A full three years between my first and second transatlantic crossings. The second, like the first, was westbound, from Gibraltar to New York aboard the Italian liner Cristoforo Colombo. It was July 1963 and I was, at seven, an established adult, at least in my own lizard-hunting mind. I had traveled considerably in that intervening time, but always by air, my father trying to tug me into the future as we jetted around Europe, this dynamic father and his pet son. The only water I saw was from on high, and the seas I did see, mostly the Mediterranean, seemed vaster than I’d imagined them from my elevator days on the Île de France.
I remember little of the Gibraltar crossing, mostly because neither of my parents was in a good mood, my father leaving behind a lucrative job in Madrid to return to Washington, and my mother beyond the deepest depths of purgatory as a result. She’d adored Spain, and nothing seemed able to restrain her moody remorse. My father also sulked, leaving me in a kind of limbo.
Then I met Luca, the third officer of the Italian Line vessel that had only recently been displaced as the most prestigious liner in the Italian fleet. Its new half-sister was the Leonardo Da Vinci, and two days into our crossing Luca let me in on a secret: the two vessels, both on the southern track of the North Atlantic run, would on the third day of the crossing come within 200 feet of each other, so passengers sailing west could wave at those Europe-bound, and suddenly, in mid-Atlantic, a sliver of ocean would turn Italian. This was a secret no one knew and I proudly kept the secret for two days.
In those days I sat by the pool and dined with my parents (the Italians had no French restrictions on children), trying, through an assortment of antics, to cheer my makers up. I failed. They stared out at the sea and scowled glumly.
I learned about the existence of the Azores, and later of Newfoundland and the Outer Banks, murky, unsettled waters.
Adults had problems, Luca explained, and I, too, would eventually face ups and downs. This struck me as absurd. I would never scowl, let alone allow the specter of glumness to seize my mood. Then, I was above such things.
The weather was luminously beautiful and the sun strong, and one day Luca took me by the hand to the bridge, which made far more sense to me at seven than it had at four. I was allowed to peek into the radar and stare at the navigational charts, with their arrows and depth-mapping indications. I learned about the existence of the Azores, and later of Newfoundland and the Outer Banks, murky, unsettled waters the Italians still saw as the creators of an open wound. Each time the men on the bridge spoke of the Outer Banks, they’d sigh, as if seeking a place at my parents’ table.
I finally asked Luca why all this adult moping on the bridge, and he took me aside to explain, a story that would last for more than an hour and leave a lasting impact on me. How a boy so fascinated by the Titanic disaster knew nothing of what Luca told me is a pre-Internet mystery.
Luca sat me down on the ship’s sun deck and explained that the reason the planned “hello” between the Cristoforo Colombo and the Leonardo was so hush-hush was that it might bring shivers to some.
Exactly seven years before, in the same month of July, Cristoforo Colombo’s full sister, Andrea Doria, collided with a small Swedish liner in heavy Nantucket fog and sank eleven hours later, costing dozens of lives (all on the Italian liner) and tarnishing Italy’s sailing reputation.
Perhaps the most famous image of the disaster was taken from a New York helicopter hired by news media. The photograph shows the slow sinking. Only the bridge crew remained, the captain included, and he waved a fist at the choppers he rightly called buzzards in what was an early example of breaking news. The stricken Doria died before the world’s excited, prying eyes.
Amazing stories emerged, including Doria’s parents grieving the loss of their daughter only to find that at the moment of the late-night collision, the bow of the Swedish liner Stockholm, reinforced against ice, had literally carried away a chunk of the Italian vessel. It was found wailing in the bow wreckage by members of the Stockholm’s crew.
So what had happened?
The Stockholm was sailing from New York to Europe and the Doria headed in. Both ships had radar. Both knew another vessel was nearby, and Doria bridge hands noticed the Stockholm was south of her normal route, trying to shear a few hours off the crossing.
Luca paused. A good story-teller, in those days, could not pace his tale well without taking time out to light a cigarette. And puff it a bit, wistfully.
How did it happen? he asked this question rhetorically. Simple, he added. People. We the people make mistakes. We are trained but we make mistakes.
Those on the bridge of the Stockholm misread the Doria’s position on radar and veered to avoid any possible contact. Those on the Doria bridge went through with their own misreadings and essentially turned the Italian liner’s starboard flank into the Stockholm’s ice-bow. The Doria’s captain, sailing at twice the speed of the Swedish liner, hoped to just manage to speed past it. He failed. Both turns doomed both vessels but it was the Doria that was struck as if a piece of meat pierced by a steak-knife. Many would be saved, most of them taken on by the Stockholm, but those in the impact area had no chance.
By midmorning in New York, the Doria was on her side, half-submerged and empty. By noon she was gone.
Then, suddenly, the speeding liners came side-by-side and all chatted and smiled as both liners issued fog horn bursts.
This, said Luca, lighting up another cigarette, had been the fate of the Colombo’s sister ship (they were identical) and why ranking members of the crew thought it best to wait until a few hours before to announce that the Leonardo would be passing. To my mind, even as a boy, the one-stack troika, Doria, Colombo, and Leonardo were among the most beautiful midsize liners ever built, in a class of style matched only by the likes of the 1930s Deco-gorgeous Normandie, the huge French liner that may always rank as the most elegant passenger liner ever constructed. Luca had his own list, adding the Italian Rex of the 1930s and the newly-launched France, the last great French Line flagship, a liner I would soon get to know intimately.
When Luca finished his Andrea Doria tale he fell silent, we both said nothing, and soon, without a word, after yet another cigarette, he walked me back to my cabin. Something about the story he’d told and his mournful steps suggested to me the days of the liners were waning. It was as if he’d spoken to me of dinosaurs he’d once seen in a glade, once but never again. Above us, unseen, were jets, and most crossed the ocean in five or six hours instead of five or six days. I knew nothing of handwriting and what it might mean if scrawled on a wall, but both the handwriting and the wall lurked in an as-yet unknown vocabulary, one I’d learn to adopt.
The next day all were called topside on another gorgeous day. All had cameras, including my mother, who handed it to me. A tiny blip appeared in the ocean distance to soon double in size, growing larger and larger until the Leonardo was within a half-mile and we could all see what in a way was like a mirror image. Then, suddenly, the speeding liners came side-by-side and all chatted and smiled as both liners issued fog horn bursts. Even my mother smiled. And aside from my time with Luca, that may well be what I most remember and most treasure, since I would not see that smile, whole and unfettered, for a long time to come. She was simply too beset with her own world’s small collapse, made all the worse a few months later when John F. Kennedy was killed. This killed another part of her, and had the same effect on a great many new Americans, my mother among them.
When Luca said good-bye I did not behave as I had with Gilles. I hugged him and wished him well and he told me not to ride my bicycle in the fog. I never did.
