MS Oranje - Operational History - Angelina Lauro

Angelina Lauro

The Netherland Line sold their flagship, Oranje, together with its Royal Rotterdam Lloyd running mate Willem Ruys to the Italian company Flotta Lauro, also called StarLauro, later in 1964. The ships were rebuilt and renamed Angelina Lauro and Achille Lauro, respectively.

Oranje was sent to Genoa to be extensively rebuilt at the Cantieri del Tirreno shipyards. On 24 August while she was being rebuilt a fire broke out in which six people died. The rebuild extended the promenade deck and it was fully glazed in. The ship was also given a sharply raked bow which extended its length by 16 feet (4.9 m). Another outstanding feature was the tall louvered funnel topped by a large smoke deflector wing. The interior lay-out was completely new. The original propulsion plant and auxiliaries were now controlled from a central control room and automated and recorded to a state of the art degree.

After the rebuilding was complete, Angelina Lauro was then listed as 24,377 GRT, 205.5 metres (672.4 ft) long and 25.5 metres (83.6 ft) wide. The new passenger configuration allowed for interchange cabins between first and tourist class. First Class could accommodate between 180 and 377 passengers and Tourist Class between 946 to 1050 passengers, making a total of 1230 passengers.

On 6 March 1966 the ship departed on its maiden voyage from Bremerhaven sailing via the Suez Canal to Australia. It continued on the Australian service until 1972, when Flotta Lauro discontinued the service due to low passenger numbers as experienced by all shipping companies at the time.

In 1972 Angelina Lauro received an extensive refit to ready it for a new role as a full-time cruise ship. After the refit it accommodated 800 passengers in a one class configuration. It was relocated to San Juan for regular cruises of the Caribbean, but was managed by another Italian shipping company, Costa Lines.

In 1977 Angelina Lauro was chartered to Costa Lines for three years. The company took delivery on 10 October. The ship was based at Port Everglades for cruise duties in the Caribbean. Although the ship retained its name, Costa Lines according to their custom of using Christian (first or given) names, marketed the Angelina Lauro simply as Angelina. After this time, occasionally Angelina Lauro would operate a line voyage across the Atlantic from South America to Italy. For these line voyages it reverted to its original two class configuration.

Angelina Lauro was a popular cruise ship in the Caribbean until 30 March 1979 when tragedy struck. It suffered a devastating fire (eyewitness account) whilst on a cruise and berthed at Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands.

The fire broke out in the aft crew galley, and rapidly spread forward through the restaurants and passenger accommodations. Even though the well-trained crew did everything possible to contain the fire, the task was too great and soon flames had reached the top decks. Most of the passengers and crew were ashore when the fire broke out, and all those on board were evacuated safely. It took four days for port firefighters to put the fire out, during which time onshore firefighters joined the battle. Firefighting efforts were overseen by the crew of the United States Coast Guard ship USCGC Gallatin (WHEC 721) which was on patrol near Puerto Rico when she received orders to divert to Charlotte Amalie, arriving on scene the morning of 31 March 1979. Local firefighters assumed the arrival of the Coast Guard meant that they could desist with their firefighting efforts and return home. Before the crew of the Gallatin could get their firefighting equipment in place, the island firemen had packed their gear and departed. This gap in firefighting efforts may have contributed to the blaze getting completely out of control. After much confusion by the local authorities, the island firemen were ordered to return to the scene, but at that point their presence became more of a hindrance than a help to the Coast Guard and the Angelina Lauro's exhausted crewmen. Personnel from the U.S. Navy base at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station were also dispatched to the scene. A number of attempts were made to tow the ship away from the wharf; however this failed due to the weight of the water that had been pumped into it. Slowly it ended up sitting on the shallow bottom with a list to port. It was very fortunate that no-one was killed during this incident.

Neil Whitmore, the maitre d'hotel on Sun Princess, described the efforts to aid the passengers in the aftermath of the fire:

Angelina Lauro was declared to be a total loss and remained dockside for some three months. Eventually the German salvage company Eckhardt & Company of Hamburg was awarded the contract to raise it from the bottom and have it refloated. This was achieved on 2 July 1979. Lauro Cruises decided to sell the ship for scrap to Taiwanese ship breakers, and it departed under tow for Asia on 30 July.

Angelina Lauro successfully navigated the Panama Canal and was headed across the Pacific towards Taiwan. However, on 21 September, in the mid Pacific, M.S. Angelina Lauro's fire-affected warped hull plates began to take on water, and it began to list slowly. The ship remained afloat for three days, but by the evening of 23 September it was fully on her side. It was not until early the next morning, just before sunrise, that it slowly sank. It was twenty days after the ship's 40-year milestone.

Angelina Lauro's previous running mate Achille Lauro (formerly named MS Willem Ruys), which became well known for the terrorist attack in Egypt, continued cruising until November 1994, when she caught fire and sank on 2 December 1994.