The Andrea Doria was on the last leg of a 4,000mile, nine-day voyage from its home port of Genoa carrying 1,134 passengers and 401 tons of freight. Despite the dense fog pressing down on its decks, the Doria cruised at dose to its full speed, its massive 35,000 horsepower twinturbine engines pushing the big ship through the sea at twentytwo knots.

The Italian Line did not gamble with its ships and passengers. Nor did it pay captains, to arrive behind schedule. Time was money. No one knew this any better than Captain Calamai, who had commanded the ship on ail its transatlantic crossings. He was determined that the ship would arrive in New York not one second beyond the hour it had lost in a storm two nights earlier.

When the Doria had rolled by the lightship at tentwenty PM., the bridge could pick the vessel up on radar and hear the lonely moan of its foghorn, but it was invisible at less than a mile away.. With the lightship behind them, the Doria’s captain ordered a course due west to New York

The radar pip was heading east, directly at the Doria, Calamai bent over the radar screen, his brow furrowed, watching the . blip’s progress: The radar couldn’t tell the captain what hind of ship he .was looking at or how big it was. He didn’t know he was looking at a fast ocean liner. With a combined speed of forty knots, the two ships were dosing on each other at the rate of two miles every three minutes.

The ship’s position was puzzling. Eastbound ships were supposed to follow a route twenty miles to the south. Fishing boat, maybe.

Under the rules of the road, ships coming directly at each other on the open sea are supposed to pass porttoport, left side to left side, like cars approaching from opposite directions: If ships maneuvering to comply with this rule are forced into a dangerous crossover, they may instead pass starboardtostarboard.

From the look of the radar, the other vessel would pass safely to the right of the Doria if the two vessels held their same course. Like autos on an English highway, where drivers stay to the left.

Calamai ordered his crew to keep, a close eye on the other ship. It never hurt to be cautious.

The ships were about ten miles apart when Nillson switched on the light underneath the Bial maneuvering board next to the radar set and prepared to transfer the blip’s changing position to paper.

He called out, “What’s our heading, Hansen?”

“Ninety degrees,” the helmsman replied evenly.