SS Raffaello
SS Raffaello leaving port
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| History | |
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| Name: | Raffaello |
| Namesake: | Raphael |
| Operator: | Italia Societa di Navigazione (Italian Line) |
| Port of registry: |
Genoa,  Italy
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| Builder: | Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico, Trieste, Italy |
| Yard number: | 1578 |
| Launched: | 24 March 1963 |
| Completed: | July 1965 |
| Maiden voyage: | (Cruise)10 July 1965, (Line service), 25 July 1965 |
| Out of service: | 6 June 1975 |
| Fate: | Sold to Iran, 1977, where laid up |
| Status: | Partially sunk 1983 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | ocean liner |
| Tonnage: | 45,933 gross register tons (GRT) |
| Length: | 275.5 m (903 ft 10 in) |
| Beam: | 30.20 m (99 ft 1 in) |
| Draught: | 10.40 m (34 ft 1 in) |
| Installed power: | 87,000shp |
| Propulsion: | Geared turbines, twin screw |
| Speed: | (Service)26.5 kn (49.08 km/h; 30.50 mph). Max trial, 30.5 kn |
| Capacity: |
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| Crew: | 720 |
| Notes: | Sister ship to SS Michelangelo |
SS Raffaello was an Italian ocean liner built in the early 1960s for Italian Line by the Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico, Trieste. She was one of the last ships to be built primarily for liner service across the North Atlantic. Her sister ship was the SS Michelangelo.
In 1958, the Italian Line began planning new ships to replace the ageing MS Saturnia and MS Vulcania. Competition from jet airliners had not yet had a huge impact in the Mediterranean area and jobs were needed for Italian sailors and shipyard workers, so constructing new superliners seemed like an attractive idea to Italian Line executives. Consequently, the new ships grew from the originally planned 35,000 tons to nearly 46,000 tons. They were the largest ships built in Italy since SS Rex and SS Conte di Savoia in the 1930s.
Unable to foresee the change that lay ahead for the shipping business, the Italian Line planned the ships as true ocean liners, divided into three classes. Little thought was given to cruising as an alternative use. Oddly even for a liner, all cabins below A-deck were windowless. But on the technical side the ships were among the most advanced of their time. They featured retractable stabiliser wings, highly modernised engineering panels, and many other advantages. The funnels, in particular, were specially designed to keep smoke and soot from the rear decks. The funnel design proved to be highly effective, and it is a testament to their design that most funnels in modern passenger ships are built along similar principles.
The new ships' interiors were in the Art Deco style so often associated with liners. The Raffaello's interiors were designed by architects such as Michele and Giancarlo Busiri Vici, who had not worked on liner interiors before. As a result, the Raffaello gained highly futuristic, more distinctive, but more sterile interiors than her sister. Despite being planned as identical sisters, the Raffaello was 0.7 meters (2.3 feet) shorter, 0.40 meters (1.3 feet) wider, and some 22 tons larger than her sister.
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