MONDOMARINE
CELEBRATES 100 YEARS OF
CANTIERI NAVALI CAMPANELLA
A century of constant activity in working and leisure vessel construction
1915 to 2015: these dates mark a century in business
for Cantieri Navali Campanella, an enormously long
period of constant activity in the shipbuilding sector,
covering two World Wars and two international
economic crises. The ongoing story of Campanella
began back in 1915 in Savona, when the two Ascenso
brothers founded Officine Riparazioni Industriali e
Navali di Savona, a company engaged in ship repair,
conversion and construction. Since the
beginning, it made itself felt as one of
the most important businesses active
in Savona at the time, and with its
workforce of more than 50 highly
specialised personnel, it soon seized
the various opportunities that
presented themselves during the First
World War and the two decades that
followed. Between 1935 and 1940 the company also
expanded its activities into rail transport and therefore
enlarged its workshop premises with a new shed
directly linked to the rail system of the port of Savona.
In 1941, the company changed its name to Officine
Costruzioni e Riparazioni Navali Campanella Ascenso
SpA for commercial reasons. Tito Campanella,
previously the owner of a similar company operating in
the port of Genoa, was appointed Chairman of what
had become a substantial company, and on his death
his son Piero Campanella, an engineer, was appointed
in his place. When the Second World War began, the
company received numerous orders from the Italian
Navy for the construction and conversion of certain
types of warship, such as landing craft and transport
ships. Immediately after the war, the company began
to rebuild the shipyard’s facilities so that in subsequent
years it was ready to participate actively in
constructing the new Italian merchant fleet, receiving
big orders including one for a series of tankers to
provide a transport service between the mainland and
Sardinia. However, due to the large size of these ships,
the shipyard felt it needed to expand its production
space and informed the Port Authority of Savona,
which soon licensed it a suitable area in the northwest
zone of the port where two staging areas and two
sheds were built from scratch. During the 1950s, the
shipyard carried out both complex repairs and
conversions of damaged and recovered ships, and
conversions of propulsion systems from steam boiler
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systems to diesel engine systems. The yard was
notably involved in constructing cargo barges for
the Argentinian Ministry of Public Works and also
the “Monviso”, a floating crane for Fiat, as well as
rebuilding the motorboat “Altino” for the Venice
lagoon navigation authority, the ACNIL. This last
marked the beginning of an unusual line of business
for the shipyard, “naval surgery”, which would be
repeated frequently in the years that followed.
A classic example is that of a ship quite heavily
damaged during the war and then recovered.
The yard constructed a large new forward section for
it that was welded to the remaining body of the ship,
rechristened “Paraggi” after its “surgical” extension.
In the same period, the shipyard lengthened and
modified the fishing vessel “Spes Prima” but, even
more importantly, it built both the 500-tonne tanker
“Varigotti” and the 550-tonne motor vessel “Schedir”
as well as two more 100-tonne barges. The 1960s
began for the shipyard with the construction of the
first tug boat built by the company, the “Giuseppe
Ghezzani”, for delivery to the shipowner Ghezzani in
Livorno. However, although repairs accounted for a
substantial volume of work during the period, with
many different jobs under way simultaneously both at
the quayside and at sea, new builds and conversions
remained the core business. The new builds included a
succession of barges, pontoons, floating cranes, motor
vessels and fishing vessels in large sizes, and even a
motor yacht named “Oceanico”. Conversions included
processes of various types including three tankers to
be converted into cargo ships, in response to the
requirements of a market that sought cargo ships for
bulk transport at a time when tankers had become too
small and therefore uneconomic. Meanwhile there was
another change of name, when in 1963, after the
retirement of Settimo Ascenso, the company took
the name “Campanella Cantieri Navali S.p.A.”.
The following year, the shipyard won contracts from
the Italian Ministry of the Interior for the supply of
various types of motor vessels as service boats in
Italian ports. A contract from 1966 provided for the
construction of three tug boats, commissioned by
Rimorchiatori Riuniti di Genova, with a length of
29 metres and a cycloidal propeller system from the
German firm Voith, which was unprecedented on
the Italian market.
