Italian Pains Wessex distributor Jonassohn has supplied all the pyrotechnics for the latest luxury Cunard cruise ship, Queen Victoria.
Jonassohn SRL was founded in 1949 by a Norwegian master mariner and started commercial activities in 1967, specialising in the safety of life at sea sector.
Based in Genova, the company opened its inflatable liferaft service station in 1976 and was the first company to introduce the Marine Evacuation System. The first MES were fitted to the Italian Navy ships San Giorgio and San Marco in 1987.
The Queen Victoria, which weighs in at 90,000 tonnes, was officially named by HRH Duchess of Cornwall, accompanied by HRH the Prince of Wales, in the UK port of Southampton in December 2007. The five star luxury liner has been likened to a floating palace with 1,007 cabins capable of holding 2,000 passengers and 1,000 crew.
The cruise liner, which is currently on her maiden voyage – a round the world cruise which began in January – has two outside swimming pools, a conservatory filled with exotic plants and a retractable roof, several bars and lounges, a casino room, a museum, the first theatre at sea with private boxes, a library, an arcade of shops inspired by London’s Burlington and Royal Arcades, and a glass-domed roofed nightclub.
She is the first Cunard line ship built by Fincantieri, one of the most technically advanced shipbuilders in the world who have built more than 7,000 vessels, at the Marghere Shipyard near Venice and is registered to Southampton, UK.