Collision Course

by Moscow, Alvin;

  In the witness chair, Captain Calamai tacitly admitted at least partial responsibility for the collision when he testified the Andrea Doria was proceeding through dense fog which limited visibility to one-half mile at substantially her full speed. The practice aboard the ship as long as he had been master had been to reduce the Doria’s usual cruising speed of 23.3 knots to 21.8 knots by cutting the pressure in the boilers. The captain conceded too that reducing boiler pressure saved fuel but also reduced the available emergency backing or stopping power of the ship. It was possible to retain the full backing power by keeping full pressure on the boilers but throttling down the nozzles feeding the steam into the turbines. But this meant more fuel consumption and hence greater operating expenses. The captain surprised the court, however, when he admitted that he did not know the stopping power of his ship. He also said he did not know how much distance the Andrea Doria required to make a full ninety-degree turn. That data had not been tested during the trial runs of the ship in 1952 or since. It was like saying he was driving a car without knowing the stopping power of its brakes.

  But it was clear nevertheless that steaming at 21.8 knots, the Andrea Doria was not complying with the rule of the road which requires a ship to proceed in fog at a “moderate speed” or one in which it can be stopped in half the distance of visibility ahead. It has been estimated that to stop the Andrea Doria dead in the water from a speed of 21.8 knots would take about two miles. Half the distance of visibility that night was one-quarter mile.

  The Swedish Line attorney devoted almost half of his lengthy cross-examination of the captain to the stability of the Andrea Doria and the measures taken to save the ship after the collision. This was in line with his attempt to prove that the Stockholm was not responsible for the sinking of the luxury Italian liner. He argued that the Andrea Doria should have been able to withstand the damage of the collision.

  But on stability matters, Captain Calamai displayed a surprising lack of knowledge, answering question after question with “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember.” The Andrea Doria, he said, was a two-compartment ship, built in conformity to international standards. She was supposed to remain afloat with any two of her compartments fully or partially flooded. The latter condition is by far the worse, for water sloshing inside a ship threatens to capsize it as surely as would an equal weight of loose iron cargo rolling from one side of a ship to another.

  The captain admitted that at no time after the collision did he give the Engine Room any instructions on measures to be taken to save the ship, although the chief engineer on duty was a replacement for the regular chief engineer, on vacation.

  He agreed with Haight that the best way to correct the starboard list of the ship would be to flood the deep-fuel tanks on the port side of the ship. But he said this was impossible for some reason he did not know.

  He admitted that he was told the engineers were pumping water out of the flooded double-bottom tanks on the starboard side of the ship and that, in theory at least, this increased the danger of capsizing by further reducing the weight at the bottom of the ship. But he did not order the men to stop that pumping. He left the entire effort of saving the ship to his engineers, Captain Calamai said. Asked if it would have been possible to flood the deep-fuel tanks on the high port side to equalize the weight of the ship by pumping water from the sea into them, Captain Calamai said he did not know but he understood that maneuver also had been made impossible by the severe list to starboard. The indication was that the sea intake valves on the port side of the ship’s bilge line had risen out of the water when the ship went over on her right side.

  Captain Calamai said that the Andrea Doria had on board a certificate of safety, issued by the harbor master of Genoa, but that it too went down with the ship. Asked if the certificate had any conditions attached to it in regard to whether the fuel and water tanks of the ship were required to be ballasted at any time, the captain said, “The safety certificate did not have any elements, any data, to this regard.”

  Pressing his questions as to why the Doria took an immediate list of 18 to 19 degrees, Haight asked if the Italian Line had supplied the captain with information on the stability of the ship under emergency conditions. The captain said he did not remember. Had the Italian Line warned him that excessive heeling might result if the Doria should sustain unsymmetrical flooding approaching New York? The captain said he did not remember.

  The Swedish Line attorney, after quizzing Captain Calamai about stability of his ship, called upon Underwood and the Italian Line to produce various plans and blueprints of the Andrea Doria, as well as all the instructions for operating the ship under various load conditions given to the Italian Line by the Ansaldo Shipyard which built the ship. Underwood said he would comply although it might mean moving the entire home office of the Italian Line in Genoa to New York. He protested though against Haight’s request that the chief engineer of the Andrea Doria testify at the hearings, arguing that the chief engineer had been asleep in bed at the time of the collision and could contribute nothing to explain the cause of the collision. But he was overruled by Judge Walsh who agreed with the Stockholm attorney that the chief engineer should explain what was done to save the Andrea Doria after the collision.

  Haight questioned Captain Calamai for almost two full days on the stability of the Andrea Doria, before he went on to navigational matters. Captain Calamai readily conceded that when he first sighted the Stockholm seventeen miles away there had been sufficient time and sufficient deep water around his ship to turn the Doria to the right for a standard port-to-port, or left-to-left, passing. “Yes, I could have changed,” he said, “but I did not deem it necessary because I considered that the two ships were going green-to-green [starboard to starboard].”

