The Destriero will be dismantled and thus a piece of the shipbuilding history of Italy and La Spezia in particular. This was reported by the States General of Italian Heritage, a body of public interest for the valorisation of activities, assets and cultural heritage established in 2004 by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, which had long been interested in the fate of the unit built in Muggiano in the nineties.
“The ownership has decided to complete its demolition at the Lurssen shipyard in Bremen in Germany where it had lain abandoned for almost thirty years after being laid up,” explains a note citing sources close to the shipyard. The Destriero ship was commissioned by Prince Karim Aga Khan in 1992 to win the coveted Blue Ribbon. In 2022 it was the Stati Generale del Patrimonio Italiano body chaired by Ivan Drogo Inglese in collaboration with the Fincantieri Foundation led by General Carlo Magrassi, who organized the solemn ceremony on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Destriero’s feat. The chosen place could only be the Muggiano shipyard where the Steed was built.
On that occasion the most important exponents of the Italian navy met. “A touching ceremony – he remembers English Drago – with the participation of the president of Fincantieri general Claudio Graziano, the pilot Cesare Fiorio, the undersecretary Stefania Pucciarelli, the secretary of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda Edoardo Recchi and of course the crew members and their families”.
After the international spotlight and an initial idea of transforming it into a yacht, the ship ended up in the Lursen shipyards in Bremen. She was pulled ashore, deprived of the turbines and left exposed to the inexorable effects of time. The aluminum had progressively given way, causing large holes in the hull. Yet the Aga Khan’s administration, in all these years, has always continued to regularly pay for the expensive parking of the enormous vessel.
In the 1990s, the Destriero created the conditions for future fast navigation even for large vessels, paving the way for ferries and fast cruise ships which would later become an important asset in Fincantieri’s balance sheets. “The Aga Khan delegated an important law firm with which we interfaced. Our proposal was to sell the property for a symbolic value to a specially established foundation – recalls Inglese -. But the knot that could not be resolved was above all represented by the huge costs necessary to transport the Steed from Bremen to La Spezia. A long journey which from the construction site involved going up the Weser River, reaching the North Sea and then passing through the English Channel and entering the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar”.
“The idea would have been to restore it and place it on the water front of the port of La Spezia in an area clearly visible to cruise passengers. Furthermore, the University of Genoa has its own educational center on naval design in La Spezia” explains Drogo Inglese. From the Chamber of Deputies, on the initiative of the Honorable Giovanni Battista Tombolato and thirty other parliamentarians, a written question was even presented to the then Minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini, the proposal was to bind the property pursuant to Law 42/2004 (the cultural heritage code).
Undersecretary Lucia Borgonzoni will respond for him “let him return to Italy and we will pay attention to the matter”.
Even in the government someone took an interest in the matter. It was Stefania Pucciarelli, at the time undersecretary of the Ministry of Defense and now a senator. It was she who repeatedly, without success, raised awareness of the giant Fincantieri. On the other hand, the costs necessary for the restoration of the boat would have been huge. Drogo Inglese remembers having spoken about the project “with Donald Blount, shortly before he died, that is, the American engineer who designed the hull, with his friend Paolo Pininfarina, who recently passed away, since it was Pininfarina who designed the aerodynamic lines and also with Cesare Fiorio who over time has become a dear friend of mine. With the demolition of the Destriero, one of the most glorious symbols of Italian boating disappears.”
