fast becoming..
So there might be hope after all...
but not too soon... it could be too valuable for scrappers!

Posts: 2513 | From: Shipspotting Solent shores when weather allows.... | Registered: Feb 2003 | IP: Logged

sslewis
First Class Passenger
Member # 3649

posted 04-15-2004 12:06 PM

After much interesting search on the magnificent and historic Persian town of bushere, I can see why the Raf wreck may just lay where she is.
The russians were building a nuclear plant there in 1999.
A museum about Delvar, a local hero who fought british troops in 1915 may be the only artistic curiosity.
Never realised that Bushere was so close to Irak...

Posts: 2513 | From: Shipspotting Solent shores when weather allows.... | Registered: Feb 2003 | IP: Logged

lasuvidaboy
First Class Passenger
Member # 4527

posted 04-15-2004 03:51 PM

Well if she is in 120 feet of water and if she sank upright, I would guess only the her mast and maybe her funnels would be out of the water. If a tug hit the wreck and finally finished her off, maybe the water is not quite as deep as previously reported. If she is on her side and completely submerged, the water would have to be deeper than 101 feet. Since she has been submerged for so long, I assume the wreck is quickly rusting away.

Posts: 7654 | From: Hollywood Hills/L.A. | Registered: Mar 2004 | IP: Logged

sslewis
First Class Passenger
Member # 3649

posted 04-16-2004 01:35 PM

My memory fails me, but I saw a picture of World Discoverer being raised from the Solomon Islands in Fairplay a while back..
She had become quite lucrative for some diving ventures, now very sorry!
Was Raffaello ever dived?
Surely for raising purposes, they must have taken pictures and evaluated the damage?
May be Raffy could be the next best dive in Persia?
Bushere nuke plant workers may afford such leisure...

Posts: 2513 | From: Shipspotting Solent shores when weather allows.... | Registered: Feb 2003 | IP: Logged

mk bortoluzzi
Just Boarded
Member # 5299

posted 01-03-2005 01:14 PM

Raffaello seems to be still unrecovered, badly damage d and rusty at the entrance of Bushir where she sunk in feb 1983, hit by Iraqi's and then rammed by iranian freighter IRANIAN SALAM 4 years later, on feb 1987. The wreckage of Raf badly damaged the hull of the Iranian freighter.

Posts: 1 | From: venice- italy | Registered: Jan 2005 | IP: Logged

bulbousbow
First Class Passenger
Member # 4440

posted 01-05-2005 01:26 AM

Thank you for the information mk bortoluzzi, welcome aboard.

******

Cheers

Posts: 6866 | From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Feb 2004 | IP: Logged

DAMBROSI
First Class Passenger
Member # 100

posted 01-05-2005 09:01 AM

I found this interesting little tidbit on the site as well:

quote:
May 1970 Raffaello was once again involved in an accident when she accidentally collided with the Norwegian tanker Cuyahoga in Algeciras Bay, on the southern coast of Spain. Luckily there were no casualties, but Raffaello's crossing was canceled and her bow needed to be repaired at Gibraltar. After ship accident she suffered no more major accident during her career.
During the same year the Raffaello made naval history for the only time in her life. Even though the Royal Carribeean lines claims that their Voyager Of The Seas was the first ship to have an on-board ice rink, this is not true. In 1970 the Raffaello's theatre was converted into an ice rink, and an American family was contracted to perform ice skating shows to the passengers.

That was on the site and incredible that they would put an ice rink on board this fabulous ship. Wonder if RCI knows they are'nt the first to put an ice rink on their ships?

