The controversial unused COSTA CLASSICA mid-body section built by Cammel Laird has evidently been sold to Ukraine interests for breaking somewhere in Europe.

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CostaClassica Mid-Section Will Finally Leave Ship Yard

The 146 foot cruise ship mid-section that has been sitting in a British ship yard for the past 18 months has been sold for scrap and will be towed to Russia for breaking up. The section, which contains 15 decks and 350 cabins, a sun deck, and shopping promenade was built as part of a plan to expand the size of Costa Crociere's Costa Classica back in 2000. Costa Crociere, which is a unit of Carnival Corporation had contracted with the shipyard to have the 146 foot section of new build added to the middle of the 53,700 ton ship which would have increased the vessels overall length to 864 feet.

The scrapping signals the end of a project that at one time was hailed as the beginning of a new life for British ship yard Cammel Laird. The $72 million cruise ship conversion contract was the largest individual contract for the Liverpool shipyard and the loss of the contract had a significant impact on the company's financial viability and contributed heavily to the eventual closing of the ship yard.

At the time of the cancellation of the contract the Costa Classica was actually en route to the ship yard when she was called back to Genoa by Costa. Costa Crociere claimed that it had postponed delivery of the liner because work at the shipyard was behind schedule and that the quality of the project was not up to standards.

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[ 09-11-2002: Message edited by: Italian Cruiser ]

You're right, that's awful. What about "Costa Lotta" instead

In italian the word " lotta " means fight ....precisely a match between two men in the greek-roman tradition...

Italiancruiser,

BTW was the Romantica also going to be stretched or only the Classica?

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Originally posted by Italian Cruiser:
The Costa Victoria, after the entering in service of the Costa Atlantica is heavily discounted in the United States for a main reason: her cabins are very small and none is equipped with a private balcony.

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Indeed a hard fact. Costa Victoria is externally a rather smart looking ship but if you do not integrate balconies nowadays the ship will be less successful it’s just a fact. Though I don’t understand why cabins should have balconies, if you take a cruise why spend all that wonderful time in your cabin with a balcony!

That’s a bit of a said picture the “unrecognizable” midsection drifting a bit in the water.

I don't believe the poor quality of construction story myself, as the building of section would have been overseen by the underwriter at every step. If there were bones to pick with the quality then wouldn't that lay on the underwriter's doorstep for approving as it went along?

CL lost many other contracts prior to the Costa Classica fiasco and they also took a heavy hit from their ownership interests in the Big Red Boat II; the exposure there was tens of millions.

Additionally, it was NOT in Costa's best interests not to have the ship stretched as planned. They had spent millions on new furnishings for the ship, lost millions of dollars in revenues with having the ship out of service for the winter and they had already stripped the ship of it's furnishings and been performing pre-stretch "prep" work as the ship headed for the yard.

In addition, the stretch would have given Costa tens of millions in new revenue from the added capacity and new balcony cabins.

Costa's project managers gave CL several warnings that the work was not up to par and they were worried that the stretch job would run woefully behind schedule.

CL had previously done a bang up job for one of Costa's owners; Airtours. But a job of this size and scope was obviously beyond the yard's capacity.

Can you honestly blame a ship owner for not wanting a $350 million ship left languishing in a ship yard cut in two?

Pam... the underwriters don't get involved in surveys/inspections etc. That is what the Classification Societies do. They make the Construction 'Rules' and their Surveyors check to see that the ship is built to the plans which they have "Approved". These plans are drawn by the Company's Naval Architect and in conjunction with the yard's. It varies by Country but some plans have to be submitted to Government Depts for approval as well.

If one critisizes the standard of workmanship in cases like this then one steps on very sensitive toes, particularly here, and I don't intend to do that. I'll just say I was brought up doing refits/drydockings in that area and I wasn't impressed in those days.