Andrea Doria Case Study

On the Andrea Doria, Capt. Calamai reported that right before the collision he saw the Stockholm’s red sidelight and forward masthead light swing to the left of the higher aft masthead light (Halpern, 2008). This indicated to Capt. Calamai that the Stockholm was turning into them. In response, Capt. Calami ordered hard left rudder and signaled on the whistle his turn to port (Halpern, 2008). However, his attempts failed as well. The Andrea Doria’s starboard side was no giant crater, and the vessel immediately took on a severe list. Surprisingly, it took 11hrs for the Andrea Doria to sink (Halpern, 2008). The bearing reports of the crew on the Andrea Doria and Carstens plots on the Stockholm grossly contradict each other. The bearings Carstens plotted puts the Andrea Doria off to the Stockholm’s port side (Halpern, 2008). The bearings the crew of the Andrea Doria reported puts the Stockholm off to its starboard side (Halpern, 2008). However, the reports can’t be entirely trusted. The reports from the crew of the Andrea Doria are just estimates of what they observed, because there were no plots to refer to during the …show more content…
Although Third Officer Carstens was competent enough to plot the Andrea Doria on a RADAR plotting board, he was not competent enough to understand why the Andrea Doria bearing was changing so erratically on the RADAR. Had Carstens noticed this wide variation on the RADAR, then he would have realized the helmsmen was not staying on the course properly. In return, he would not have depended on the helmsmen to report the heading of the ship when he was plotting. Conversely, the crew of the Andrea Doria was not competent enough to plot the radar observations. Resulting in a lack of awareness of the Stockholm’s position. Additionally, a proper RADAR lookout was not maintained. Franchini’s incompetence to maintain a proper RADAR lookout contributed to the lack of situational