MONDOMARINE CELEBRATES
100 YEARS OF CANTIERI NAVALI CAMPANELLA
The first of the three vessels was named “India” and
entered into service in 1967 followed by sister ships
“Istria” and “Panama” the following year. During this
period, the shipyard won two important tenders with
the Italian Ministry of Defence for the entire
provision of six MTM class landing craft to the Italian
Navy. In 1968, a contract was also placed by
Armasarda di Cagliari, a local subsidiary of
Rimorchiatori Riuniti di Genova, for the construction
of an ocean tug and rescue boat, “Ciclone”, which
would be launched two years later. At the same time,
two working motor vessels were under construction
for two different owners as well as seven firefighting
motor vessels after a national tender was awarded to
the shipyard in 1970. The 1970s were a time of
expansion and modernisation of the facilities, which
progressively expanded into the northeast zone of the
port of Savona between 1971 to 1977 in an area
licensed to the company by the Port Authority. Sheds
and staging areas were built on the new site, covering
15,000 m2, equipped with more powerful cranes and
bridge cranes, which meant that the shipyard was
properly prepared for new challenges. However, this
modernisation and expansion programme did not
interfere with ship building and repair work, which
continued at full speed throughout the decade,
concentrating increasingly on specialist vessels like
tug boats, firefighting vessels, support vessels,
working boats, ferries and passenger ships, and
merchant ships like tankers and cargo ships. The
shipyard’s order book was always full. Another tender
from Armasarda saw the shipyard building two more
ocean rescue tug boats to support large oil tankers,
the sister ships “Ariel” and “Espero”, which were
delivered in 1972 and 1973 respectively. This period
also saw the delivery of the “Marco Polo III”, a motor
vessel for passenger transport with a capacity of 200,
but most importantly the shipyard won a major
contract to convert the motor vessel “Varangberg”
from a bulk cargo ship to a tanker with the new name
“Monte Carmelo” for a Savona-based owner. While
this demanding conversion project was under way, the
shipyard also obtained an order from Tripcovich in
Trieste for a tug boat with a Voith cycloidal propeller
system to serve both the port of Trieste and the port
of Monfalcone. Two tenders in succession saw the
Savona-based shipyard building a total of nine
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firefighting motor vessels for nine Italian ports:
Augusta, Ancona, Genoa, Livorno, Naples, Palermo,
Ravenna, Savona and Venice. A standard series of
three tug boats was built for two different owners:
“Hercules” for Tripcovich in Trieste, and sister ships
“Lombardia” and “Piemonte” for Carmelo Noli in
Savona. A further conversion was also carried out for
Tarros in La Spezia: a motor vessel for transporting
logs from Scandinavia became a container ship with
the new name “Vento di Ponente”, and set off on her
maiden voyage between Italy and North Africa in
spring 1976. In 1978, a subcontract came in from
Cantieri Navali CNR in Genova, working on behalf of
the Tirrenia-Toremar regional government company,
for the construction of a 46-metre 400-passenger ferry
as part of its fleet renewal programme. 1979 was the
year of the conversion of the “Rubino” for the
Savona-based navigation company Beta. This tanker
was originally built in 1970 for transporting refined
petroleum products but needed to be converted to
transport speciality chemicals. Meanwhile for
Somocar in Genoa, the bulk cargo carrier “Gungnir
IV” was rechristened “Somocar Uno” after
conversion into a barge for transporting coal. Just like
the previous decade, the 1980s began for the shipyard
with major modernisation work on the facilities and
expansion of the available space, which was no longer
sufficient to meet the new needs caused by the
increasing size of the vessels the yard was working on.
A huge technical structure designed and built inhouse by the shipyard was installed at the Levante
staging area: a sliding platform on rollers with a
bearing capacity of 1,500 tonnes, so that ships with a
length of up to 75 metres and a beam of up to 15
metres could be moved and launched. The Solimano
staging areas were also restructured, including the
lifting equipment. In the absence of an adequate
basin, which was completely non-existent at the port
of Savona at the time, a suitable mooring area with a
new mobile crane was set up along the sea
embankment. These new infrastructural works by the
shipyard immediately proved to be a trump card for
tackling large, demanding builds such as the
“transoceanic” order received from a consortium of
Mexican owners for the construction of three ocean
fishing vessels for tuna fishing, with lengths of
80 metres / 260 feet.
MONDOMARINE CELEBRATES
100 YEARS OF CANTIERI NAVALI CAMPANELLA
In the same period, the shipyard also built a transport
ship for speciality chemicals, again for the Beta
shipping company in Savona. This was followed by
more tug boats, such as “Norvegia”, with a length of
24 metres, which was commissioned by Rimorchiatori
Riuniti di Genova both for coastal service and service
within the Genoa port complex. However, the
commercial strategy of the shipyard had undergone
changes for some time, and from the mid 1970s
onwards, the company’s main business progressively
shifted from the working vessel sector to the leisure
vessel sector. The first in the long line of motor yachts
built by Campanella was the famous “Mohamedia”,
built for Saudi Arabian magnate Adnan Khashoggi
(later the owner of the legendary Nabila), which was
recognised by Lloyd’s Register in 1975 for the quality
of her construction and the innovative nature of the
design. This motor yacht is still in operation today
and her comely lines have sailed through entire
decades, impervious to time and fashion alike. Over
the years, the shipyard’s motor yacht production grew
proportionally, until ownership of the facilities was
taken over by Mondomarine, the brand representing
the Shipbuilding Division created by Mondo, an
international multi sector business. At the beginning
of the 1990s, the shipyard took an important leap
forward with its entry into the exclusive sector of
30 metre / 100 foot plus motor yachts – and this was
a truly grand entrance, because the yard delivered
“Antares”, a full 40 metres in length. This was the
start of a long series of large motor yachts, in part the
fruit of all the experience accumulated over the
intervening period in fulfilling orders for additional
work or complete construction of motor yachts from
another historic Italian shipyard, Varazze-based
Cantiere Baglietto. Campanella’s time under the
Mondomarine flag is symbolised magnificently by a
pair of extraordinary vessels: “Over the Rainbow”
and “Tribù”. The first of these was a heartwarming
restoration of a historic navetta or shuttle boat, which
was skilfully carried out for her besotted owner, the
late artist and designer Jean Michel Folon.
The second vessel, meanwhile, was an outstanding
new build for the fashion stylist family Benetton,
incorporating cutting-edge environmentally friendly
solutions which led to her being the first motor yacht
to obtain RINA Green Star certification.
However, as always things changed again and shortly
before the yard’s 100th birthday, Campanella
underwent a further change of ownership when it was
bought by Alessandro Falciai and Roberto Zambrini
became the Mondomarine. Once again, though, we
are sure that this is the beginning of another long
journey into the next 100 years for this Italian
shipyard that sculpts ships in steel and aluminium.
Walter Douglass
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