Ship Wrecks

The battleship SMS Szent István

was an Austro-Hungarian Tegetthoff-class battleship built at the Ganz-Danubius shipyard in Rijeka. She was over 152 meters long, heavily armored, and armed with twelve 30.5 cm guns. This made her a dreadnought-class vessel. During World War I, she spent most of her time anchored in Pula, as the Allied blockade of the Strait of Otranto prevented her from accessing the Mediterranean Sea. On 10 June 1918, while attempting to break through, she was hit by two torpedoes from the Italian torpedo boat MAS-15, sinking her.

Two ships that became notorious wrecks:

SS Andrea Doria was a luxury Italian liner built in 1953. On July 25, 1956 she was off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, when she was hit by the Swedish-America liner Stockholm. 46 people on board died as a result of the collision, but 1,660 were saved. The wreck is now a popular dive site. The Stockholm was repaired after the collision and continued in service until 2020, latterly as the Astoria: she is currently being scrapped in Ghent, Belgium. The stamp shows a rather fanciful portrayal of the Andrea Doria by German singer and artist Udo Lindenberg. In reality she had only one funnel.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship was launched in 2005 for Costa Cruises. On January 13, 2012, she struck a rock just off the Italian island of Giglio. 32 people died and the ship's captain was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years in prison. The wreck was salvaged in 2015 and broken up in Genoa, Italy. The stamp is part of a miniature sheet issued by Gibraltar in 2006, depicting cruise ships that visited the port of Gibraltar.