Reports About Sabotage Cast Shadow Over Costa Toscana Building

   August 1, 2019 ,   Accidents

While the launch of the building of Finland's 2nd liquefied natural gas-powered (LNG) passenger cruise ship was celebrated at Meyer Turku Shipyard in Finland, reports about sabotage targeting the first vessel nearing completion surprised media.

The shipyard in Turku Finland is currently building two new liners for Costa Cruises. Costa Toscana is scheduled for delivery in 2021 and Costa Smeralda is to be inaugurated in November 2019. Both vessels have GT-tonnage ~180,000 and 2600+ staterooms each.

The steel-cutting ceremony for Toscana (on July 30) was shadowed by the local newspaper Turun Sanomat stating that "sabotage targeting the security systems of the nearly-ready Costa Smeralda has been found in recent weeks."

Costa Smeralda cruise ship

According to Tapani Mylly (Meyer Werft Turku's media spokesman), the saboteurs were likely to be subcontractor employees or shipyard workers. Mylly added the intention was "likely just to cause nuisance, as no effort has been found to burn the ship". Reports said that fire extinguishers had tampered.

For other Costa Smeralda accidents and incidents see at the ship's CruiseMinus page.