I'm sure you've heard the familiar story of the Titanic
But you may not have heard of another ocean liner sinking that occurred over 40 years later
Today we're going to look at the story of that vessel: the Andrea Doria
She was 212 metres long with a gross tonnage just under 30,000 tonnes.
She was designed mainly for luxury
Accommodating a maximum of one thousand two hundred and forty one passengers across three classes
Her twin propellers and steam turbines gave her a speed around 23 knots
so she was by no means the fastest ship at the time
At 11:00 a.m. On the 17th of July, 1956
she departed Genoa, Italy, with 277 passengers on board.
She went to Cannes to board another 48 passengers and continued on to Naples where she took on the majority:
another 744 before starting her passage across the Mediterranean Sea
She made her final stop in Gibraltar boarding another 65 passengers
before setting off across the Atlantic on a westbound passage towards New York.
A few days later on the 25th of July the Swedish American Line ship Stockholm departed
New York on a eastbound passage towards Gothenburg in Sweden. She was smaller than the Andrea Doria
160 metres in length with a gross tonnage of just over 12,000 tonnes
Originally, she was only built to accommodate 395 passengers across two classes
I say originally because she was actually extended to increase her capacity to 584
Anyway on that voyage she left New York with 534 passengers and 208 crew aboard.
After leaving the harbour she set off eastbound towards the Nantucket lightship
Which was used at the time to mark the hazardous shoals south of Nantucket Island
You can clearly see the shoals here on this modern chart
Of course at the time these separation schemes did not exist
So ships would simply keep south of the shoals instead of within the set corridors we use today
That same evening Andrea Doria was approaching from the east
inbound towards New York
She'd reduced her speed slightly. She had been traveling in heavy fog for many hours already
Following normal practice, she was sounding a fog whistle and had all her watertight doors already closed
Back on the Stockholm, they hadn't reached the fog bank yet. So for them, it was still a nice clear evening
Because of the fog, the only information the ship's had about each other was from their respective radars
Of course commercial radars in the 1950s were nothing compared to what we have today
There was no electronic acquisition of targets
So all the plotting had to be done manually
Both vessels had detected each other but the actions they took indicate that neither was fully aware of the situation
The Andrea Doria [steered] to port so she was obviously attempting a green to green in passing
Stockholm, on the other hand, [steered] to starboard intending a red to red passing
Given the fog, each ship didn't see the other until they were right on top of each other
At that point, Andrea Doria turned hard to port and Stockholm hard to starboard, but it was too late:
At around 11:00 p.m, Stockholm hit the Andrea Doria
Forward of mid ships at almost right angles. She smashed pretty much halfway through the Andrea Doria
Damaging herself right the way down to the keel
immediately all the damaged tanks on the starboard side flooded and
Andrea Doria developed a severe list to starboard
As she was near the end of her passage, her fuel tanks were almost all empty
She had been designed to survive that sort of damage
But the fact that the port fuel tanks were empty meant the list was too severe
and water could find its way past watertight separations
Her engineers attempted both to pump water out of the starboard tanks and to pump water into the port tanks
unfortunately inflow of water was just too great on the starboard side and
The intakes for the port tanks were already high above sea level
Within 30 minutes the captain decided to abandon ship
They got everyone prepared, but he didn't want to give that final to abandon ship until more help arrived
He wanted to avoid panic
Now unlike the Titanic, Andrea Doria had enough lifeboats for everyone
But due to the list, half of the boats were unusable
The other half couldn't be used normally: they would need to be launched empty
before evacuating everyone down the side of the ship on Jacobs ladders.
Again, unlike the Titanic, there were other ships that could immediately help
The Stockholm herself was able to assist as her damage was relatively limited
Emptying her forward fresh water tanks bore her close to a normal water line. So she was in no immediate danger
Distress calls were picked up by a number of other vessels
A 120 meter freighter the Cape Ann was the first and she proceeded straight to the collision site
pretty quickly though more ships joined: among others, the US Navy transport ship private William H Thomas proceeded
preparing their eight lifeboats while enroute; the destroyer USS Edward H Allen;
and the Coast Guard Cutter uscgc Legare also made for the scene
44 miles to the East, the French lines S/S Ile de France also picked up the distress
She was one of the largest vessels on the route, at 225 metres in length with a gross tonnage of almost 45,000 tons.
She was on an eastbound passage from New York to Le Havre at the time
She tried to contact the Andrea Doria
Because she knew that turning around would mean she'd have to return to New York to refuel before she could continue on to France
Saying that the master knew that if his help was needed his decision obviously wouldn't be questioned
He couldn't actually contact the Andrea Doria, but other ships relayed the Andrea Doria needed to evacuate
1500 passengers and crew so with that he immediately turned around ordering full-speed and summoning the crew to prepare his lifeboats
Back at the collision site once our master realized she was in no immediate danger
Stockholm sent her lifeboats across who helped Andrea dorias own boats to start ferrying passengers
From the Andrea Doria to the relative safety of the damaged stockholm
Over the next few hours,
responding ships arrived and they started helping however they could, ferrying survivors away from the sinking Andrea Doria
Less than three hours later, the Ile de France arrived on the scene
Her Captain positioned her close by in such a way that her sheer size could provide some shelter to the evacuation effort on Andrea Doria
Ile de France turned on all her exterior lights providing illumination through the night
The sight of the huge liner close alongside gave a great emotional relief to the Andrea Doria's remaining passengers and crew
10 lifeboats from the Ile de France joined the evacuation ferrying survivors back and forth
She also took boatloads of people from the other ships that have been helping. Other ships could give immediate safety
But by no means could they cope with the numbers in the way that the Ile de France could
By 9:00 a.m the next morning, even Andrea Doria's captain was forced to abandon ship
The Andrea Doria herself was finally recorded as sinking at 10:09 a.m. on the 26th of July, 1956.
In total, 1660 people were rescued that night
but tragically 46 still lost their lives
It could so easily have been much worse.
Unfortunately from an educational perspective, the companies ended up reaching a financial agreement. So the investigation was never concluded
Nowadays flag state or port state must investigate all accidents and publish their findings
So that we can learn from events like this instead of repeating them.
For this, we're left guessing as to the real cause. I think it's safe to say that inadequate operation of the radars
led to a misappreciation of the situation.
As for the actions to avoid collision, I don't know what the coll regs said back then
But under modern regulations, the actions that both vessels took would be in contradiction to rule 19
Which dictates what you must do in or near areas of restricted visibility
The listing suffered as a result of the collision was because of the air in Andrea Doria's port fuel tanks
Had they been ballasted, she may have remained upright long enough to launch her lifeboats
and may even have remained afloat long enough to reach port.
I only speculate to try and work out why.
If we understand why things happen in the past, hopefully we can prevent them happening again
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Until next time, thank you for watching and goodbye! :)