ANDREA DORIA FOGHORN BLOWING

TALIAN AND AMERICAN DIVERS COMMEMORATE
SS ANDREA DORIA SINKING IN “UN LEMBO DI PATRIA†EXPEDITION

EMBARGO TO AUGUST 1, 2023, FAIRHAVEN, MA – A team of Italian and American
divers, led by Captain Joe Mazraani of D/V Tenacious and Andrea Murdock Alpini of Phy Diving Equipment, completed a July 20-28, 2023 expedition to the wreckage of both SS Andrea Doria and MS Stockholm’s bow. The expedition, entitled “Un Lembo Di Patria,†(A Piece of Our Homeland), commemorated the 67th anniversary of Andrea Doria’s sinking and the 55th anniversary of the first Italian-led expedition to the wreck. Andrea Doria was a luxury, Italian liner that sank approximately 60 miles off Nantucket after a collision with Stockholm on July 25, 1956. Andrea Doria sank the following day, but Stockholm limped back to New York with a missing bow. The Italian divers became the first from their country to dive the bow wreckage of Stockholm, which was identified and first dived by a team from D/V Tenacious in the fall of 2020.

Thirteen years after Andrea Doria’s sinking, famed Italian diver Bruno Vailati led a team, including Stefano Carletti and others, to the wreck site. Carletti later immortalized Andrea Doria in his book Andrea Doria – 74, titled for the wreck’s 74-meter/242-foot depth. The Un Lembo di Patria Expedition retraced the 1968 expedition’s steps. Often referred to as “The Mt. Everest of Wreck Diving,†Andrea Doria’s scattered remains lie more than eighty miles from the team’s Fairhaven, MA staging point. The team made two separate trips to the site in an eight-day period and collectively completed a total of fifty-two dives to Andrea Doria and three to Stockholm. The highly experienced technical dive team had to be self-sufficient to conduct operations in the harsh North Atlantic environment.

“The Expedition Un Lembo di Patria on the wreck of the Andrea Doria, run in collaboration with D/V Tenacious and Phy Diving Equipment, was very important for Italy,†said Andrea Murdock Alpini, the leader of the Italian team. “The goal was to film the whole wreck, from stern to bow to describe its conservation status and the Doria’s future on the ocean floor.†Fondazione Ansaldo, the archives of the shipping company that built Andrea Doria, and the municipality of Genoa provided official support for the expedition. “It does not matter if the ship one day disappears,†added Alpini. “Through expeditions like this one, her glorious past will remain forever.â€

Italian diver David D’Anna’s grandfather, Alfredo Brunoli, was a tourist-class passenger aboard Andrea Doria. Fifty-one people perished in the Andrea Doria disaster. Life Magazine chronicled both the sinking and the first salvage efforts, making the ship’s sinking one of the most famous in recent history. Brunoli was one of the more than 1,600 passengers and crew that survived. He boarded SS Andrea Doria for a vacation to New York, something he had dreamed about and saved for since fighting in WWII. That vacation turned into a nightmare when his ship was struck. His grandfather escaped the sinking ship and was rescued and transported to New York by Stockholm. David made dives to Andrea Doria on July 26, 2023, exactly sixty-seven years after his grandfather survived the disaster. He called the opportunity to dive the wreck, “a great gift.â€

“Shipwreck diving is about more than salvaging artifacts from vessels sitting on the ocean floor. It is about connecting people to history,†said D/V Tenacious Captain Joe Mazraani. “It was our privilege to participate in and provide the diving platform for Expedition Un Lembo di Patria. We are grateful to Phy Diving, Fondazione Ansaldo, the people of Genoa, Fairhaven Shipyard, and a tremendous team of divers and surface support crew for making this possible.†He added, “The best part of this adventure was sharing the rich history of Andrea Doria with our Italian brethren.â€

The team consisted of: Italian divers Andrea Murdock Alpini, David D’Anna, and Marco Setti; American divers Bryan Cunningham, Chris Ogden, Anthony Tedeschi, Tim Whitehead, and Joe Mazraani; and surface support team member Jennifer Sellitti. Expeditions staged from Fairhaven Shipyard in Fairhaven, MA.

“I’ve always been interested in Shipwrecks since I was a kid,†said Bryan Cordeiro, Dockmaster at Fairhaven Shipyard Companies, Inc. “Hosting Joe and D/V Tenacious for the second year in a row has been an honor for the marina and me. You never know what they will pull up and return with! I look forward to hosting the crew for years to come.â€

In addition to assisting the archives and Italian government with assessing the wreck’s condition, the team participated in studies for the University of Padua and Italy’s National Research Institute. These institutions are studying the effects that deep, repetitive diving has on the human body. Andrea Murdick Alpini is creating a film about the 2023 expedition to be released this autumn and his new books about Andrea Doria will be published next year. The team plans to reunite again in 2024 to further document the wreck and film the ship’s interior.

Both topside and underwater operations will be filmed at the wreck. Video footage and photographs will be made available to media via digital press kit here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1K9uknvTDDVkzjAh5z-r8CkKnDbAzlayP?usp=drive_link Additional footage is available upon request.

About Atlantic Wreck Salvage, D/V Tenacious, and The Andrea Doria Project
D/V Tenacious, a dive vessel owned and operated by Millstone, NJ-based Atlantic Wreck
Salvage has made annual dive expeditions to the wreck of SS Andrea Doria for thirteen years.
The vessel’s crew discovered, dived, and identified the remains of the Stockholm bow
wreckage in 2020 and, in 2017, recovered the and restored Andrea Doria’s foghorn, which
sounded for the first time at an event for divers and survivors in 2021. Additional information about D/V Tenacious’ work on Andrea Doria and Stockholm can be found here:
https://dvtenacious.com/projects/andrea_doria/

Atlantic Wreck Salvage (AWS) is a New Jersey-based company that conducts operations in the North Atlantic. D/V Tenacious is the vessel from which AWS’ crew locates, dives, and salvages shipwrecks. D/V Tenacious and her crew have discovered numerous wrecks in the waters off the coast of New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, the most celebrated of which is U-550, the last German U-boat known to rest in diveable North Atlantic waters. D/V Tenacious and her expeditions have been chronicled in the books “Where Divers Dare: The Hunt for the Last
U- boat,†“Dangerous Shallows, In Search of the Ghost Ships of Cape Cod,†and in dive
publications worldwide. The vessel is owned by Atlantic Wreck Salvage, L.L.C. and operated by Joe Mazraani and Jennifer Sellitti. When they are not at sea Joe and Jennifer work as criminal defense attorneys in New Jersey. www.dvtenacious.com.