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All text and photographs (unless stated otherwise) © Paul Timmerman Irpinia was rebuilt at a shipyard in Genoa, where she was given a new raked bow. Originally a three class vessel, this was changed to 187 passengers in first class and just over a thousand in tourist.
She
sailed to the Caribbean ferrying migrants for several years. In the summers of 1959/ 1960, Irpinia switched to a totally different destination: from
Europe to Montreal and Quebec. She was chartered to an organisation which
brought Hungarian refugees to the Irpinia to start a new life in Canada.
In 1962,
Irpinia was sent to the shipyard again for further modernisation. One of her two
funnels was removed, leaving one, more streamlined funnel.
She received a mast on
top of the wheelhouse. Apart from work carried out on her interiors, she was
also fitted with new Fiat diesels replacing her steam turbines. Again
Irpinia sailed from Europe to the Caribbean in the migrant service.
Starting from 1970, she became a
full time cruise ship. She sailed on the classic western
Mediterranean route out of Genoa to
Cannes, Barcelona, Palma, Tunis, Palermo and Capri.
Western Med route of Irpinia In 1976,
her owners decided to withdraw the ageing vessel. She was saved however by a
charter to a film company which wanted to shoot the film “Voyage of the
Damned” on board in Barcelona. James Mason and Faye Dunaway were amongst the
actors in this film and lived on
board. For this period, Irpinina was fitted with
two
dummy
stacks, as she “played the role” of the
German liner St. Louis on
her famous voyage from Germany to Cuba with 900 Jewish refugees on
board.
Surprisingly,
Irpinia returned to service again to start cruising in the Med on her familiar
route. In 1981 she was finally retired after 52 years of service. She was too
old to get an Italian certificate for seaworthiness. After
two years in lay up at La Spezia, she was finally broken up. End
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