Posts: 2554 | From: Florida, USA, Where the Legend SS NORWAY sailed from. Moving back to FL next yr. | Registered: May 99 | IP: Logged

sslewis
First Class Passenger
Member # 3649

posted 01-05-2005 10:18 AM

Wow!
I am greatful to learn this most interesting Ice-ring story onboard Raf!
The Shah of Iran widow, Farah Dibba, is most admired in France, where she was addressed as Iran's Empress in a recent interview.
This led me to speculate if TAG, the French-based lebanese company(brokers?) who sold ssFrance to NCL, was also involved in Mike and Raf?
I still think the surveyors who went to inspect the ships in Iran and found rats and immense technical challenge were influence by other factors than the war.
So far, few pictures of the ships in Iran were published, and they were Ship of the State to the end!

Posts: 2513 | From: Shipspotting Solent shores when weather allows.... | Registered: Feb 2003 | IP: Logged

Johan
First Class Passenger
Member # 4458

posted 01-05-2005 04:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by sslewis:
Wow!
I am greatful to learn this most interesting Ice-ring story onboard Raf!
The Shah of Iran widow, Farah Dibba, is most admired in France, where she was addressed as Iran's Empress in a recent interview.
So far, few pictures of the ships in Iran were published, and they were Ship of the State to the end!

I seem to remember, but can't find it back, that many years ago, ships monthly published a picture of the burned-out wreck of one of the sisters.

About being there no pictures : the end of the seventies was a rather "disturbing" time in the Shah's Iran. As they were barracks for army/navy officers, they will have been considered as "secret", so not much pictures I imagine.

After the revolution, they were maligned symbols of the Shahs's "wicked ways of the west", and certainly not beloved or of interested to both people in power, the army or other iranians.

Beautiful ships, but built too late, and not in tune with their times, alas...

Posts: 1895 | From: Antwerpen, Belgium | Registered: Feb 2004 | IP: Logged

sslewis
First Class Passenger
Member # 3649

posted 01-06-2005 09:59 AM

Johan,
I see your point.
A recent TV series about the life of Soyara, the Shah's infertile first wife and the intense media attention about the former Empress makes me speculate that many Iranians will publish memoirs, hopefully with some interesting pictures.
Who knows, they might insipres some movies?
You can buy a video of Michelangelo construction and trials in the US.
In Bill Miller's Passenger liners : Italian style, details of the state of the ships could only come from Marine Surveyors inspecting the ship.
The picture in a late 1992 Ship's Monthly was Michelangelo at Gadani(she was beached in July 1992).
I found strange that she was partially dismantled (what would Iran need aluminium for?).
She also managed to pass the Strait of Ormuz at a time when tankers were at risk.
By then Raffaello must have been broken on the spot.

Posts: 2513 | From: Shipspotting Solent shores when weather allows.... | Registered: Feb 2003 | IP: Logged

sslewis
First Class Passenger
Member # 3649

posted 12-23-2005 11:01 PM

I hear on another forum that wahtever is left of the wreck is still visible from Google Earth!
I had a go at it but can't send a link....anybody?
Iran used to have 40 cruise ships a year and is seeking a slow return on the tourism maps....

Posts: 2513 | From: Shipspotting Solent shores when weather allows.... | Registered: Feb 2003 | IP: Logged

lasuvidaboy
First Class Passenger
Member # 4527

posted 12-23-2005 11:23 PM

quote:
Originally posted by sslewis:
I hear on another forum that wahtever is left of the wreck is still visible from Google Earth!
I had a go at it but can't send a link....anybody?
Iran used to have 40 cruise ships a year and is seeking a slow return on the tourism maps....

What appears to be a wreck of a large ship is off the coast of Bushehr, Iran. The wreck is located at 29 00' 02.6 75N 50 50' 45. 14 E . It may or may not be Raffaello as it seems to be smaller than a 900 ft vessel according to some posts. Also w/comparisons to ships such as the SS United States (also very clearly seen on Google Earth and docked in Philadelphia) the submerged hull in Iran looks much smaller. I also looked up the SS Independence and she was still docked in Vallejo, California when the Google pics were taken. The 683' Indy looks larger than the submerged hull as well.

Posts: 7654 | From: Hollywood Hills/L.A. | Registered: Mar 2004 | IP: Logged

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