Dual-nation expedition commemorates Andrea Doria

A team led by Captain Joe Mazraani of D/V Tenacious and Andrea Murdock Alpini of Phy Diving Equipment recently completed a dive expedition to explore the wreckage of the SS Andrea Doria and MS Stockholm’s bow. The expedition, called Un Lembo Di Patria (A Piece of Our Homeland), marked the 67th anniversary of the sinking of the Andrea Doria and the 55th anniversary of the first Italian-led expedition to the wreck.

The Andrea Doria was an Italian luxury liner that sank after colliding with the Stockholm on July 25, 1956. The Andrea Doria sank the following day, while the Stockholm made it back to New York with a missing bow.

This expedition marked the first time Italian divers explored the bow wreckage of the Stockholm, which was initially discovered by a team from D/V Tenacious in 2020.

In 1968, thirteen years after the sinking of the Andrea Doria, Italian diver Bruno Vailati led an expedition to the wreck site. The recent Un Lembo Di Patria Expedition retraced the steps of this earlier expedition. The Andrea Doria, often referred to as the “Mt. Everest of Wreck Diving,” lies over 80 miles from the team’s staging point in Fairhaven, MA. The team made multiple trips to the site over an eight-day period and completed a total of 52 dives to the Andrea Doria and three to the Stockholm.

The Italian team’s leader, Andrea Murdock Alpini, emphasized the importance of the expedition in documenting the wreck and its conservation status. The team received support from Fondazione Ansaldo, the archives of the shipping company that built the Andrea Doria, as well as the municipality of Genoa. Alpini expressed the belief that
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