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SHIPPING: Dona’s Daughter

2 minute read
TIME

Only eleven days after the Andrea Doria sank off Nantucket two years ago, the state-controlled Italian Line decided to commission Genoa’s great Ansaldo shipyards to build a replacement. This week the Dona’s nearly completed successor, the $30 million Leonardo da Vinci, slid down the ways.

Like the Doria and her sister postwar ship from the Ansaldo yards, the Cristoforo Colombo, the Leonardo upholds the Italian reputation for style and tourist catching comfort, from her rakishly angled superstructure to her 536 cabins equipped with individually controlled air conditioning and infra-red heat, and her retractable stabilizer fins for smoother steaming in rough weather. Planned for 1,300 passengers, compared to the Doria’s 1,290, the Leonardo at 32,000 tons and 760 ft. is 10% heavier and longer. The extra weight is accounted for by safety precautions, including additional compartmenting of the hull. The Doria sank when three of its twelve compartments were flooded; the Da Vinci will float with three of its 15 compartments flooded. When the Leonardo goes into service in 1960, Italy expects to have a powerful new dollar earner as the flagship of her already prosperous fleet.

At Kure, Japan, the onetime Japanese Imperial Naval Yard, now operated by U.S. Tanker Tycoon Daniel K. Ludwig’s National Bulk Carriers, Inc., launched the world’s largest tanker, the 104,500-ton (loaded) Universe Apollo. The first of five planned supertankers, the Universe surpasses the largest previous bulk carriers, Ludwig’s 85,000-ton tankers. With a length of 950 ft. and a beam of 135 ft., Universe Apollo is the widest merchant ship afloat, and the third longest (ranking after the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary).

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