  The captain insisted that as the two ships came together from seventeen miles apart, his second officer, Franchini, at the radar repeatedly told him the other ship was on a parallel course and would pass to the starboard. Franchini did not tell him the exact bearings except for the 4° bearing at seventeen miles and 14° bearing at about three and one-half miles when he turned the Doria four degrees to port. He saw the “glow” of the other ship’s lights when it was about 1.1 miles away and about 20° to 25° to starboard.

  Asked if he had expected to see the lights at that angle, the captain replied, “I didn’t compute the bearing, but I was so convinced that the ship would pass on our starboard side that it was not followed, it was not checked, when, in fact, we saw the glow.”

  Haight, then setting out to prove that even by the observations made aboard the Andrea Doria the two ships were not on parallel opposite courses to pass starboard-to-starboard, approached the witness chair and handed the captain a pad of plotting paper. He asked the captain to plot the radar observations, as remembered, aboard the Doria.

  Captain Calamai took the paper, looked at it and said softly, “It is the first time I see.”

  “Do you know how to use this kind of a plotting sheet?” asked Haight.

  “I am not very familiar because this is one work I let the officers do,” said Captain Calamai.

  Underwood protested that the captain should not be forced to do something which he admitted he was unfamiliar with and left to his officers. Haight insisted, arguing that in order to use radar and check on his officers, the captain of the Andrea Doria had to know how to interpret radar. The matter was referred to Judge Walsh, who ruled in favor of the Swedish Line attorney.

  After several hours of objections and arguments, Captain Calamai plotted the significant distances and bearings at which the Stockholm was observed before the collision: seventeen miles and 4° to starboard, five miles and 15° to starboard and 1.1 miles and 22½° to starboard.

  When that had been done, Haight asked: “My question is, is it not correct that the radar observations, distance and bearing, as set forth in your report to the Italian Line, show that in fact the Stockholm was not on a course parallel to the course of the Doria?”r />
  “I renew my objection unless a time is fixed,” said Underwood.

  “I think he can answer,” said the presiding hearing master. “Go ahead.”

  There was a silence in the room and then Captain Calamai answered in a soft, pathetic voice. “I can see it now from the maneuvering board.”

  The plot on the maneuvering indeed did show that the Stockholm, according to the radar observations, would barely clear the Doria. It showed a collision course.

  Haight then set forth another plot based upon the captain’s testimony that he made the 4° turn three and one-half miles away from the Stockholm instead of five miles. The captain had written in his first report to the Italian Line that the 4° turn had been made at a distance of five miles from the Stockholm. But in his court testimony, he said that although he remembered the distance as five miles both Franchini and Giannnini, who had been on the bridge with him, said it had been three and one-half miles. The second plot showed also that despite the Doria’s 4° turn, presumably widening the passing distance, the passing distance shrank noticeably into a collision course.

  “When you saw the glow of the Stockholm’s lights bearing about twenty-two and one-half degrees on your starboard bow at a distance of about 1.1 miles, if Captain Franchini had reported to you that even though you had altered the Doria’s course four degrees to your left, the passing distance had closed from .8 mile to .2 miles,” Haight asked, “would you have continued ahead with the Doria at 21.8 knots …?”

  “If I would have had that information,” Captain Calamai replied, “I would have stopped the engines immediately, giving then full speed astern and coming possibly to the right, giving the signal of a turn to the right.”

  The commander of the Andrea Doria finally was saying that if his second officer had plotted the radar observations of the Stockholm when she was three and one-half or five miles away or had remained to watch the radar pip when the Stockholm turned to its right two miles away, Captain Calamai would not have lost his ship.

  When Second Officer Franchini took the witness stand, he testified he did not plot radar observations because it had never been the practice to do so in open sea under Captain Calamai’s command. Franchini, after working out substantially the same plots on the maneuvering board as had Captain Calamai, said that if he had plotted that night he would have seen the Stockholm turning to starboard.

  At no time that night as he watched his radar scope did he suspect that the Stockholm was making a turn, he said, admitting that after he had left the radar it must have shown clearly that the Stockholm was on a collision course. He left the radar, he explained, when he heard the captain and Giannini discussing sighting lights of the Stockholm. It is easier to see how another ship is maneuvering by seeing her lights visually rather than by interpreting radar, Franchini said.

  “Before you left the radar, did you at any time realize that the passing distance was closing?” asked Haight.

  “No.”

  “If you had plotted … you would have realized that the passing distance was closing, would you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you had told the captain that the passing distance was closing, what do you think he would have done?”

  “I don’t know,” said Franchini.

  “Have you been told that Captain Calamai had testified that if you had told him that the passing distance was closing that then he would have stopped and reversed and gone right?”

  “Yes, sir … he told me so,” said Franchini.

  The Swedish Line attorney walked up to the witness chair and pointed to the radar plot which Franchini had worked out showing the two ships converging. “If the captain had not been on the bridge and you as watch officer at the radar had seen by plotting that the passing distance was closing,” asked Haight, “what would you have done?”

  Franchini hesitated and tried to duck the question. “It all depends,” he said. The Swedish Line attorney pressed this question and Franchini, somewhat abashed, finally asserted, “I would not like to answer because it takes me in a position to criticize eventually the maneuver of the commander. Whatever I would have done, I would not want to answer, because the captain did his maneuver.”

