The fog itself grew thicker as the Andrea Doria approached the Nantucket Lightship, lying outside the shoal waters—for the origin of the fog that night was at these shoal, or shallow, waters where the warm Gulf Stream traveling up the east coast of the United States from Florida collided with the cold-water streams which originated in the Bay of Fundy, off Nova Scotia, and flowed past Maine down the east coast of the United States. The extent of the fog was unknown to the men aboard the ships in that area. It was only afterwards that it could be computed that the fog shelf extended some 160 miles west of the Nantucket Shoals to some 18 or 19 miles east of the shoals and the Nantucket Lightship.
In this fog, of course, Captain Calamai could not see the Nantucket Lightship, nor did he expect to. Franchini at the radar inside the wheelhouse called out the distances and bearings as the Doria approached the small anchored vessel. At 10:20 P.M., the second officer called out, “We are abeam of Nantucket. Distance—one mile.” He turned at that instant and looked at the wall clock in the chartroom, which he could see through the open door. Giannini in the chartroom noted the time and distance when abeam of the lightship. It was an important fact to mark down for it accurately reflected the exact position of the ship in the ocean at that given minute.
As the Andrea Doria sped by the unseen lightship, Captain Calamai called out the new course which would take the ship on a direct line to Ambrose Lightship at the mouth of New York Harbor. “Steer 268,” he ordered. The helmsman swung the wheel sharply again, this time to the right, bringing the ship to her new course just two degrees less than due west. The captain heard only six blasts of the lightship’s foghorn as the liner sped by and then the lightship was gone. Its position could be noted only on the radar scope where its pip faded into the distance behind the speeding liner. The very high frequency of the radio signals emitted by the radar set pierced the fog sharply in a straight line. But the sound waves of a foghorn are muffled and distorted by fog. Foghorns designed to carry four, six or eight miles are generally considered not reliable beyond a distance of two miles. Even then, a thick fog can radically change the direction of the sound of a horn or whistle.
In the chartroom, Third Officer Giannini marked off on the navigation chart the ship’s position one mile south of Nantucket and noted the time. Computing the distance and time from the last loran fix taken by Franchini, the third officer computed that the ship was traveling at 21.8 knots.
The ship was traveling in the open sea and the course ahead to New York was clear and direct. The Doria was on her last lap to New York. The fog outside persisted. Giannini, after finishing his work in the chartroom, reported the speed of the ship to Captain Calamai on the wing of the bridge. Staff Captain Magagnini and Franchini were conversing softly in front of the radar set.
The quiet of the bridge was broken by the ringing of the telephone. Giannini, the most junior officer, answered. It was a radio operator reporting a telephone call from New York for a passenger. The young officer relayed the report to the captain and Calamai said, “You go.”
The young officer left the bridge to deliver the message to the purser who, in the turn of the chain of command, would send a steward to find the passenger wanted. Before long Giannini returned to the dark and quiet wheelhouse, where he had to adjust his sight once again from the well-lighted passenger section of the ship to the blacked-out wheelhouse.
He walked over to Franchini who was standing near the radar. “Would you like me to take over the radar watch?” he asked the older officer.
“No, I’ll stay,” Franchini said with a sort of casual shrug. Peering into a black radar screen on the lookout for tiny yellow pips is perhaps the most onerous part of a bridge watch, but the third officer had been at the radar for the first two hours of the watch. Franchini decided to take the radar watch for the last two hours.
Approximately 20 or 25 minutes after passing the Nantucket Lightship, Franchini observed a small, barely definable pip at the outer edge of the radar scope. He thought it represented a slow ship which the Andrea Doria was overtaking. He kept his eye on the spot of the pip as the illuminated flasher swept the scope, lighting the pip every eight seconds. In a few moments he saw he had been wrong. It was a ship but it was not going in the same direction; it was coming in the opposite direction.
“It’s a ship!” he yelled out. “I can see a ship coming against us!”
“What’s the bearing?” Captain Calamai queried.
Captain Magagnini and Giannini walked to the radar set to peer over Franchini’s shoulder as the second officer put the adjustable cursor on the pip, and announced, “She’s seventeen miles away, four degrees to starboard.”
The three officers at the radar watched the progress of the pip with interest. By the rate at which the gap between the pip of the other ship and the center spot of the radar, which represented the Doria, closed, it became more and more apparent the two ships were coming on opposite tracks. No one bothered to plot the course or speed of the ship. No one foresaw any difficulty or danger in passing a single ship in the open space of the ocean. In fact, there was such an absence of foreboding that Captain Magagnini chose this time to leave the bridge.
The genial staff captain renewed his offer to take over from Captain Calamai who had been up on the bridge since three o’clock that afternoon. But the captain declined again. Captain Magagnini said “Good night” and retired to his cabin one deck below the bridge to catch up on some paper work before going to bed.
