Out of the Fog: The Sinking of Andrea Doria

Two very different ships collided off Nantucket, Massachusetts, on the night of July 25-26, 1956. Andrea Doria, the Italian liner, was one of the most luxurious vessels built during the immediate postwar period and represented the belief that people would continue to use ships to travel between the continents. When she docked in New York on her maiden voyage in 1953, one ship designer wrote: She is the most beautiful example of modern naval architecture I have ever seen. The Swedish Stockholm was a transitional ship, a cross between a freighter and a passenger vessel, intended to serve the Swedish America Line while the airlines gradually took over the passenger traffic across the North Atlantic.The collision between these two disparate vessels, which resulted in the loss of fifty-one lives and the handsome Andrea Doria, has been a subject of controversy for more than forty-five years. This translation of Algot Mattsson's Swedish book is likely to revive that debate.Gordon Paulsen was a member of the firm of maritime lawyers who represented Stockholm's owners in the legal actions that followed the collision and sinking. When the preliminary hearings opened on September 19, 1956, the question waiting to be answered was how a collision could occur on the open sea between two vessels equipped with all modern technical gear. When the hearings were terminated on January 24, 1957, the question remained unanswered. The shipping companies involved settled out of court, and the result of an actual trial can only be speculation.When he first discovered Algot Mattsson's work in the midnineties, Paulsen felt it deserved to be available for English-speaking readers, and he commissioned atranslation. He has edited the work for an American audience and appended a legal opinion about the contributing navigational faults and the comparative faults between the two ships. This is a fascinating account of a tragic event with the trappings of an unsolved mystery.