  There was an electric silence. Underwood, his hands clasped behind his back, paced the floor. Haight, in a compassionate tone of voice, told Franchini who was looking around the room for help, “Mr. Franchini, I respect your not wanting to in any way criticize the captain’s maneuver, but each one is in this court to answer questions as best as he can, and I do, please, want an answer to my question.”

  Franchini looked despairingly at Underwood. “Do I have to answer?” he asked.

  The Italian Line lawyer replied bluntly, “Captain Franchini, if you understand the question, you should answer it.”

  “Academically speaking,” said the second officer, pausing for breath, “most probably I would have inverted the motion of the engines and I would have turned to one side.”

  “To which side would you have turned?” asked Haight.

  “Probably to the right,” came the reluctant answer.

  This left unanswered the basic question of whether the ships actually had been right-to-right or left-to-left before their last-minute desperate turns. It has remained a source of controversy because the question is not susceptible to a direct and absolute proof. Ordinarily in admiralty cases the logbooks, navigational charts and course recorder tapes provide enough information for the lawyers and experts to reconstruct a marine accident by plotting the courses of the ships involved. But in this case, with the logbooks of the Andrea Doria not available, the information on hand was too meager for such plotting.

  If one takes a navigational chart of the Nantucket waters and lays off the course of the Stockholm heading for the Nantucket Lightship, as plotted by Carstens, and then lays off the remembered course of the Andrea Doria away from the lightship, one finds the ships were approaching one another head-on, or nearly head-on. The lines would show the ships to have been in a slightly crossing situation, with only one or two degrees separating their being head-on to one another. In such a position, it would be possible for the radars to show one ship off to the right and the other one off to the left. This is so because radar beams travel in a straight line and reflect from the highest point of a ship sighted, a mast or a funnel, and do not show an entire ship on the radar screen. However, drawing two straight lines on a navigational map can at best only approximate the position and courses of two ships. Ships do not travel in straight lines. They yaw from side to side and are set off course by currents, tides and winds.

  The best source of information in reconstructing the collision, if correlated with the testimony of the officers of both ships, is the course recorder graph of each ship. Even the honest testimony of eyewitnesses on the bridges of the two ships must be viewed critically because people honestly see things differently, particularly those caught up in the frenzy of an accident. But course recorders, which record every single heading and turn of a ship underway, are mechanically objective, subject only to the normal deviations of a mechanical instrument, which can be corrected by the testimony of witnesses.

  The graphs of the course recorders of the Stockholm and the Andrea Doria were interpreted for the hearings by the same man—William R. Griswold, sales manager of the Marine Division of the Sperry Gyroscope Company, manufacturers of the course recorders used on both ships. Mr. Griswold, an impartial expert, put into words the meaning of the graphs, but he carefully refrained from any interpretations, obvious though they might be.

  The course recorder graph of the Stockholm correlated closely with the testimony of Carstens-Johannsen, allowing for normal deviations on time and bearings with the ship’s clock and gyrocompass.

  The Stockholm course recorder showed that:

  The reading of the course recorder was broken down into fractions of minutes for the time immediately preceding the collision. A sharp jog in the pen motion indicated the impact of col
lision, recorded at 11:11 P.M. course recorder time. Subtracting the two minutes difference for the 11:09 P.M. time of collision noted by Carstens, the course recorder shows that:

  At 11:06½ the Stockholm made a 25° turn to the right to 119°, which it held for two minutes (correlated to the 22° turn estimated by Carstens when he first saw the lights of the Doria).

  At 11:08½ P.M. the Stockholm began a hard right turn. At about 11:09 ship had turned 13° to a heading of 132° when the pen was jogged, indicating the point of collision, and then continued right to a heading of 150° at 11:10 P.M.

  In the next 20 seconds approximately, the Stockholm turned sharply farther right from 150° to 210°—a 60° turn in a third of a minute. This would be an impossible turn for any ship the size of the Stockholm without the push of an outside force (presumably the Doria).

  From 11:10 to 11:11½, the Stockholm turned another 18° to the right and then began to swing left, right and left out of control.…

  The course recorder graph of the Andrea Doria, containing the crux of the controversy on the positions of the ships before the collision, was more difficult to interpret. Nowhere on the graph was there a clear and definite jog of the pen to indicate the point of collision, such as there was on the Stockholm graph. A final decision on whether the ships were right-to-right or left-to-left before the collision would depend upon the interpretation of the graph of the Doria’s course recorder.

  Only the section for the twelve hours before the collision was saved, and although the Swedish Line attorneys argued that there was no way to prove that the undated graph was that the final voyage of the Doria, it contained enough information to reconstruct the important events preceding the collision. The graph did not correspond to the times or heading of the Doria as testified to by Captain Calamai and his watch officers. But the differences were explained. Captain Calamai and the others testified that in Naples the recorder pen ran dry and Second Officer Badano reset the pen and graph paper so that it no longer was synchronized with Greenwich Mean Time. The day before the collision, when the ship was heading at 267°, which was near the edge of the paper, First Officer Oneto moved the pen 10° ahead so that it would record away from the edge of the paper.