Despite the calm sea that night, the Andrea Doria rolled considerably. It was the last night out. In the eight-day crossing the huge ship had expended some 4,000 tons of fuel oil and fresh water which had served as ballast in the bottom of the hull. The Andrea Doria, like most modern passenger Liners, was a tender ship. She was top-heavy, especially at the end of her voyages, because of her large superstructure, needed to provide public rooms and recreation space, in comparison to the shape and weight of the hull underwater, streamlined for speed. Like a huge pendulum, the ship rolled slowly and steadily on one side of her rounded hull; then she rolled back to an even keel and swung over lazily on her other side. The rolling increased the usual yawing of the ship as the bow headed first to the right and then to the left as the liner made her way forward in the water. No ship travels in a straight line. But this was the last night out and passengers, or most of them, had become quite accustomed to the incessant motion of the ship as she throbbed, rolled, pitched and yawed through the water. Certainly the crewmen on the bridge took no notice.
Both Captain Calamai and Third Officer Giannini from time to time walked into the wheelhouse to observe the pip of the other ship on the radar. Franchini hardly left the set as he continued to observe the pip advance down toward the center of the radar screen on a course generally parallel to the heading flasher of the Doria. It indicated that the other ship was coming on an opposite and parallel course slightly to the starboard of the Doria. The identity of the ship, he did not know. But it mattered little. As long as it was a ship, the Andrea Doria had to avoid any danger of collision.
As the two ships drew closer and closer together Franchini reported from time to time that the other ship was still to the starboard, or right, and on an opposite, parallel course to that of the Doria. He was estimating the other ship’s course in his mind’s eye without plotting. This was akin to doing long division mentally to find an approximate answer. At sea this approximate answer usually suffices, although radar experts shudder at the inherent danger of the practice. The approximation is safe as long as the navigator remembers to take bold and positive action early enough to avoid any collision which might result from incorrect radar observations. The ideal is to keep one’s ship far enough away from any other ship so as to make a collision physically impossible no matter what unexpected turns are executed on the other ship.
Franchini was following the rule of thumb known to all seamen, that if the angle of the radar bearing on the other ship increases, there will be a safe passi
ng; if it remains constant, there is danger of collision. To Franchini this night the angle appeared to be increasing.
To Captain Calamai it seemed that a ship to the right of the Doria on this westbound track to New York must be heading toward shore, probably Nantucket. He assumed vaguely that the other ship probably was a fishing trawler or some sort of small vessel heading for Nantucket Island. Fishing boats were not uncommon in these waters. With the east coast of the United States to the right of the Andrea Doria and the open sea to her left, Captain Calamai decided to keep to the left.
Despite the Rule of the Road which required ships meeting head-on or nearly head-on to turn right for a port-to-port passing, Captain Calamai believed there was sufficient passing distance for a starboard-to-starboard passing. By keeping to his left, Captain Calamai was keeping his ship toward the open sea rather than encountering the dangers of coming too close to land. There was always the possibility that if he turned right toward land and shallow water, he might encounter another ship which would require him by law to turn farther to the right and even closer to the shore.
Whether or not he consciously considered each one of these possibilities, the captain was not unduly concerned. He had an officer posted at the radar, keeping the other ship under observation at all times. On the wing of the bridge he could see nothing except fog and hear nothing but the bleating of the Doria’s own fog whistle. He noted, however, the fog was beginning to thin out somewhat. Visibility increased to perhaps three-quarters of a mile, more or less. It was next to impossible to judge distances on the open sea without the benefit of a landmark by which to gauge the eye.
Captain Calamai, pacing the quiet, dark bridge of his luxury ship, had full confidence in the speed of his ship and his own ability to navigate safely. This was a confidence, not of any daredevil venture such as obstinately refusing to give ground, but rather of his two-score years of sailing without an accident. At his command was one of the finest, fastest, and most maneuverable ships of the world. He had spent most of his years at sea navigating the large, fast liners of the Italian Line and felt he could rely on the speed of the Andrea Doria and his ability to maneuver her.
Without any plotting of the exact course and speed of the other ship, Captain Calamai did not realize that the ship bearing down upon him was also a fast vessel and therefore more likely to be a large, modern vessel than a fishing boat. Plotting would have told him the combined speed of the two ships was 40 knots: closing in two miles every three minutes.
When the two ships were about seven miles apart, Franchini switched the radar to a close-up range. The round screen on the close-up range reflected a radius of eight miles instead of twenty miles. The pip of the other ship appeared larger and set back near the outer rim of the radar scope. Franchini watched the pip progress faster now down toward the center of the radar screen. He estimated that the other ship, if it continued on its present course, would pass the Doria on the starboard side at a distance of perhaps a mile, perhaps a bit less. The second officer reported this to Captain Calamai, who came in to see the radar scene himself.
There was an aura of concentration on the bridge as Captain Calamai prepared to take action, if necessary. Yet there was no tension. There was only one ship seen on the radar and miles of ocean on all sides of the Andrea Doria.
Helmsman Domenchini asked if he could be relieved at the wheel to go below for a cigarette. Captain Calamai gave his permission, and Seaman Giulio Visciano took the helm.
