An ocean liner built by Cantieri Riuniti dell’Adriatico (Italian for “United Shipbuilders of the Adriatic”) for the shipping company Lloyd Triestino was launched in northeastern Italy’s comune (municipality) of Monfalcone, which is located along the Gulf of Trieste. (That gulf is the northernmost region of the Adriatic Sea.)
The ocean liner was named after Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), the Nobel Prize-winning Italian entrepreneur and electrical engineer who achieved renown for inventing the first workable radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. His widow Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali (1900-1994) took part in the Sunday launch of the vessel bearing his name.
“The vessel . . . will carry 1700 passengers, a crew of 400, and have a speed of 26.4 knots [13.6 meters per second],” reported the Associated Press in its news story about the launch of SS Guglielmo Marconi. “The 642-foot [195.7-meter] liner will be used on the Italy Australia run.”
Work on Marconi was completed in October 1963. The following month, she first went into service on Lloyd Triestino’s Genoa-Sydney line. Marconi remained in operation as one of that company’s ocean liners until 1976, when she was transferred to the Genoa-based Italian Line and used for that transatlantic shipping company’s route encompassing Naples, Brazil, and the Río de la Plata (the River Plate, a major estuary between Argentina and Uruguay).
Another chapter for Marconi opened in 1979 when she was handed over to Italia Crociere Internazionali, a venture that had been established to operate various Italian Line passenger ships. This venture lasted just a few years, though, and Marconi was subsequently sold to Costa Cruises (also based in Genoa) in 1983. After being extensively renovated over the next couple of years and renamed Costa Riviera, the ocean liner was used for cruises in both Alaska and the Caribbean.
In 1993, yet another major development for this vessel transpired when Costa Cruises’ joined forces with businessman Bruce Nierenburg (born in 1946) to form American Family Cruises (AFC). This enterprise focused on families with young children and Costa Riviera – now known as American Adventure – was among the vessels used for those cruises. AFC proved to be short-lived, however, and Costa Cruises renamed her Costa Riviera and brought her back to Genoa in 1994.
Over the next several years, this vessel was used for cruises in Europe. In 2001, she was sold for scrap under the name Liberty. (The accompanying photo of the vessel was taken during her time as part of the Lloyd Triestino fleet.)
Image Credit: Public Domain
For more information on the vessel originally known as SS Guglielmo Marconi, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Guglielmo_Marconi
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