Having sunk multiple times before reaching her final resting place off the
island of
Grenada, the ship known as the Bianca C. is among the unluckier
seafaring vessels.
Built during World War II at
Construction Navales La Ciotat, a
shipyard on the southern coast of France, the boat was first launched in June 1944
under the name
Marechal Petain. Construction had not yet been completed, so
the ship was towed to
Port Bouc, where she was torpedoed by the Germans in
August. When the hull was raised, it was renamed
La Marseillaise and towed to
Toulon before being returned to La Ciotat to be refitted as a
cruise ship.
When the remodeling was completed in July 1949, she sailed to
Yokohama. In
1957, the ship was given the name
Arosa Sky after being sold to Panama's Arosa
Line. She was refitted again and became the company's
flagship, but within
two years Arosa Line was forced to sell the boat to Costa du Genoa, an Italian
company also known as
Linea C. After that 1959 sale, the boat was renamed the
Bianca C. for one of the owner's daughters, and was refurbished once again.
The Bianca C.'s main route ran from Italy to Venezuela, including stops in the
Caribbean.
On October 22, 1961, the Bianca C. was ten days out of Naples and docked off
Grenada when an
explosion occurred in the engine room in the early hours of the
morning. One crewman died immediately, and eight others were injured; second
engineer
Rodizza Natale later died of his injuries. As fires broke out,
approximately 700 passengers and crew scrambled to
abandon the ship
while Grenadian fishermen and boat owners - awakened by the noise of the
explosion - near the harbor of
St. George's rushed to help. Survivors were taken to
the capital, where makeshift hospitals were hastily established to provide
shelter and food. By dawn, the fires were out of control, to the dismay of
captain
Francisco Gravato, who circled the burning hulk in a
powerboat. Because
Grenada did not have the equipment to quench such a large fire, a call for help
was sent and was received by the British frigate
H.M.S. Londonderry at Puerto
Rico. It took two days for the Londonderry to arrive, and by that time the
Bianca C. had begun to sink. The burning ship was in the main
anchorage and
would block the harbor if it sank there, so a Londonderry boarding party boarded
the flaming boat to attach a
towline. The anchor lines of the Bianca C. were
burned, and today the
anchors are still at the mouth of the St. George's
harbor. Meanwhile, the Londonderry moved to tow the Bianca C., but the latter ship
was
listing to port. Thousands of Grenadians watched from the mountains as
the tow progressed for six hours, but the Bianca C. had only moved three miles
when a
squall started and the towline broke. The Bianca C. sank quickly into
165 feet of water, about a mile from the popular tourist beach at
Grand Anse.
In the 1970s, a
Trinidadian firm salvaged the Bianca C.'s propellers and sold
them for scrap. As the top of the ship is in only about 100 feet of water,
scuba divers can reach it and in the late 1980s and early 1990s some removed
parts of the boat for souvenirs. In late 1992, the rear third of the ship was
torn off and the ship began to deteriorate quickly, though at 600 feet in length
it is still the region's largest
shipwreck. A bronze statue of
Christ of the Deep was given by the Costa Line to Grenada in appreciation of the country's
hospitality, and the statue stands in the
Carenage surrounding the harbor at St. George's.
Sources
Exhibit at the
Grenada National Museum, St. George's, Grenada
http://www.spicedivers.com/BiancaC.htm
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g147295-d148396-Reviews-Bianca_C-Grenada.html
http://www.divegrenada.com/biancac.htm