This Day In History - Italia Leaves Home Lines Fleet to Become Floatimng Hotel in the Bahamas
Home Lines Italia - 54 Years Ago - To become the Imperial Bahamas Hotel in Freeport, the Bahamas On April 28, 1964, An aging luxury liner started her third career at a Hoboken pier yesterday—This new role... a floating Hotel in the Bahamas. The liner is the 36‐year‐old Italia. Wth the stroke of a pen at a Hoboken pier, her name was changed to Imperial Bahama and title transferred from Home Lines to Canaveral International Corporation. For the 16,777‐ton passenger liner, which retained her Panamanian registry, it meant the end of two career—as a trans‐Atlantic passenger ship and cruise ship to the Bahamas, both out of the Port of New York, and as a World War II troop and war bride transport under United States registry. Before heading out of port later this week, the 609‐foot vessel will spend a few days at the Brooklyn yard of the Todd Shipyards Corporation for survey of her hull and a “haircut and shave”—shipyard slang for hull cleaning and painting. ...