The SS Andrea Doria, laid down in 1950 and on her maiden voyage in 1953, was Italy’s postwar statement of recovery after losing half its merchant fleet and the liner Rex. Built for luxury rather than size or speed, she carried about 1,200 passengers and 500 crew on the Genoa to New York run, held over a million dollars in original art and a bronze statue of Admiral Andrea Doria, and gave each of three classes its own pool. She advertised a double hull, 11 watertight compartments, and radar, but model tests showed she was top heavy, and a rogue wave on her maiden voyage rolled her 28 degrees. Her manual required pumping seawater into emptied fuel tanks as ballast, yet crews skipped it to avoid costly tank cleaning in New York.

On July 25, 1956, in fog south of Nantucket, Captain Piero Calamai was steaming at about 21.8 knots when the eastbound Swedish liner Stockholm, running 20 miles north of the recommended lane with an ice reinforced bow, approached at 18 knots. Neither ship radioed. The Stockholm’s officer likely misread an unlit radar range dial, the Doria turned to port while the Stockholm turned to starboard, and at 11:10 p.m. the Stockholm’s bow drove 40 feet into the Doria’s starboard side. With empty tanks and no ballast, she listed past 20 degrees, leaving half her lifeboats useless. The French liner Ile de France under Captain Raoul de Beaudean turned back, lit every exterior light, and took 753 people aboard, while the damaged Stockholm rescued more than 500. The Doria stayed afloat 11 hours and sank at 10:09 the next morning.

• Fifty one people died: 46 on the Doria and five Stockholm crewmen in the bow.
• Maria Sergio and her four children, bound for Indiana, were lost in their cabin in the impact zone.
• Fourteen year old Linda Morgan was carried from her cabin onto the Stockholm’s bow and survived.
• Hearings ended in a confidential settlement, and the Swedish line was then building a ship at the same Italian yard.
• The wreck lies at 240 feet, is called the Mount Everest of diving, and has killed at least 22 divers.