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Achille Lauro
Lauro Lines (Italy)

She was built for Royal Rotterdam Lloyd for Rotterdam - East Indies service and named Willem Ruys - Liner (2f/2m). L/B/D: 631.2 × 82 × 47.5 (192.4m × 25m × 14.5m). Tons: 23,114 grt. Hull: steel. Comp.: 1st 275, tourist 770. Mach.: motorship, 32,000 bhp, 2 screws; 22 kts. Built: Koninklijke Maatschappij de Schelde, Flushing, Neth.; 1947.

  • Length: 192,4 m
  • Beam: 24,9 m
  • GRT: 25,000 t
  • Built: 1939-47 De Schelde, Vlissingen, the Netherlands
  • Operator: Lauro Lines, Naples
  • Speed: 23 kn
  • Passengers: 1,600
  • Former name: Willem Ruys 1947-64
  • Registry: Italy
  • Homeport: Naples

Her history: 

  • 1938, January: Ordered to be built, but lay unfinished on the stocks at N.V. Koninklijke Maats. "De Schelde", Vlissingen, for the duration of the war.
  • 1947: Launched and delivered to N.V. Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd, Rotterdam.
  • 1964, January: Sold to Achille Lauro, Naples.
  • 1965: Renamed Achille Lauro.
  • 1965 August 29: Suffered considerable damage after a serious fire while at Palermo.
  • 1966 April: Back in service. - 1972 May 19: The bridge and accomodation was damaged by fire.
  • 1975, April: Collided with the livestock carrier Yousset which was sunk.
  • 1981, December 3: A fire occurred in a bar and three passangers were killed during the evacuation.
  • 1985, October: Taken by Arab terrorists in the Mediterranean who murdered an American passenger.
  • 1994, November 30: Caught fire off the coast of Somalia en route from Genoa to the Sychelles. The ship was abandoned without loss of life [contradiction: 3 dead, 8 injured].
  • 1994, on November 30, she caught fire off Somalia and sank two days later. Two people lost their lives.

Intended for Royal Rotterdam Lloyd's service between the Netherlands and Indonesia, the Willem Ruys was laid down in 1939. Work was suspended during World War II and she did not enter service until 1947. Following Indonesia's nationalization of Dutch assets in 1956, she was put in round-the-world service from Rotterdam, via the Suez Canal to Australia and then on to Port Everglades, in Florida, via the Panama Canal. Sold to Italy's Lauro Lines in 1964 (and named for a former mayor of Naples), she was refurbished with accommodations for 152 first- and 1,155 tourist-class passengers. Achille Lauro sailed between Europe and Australia until 1973 when she entered the Mediterranean cruise trade. In 1981, a fire killed two people while the ship was cruising near the Canary Islands, and in 1982-83 she was leased to Chandris Lines after being seized by creditors.

Achille Lauro's eastern Mediterranean cruises generally took her from Genoa to Naples, Syracuse, Alexandria, Port Said, Tartus (Syria), Limassol, and Rhodes. On October 7, 1985, while en route from Alexandria to Port Said—the majority of the passengers had left the ship for sightseeing and were to rejoin the ship at Port Said—she was seized by four Palestinian terrorists. Two days later, after intervention by the Italian and Egyptian governments, the hijackers surrendered at Port Said. Almost immediately it was discovered that one of the hijackers had shot Leon Klinghoffer, a seventy-nine-year-old wheelchair-bound American passenger whose body they threw into the sea. The hijackers were surrendered to a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization to be flown to Tunis. U.S. jets forced down the Egyptian passenger plane carrying the hijackers at the NATO air base in Catania, Sicily, and they were handed over to Italian authorities to be tried for murder, as the ship was, under international law, Italian territory. The government of Prime Minister Bettino Craxi further outraged public opinion in the United States—and Italy—by proceeding to release the suspects, and Craxi was forced to resign after his coalition government fell over the issue.

Achille Lauro continued in service until 1994 when she caught fire and sank en route from Italy to South Africa. She had just rounded the Horn of Africa on November 30 when a fire broke out in the engine room. Two passengers died and most of the remaining 570 passengers and 407 crew boarded the tanker Hawaiian King before being transferred to other merchant and naval vessels. Achille Lauro sank on December 2 about 150 miles off the coast of Somalia.

Press reports. Bonsor, North Atlantic Seaway.

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