The ship was launched on 31 March 1957 and completed in March 1958 by the Ansaldo Sestri Ponente shipyard in Italy as Federico C, the first new ship built for the Costa Cruises.[5] The ship initially provided a liner service between Genoa, Italy and Buenos Aires, Argentina via Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. During that time, in 1963, Witold Gombrowicz traveled from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Europe on the ship. The famous Polish writer and playwright left his home country 24 years earlier aboard MV Chrobry, having been invited to take part in the maiden voyage of the latest addition to the Polish flotilla of liners. In 1966 Federico C was transferred to a service between Genoa and Florida, the Caribbean and Venezuela. The ship underwent a major refit in 1968, then added Caribbean cruises between trans-Atlantic trips. Federico C operated cruises exclusively from 1972 until 1983, when the ship was sold.[6]
In 1983, Premier Cruises obtained the ship and named it Royale; it became StarShip Royale in the same year. In 1988, the ship was renamed SeaBreeze when it was placed in service for Dolphin Cruise Lines. One year later, the ship had been refurbished. Premier took possession of the ship when it acquired Dolphin in 1997. When Premier went out of business in September 2000, the ship was ordered to immediately cease operations and dock at Halifax Harbour. Some days later, it sailed to be laid up in Freeport, Bahamas.
On December 17, 2000, the ship sank off the coast of North Carolina/Virginia. The boiler allegedly broke off and damaged the ship.[7] [8]
The investigation into the sinking of Seabreeze I caused international concern, based upon numerous suspicious incidents, including the fact that the ship was likely to fetch only between $5 and $6 million for scrap, but had a $20 million insurance policy on it. The cruise ship sank in international waters flying the Panamanian flag, making Panama responsible for the investigation of the sinking.
The ship's captain told the United States Coast Guard rescuers that his boat was in imminent danger of sinking as a result of its engine room being flooded in high winds and 25feet seas. At the time, the Coast Guard rescuers believed that it was highly unlikely for a ship that large to sink that quickly, and were astonished when the Greek captain demanded that all hands be extracted from the ship, instead of requesting salvage tugs and trying to tow it to shore for recovery. Subsequently, all 34 crewmembers were rescued; there were no passengers on board.
At the time of the sinking, Steven Cotton of the International Transport Workers' Federation in London stated that he wished that the ship, which went down 225nmi off the Virginia coast, had gone down 25nmi closer to the coast because that would have put the case in the hands of American investigators. According to Cotton, "Panama's track record of carrying out comprehensive investigations into vessel sinkings is not very good."[9]
The vessel had just been purchased by Cruise Ventures III, a subsidiary of New York-based DLJ Capital Funding, and was traveling from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Charleston, South Carolina.[10]