Visciano, a forty-three-year-old seaman, was at the wheel when Captain Calamai gave his first order since the other ship had been sighted at a distance of seventeen miles. The captain gave the order when Franchini reported the oncoming ship to be some fifteen degrees to starboard at a distance of … Here the captain and the radar officer differed on a vital point later when they tried to reconstruct the events. Franchini said the distance was three and one-half miles. The captain said it was five miles. The importance of this difference was to become evident at the Federal Court pre-trial hearing which followed.
But whatever the distance, it was at this point that Captain Calamai told the helmsman, “Four degrees to the left … and nothing to the right.” The captain had decided to increase the passing distance between the two ships for safety’s sake. Believing the ships would pass safely starboard-to-starboard even without his change of course, he saw no reason for any “positive” change of course taken “in ample time.” He was confident in the knowledge of the speed of the Andrea Doria.
Helmsman Visciano turned the wheel to the left until the compass reading came to 264 degrees and then he straightened the wheel on the new course. As the ship yawed, however, he kept the helm from coming back to the right, thus making a slow and even left turn. His action was what the captain had wanted by his order, “Nothing to the right.” It was an order peculiar and common only to the Italian merchant marine, used as a means of veering gradually in one direction so as to increase a passing distance without getting too far off course. It had the advantage of saving fuel and computations expended in taking a zig and zag “positive” action to steam around another ship. It had the disadvantage of being so slight an action as to be unobservable by the navigator of the other ship.
Franchini at the radar next reported the other ship two miles distant and still on a parallel course (despite the four-degree turn and subsequent veering of the Doria).
Captain Calamai, followed by Giannini, walked to the railing halfway out on the bridge wing, listening for the foghorn of the other ship. They heard only the long blast of the Doria’s fog signal every 100 seconds. Both the captain and the young junior officer assumed that because the Andrea Doria was in fog, sounding fog whistles, the other ship also should be blowing her fog warning.
Giannini, standing next to the captain, wondered aloud, “Why don’t we hear her whistle?” Captain Calamai remained silent, looking into the fog. “She should whistle,” said the third officer plaintively. The other ship was within two miles of the Doria and the two officers could see and hear nothing of it.
Giannini strode into the wheelhouse for a glance at the radar. He saw the pip of the ship less than two miles off and about 30 degrees to the right. Snatching up a pair of binoculars, he returned to the wing of the bridge and scanned the sea ahead with the aid of the powerful lens.
In a moment he saw a faint, diffused glow of light in the nighttime fog. “There she is!” he exclaimed, pointing. “Do you see?”
“Yes, I see,” the captain replied, straining to distinguish from the vague glow of light two separate masthead lights so that he could determine the direction of the other ship.
Franchini, overhearing the conversation, assumed the other ship had been sighted visually from the wing of the bridge and that it was no longer incumbent upon him to follow the radar pip of the other vessel. He abandoned the radar to join the captain on the bridge wing and to see the ship for himself.
As he walked toward the door of the wheelhouse, the bridge telephone rang. He changed his direction to answer the phone. It was the lookout on the bow, Salvatore Colace, reporting. “I see lights on my right.”
“That’s all right,” replied Franchini. “We are seeing lights too.” Actually, at that time Captain Calamai and Giannini could see only the diffused glow of lights.
Giannini was the first to see the masthead lights of the Stockholm. The impression of the two lights flashed through his mind in an instant as he peered with his binoculars through the wet mist which hung upon the wing of the bridge. For the first instant, the lights seemed to indicate the other ship was heading off to the right. The forward lower light was to the right of the aft higher light. But in the next instant, the lights seemed to reverse themselves. He now saw not only the two masthead lights but also the red glow of the light on the left side of the other ship.
“She is turning, she is turning!” the young officer screamed. “She is showing the red light!” He gasped for air. “She is coming toward us!”
Captain Calamai saw the two white lights then and hesitated, perhaps for a split second. It must have seemed though like an eternity. It was impossible to believe this was happening. The masthead lights were opening. The other ship was turning to her right and heading toward the Doria. The red side light, shouting catastrophe to the captain, glared brighter and brighter as the ship closed in. She seemed less than a mile away.
This was the moment of decision, immeasurable in time, for the master of the Andrea Doria. There were so many miles of ocean around and now so little room. His lifetime knowledge of the sea and ships had to be used for the correct instinctive maneuver, if he were to have any hope of avoiding a collision. Should he go right? Left? Straight ahead? Stop?
The decision made, Captain Calamai called out, “Tutto sinistra … all left.”
Helmsman Visciano spun the power-driven wheel as fast as he could to the left. When the wheel would turn no more, he bent over, pressing all his weight on the wheel, holding one of the spokes with both his hands in a desperate attempt to make the ship turn faster.
Giannini dashed to the center window of the wheelhouse to get a better perspective view of the other ship. One can easily mistake visual bearings sighted from a side wing of the bridge.
Franchini rushed to the automatic fog signal while at the same time he shouted to his commander, “Captain, the signal … the two whistles.”
Collision Course Page 6