Gimbel's Grail

Diving to the Andrea Doria

"As we swam down . . . we were stunned and awestruck at the immensity of the ship as she took form beneath us."--Peter Gimbel, 1956

So began an obsession that ended last week when a ship's rusty safe was consigned to the shark tank of the New York Aquarium. Twenty-five years ago, on July 26, 1956, only eleven hours after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm, the Andrea Doria, flagship of the Italian Line, sank some 250 ft. down to the continental shelf. Fifty lives were lost. The next day Department Store Heir Peter Gimbel, then 28, went chugging out to sea looking for the buoy that marked the Andrea Doria 's grave about 50 miles south of Nantucket. Gimbel dove through a cloud of rising air bubbles to the ship.

Now 53, Gimbel has remained an intrepid gentleman adventurer: swimming under Antarctic ice, exploring remote Andean ranges, filming the great white shark. In 1976 he and his wife Elga Andersen, a former German actress, produced a documentary on the Andrea Doria. Last July they set out to make another, backed by the latest in underwater technology.

A leased surface support ship, the Sea Level 11, was an chored directly above the wreck. The crew of 32 included four underwater cameramen and a group of commercial divers who ordinarily work on offshore oil rigs and salvaging of wrecks. They worked in teams of four, transferring through an air lock from an on-deck pressurized living chamber to a diving bell from which they could swim to the wreck. This "saturation diving" allowed them to stay under water for up to eight hours, without intervals of time-consuming subsurface decompression.

Old-fashioned scuba equipment would have permitted only a daily 45-minute dive to the ship's depth, but both methods are dangerous. A saturated diver forced to leave the pressurized chamber before a final 50 hours of decompression could explode internally because of rapidly expanding bodily gases.

Nerves frayed as physical exhaustion set in. Divers worked in a murky tangle of air and communication lines, hot water continuously pumping through their wet suits for warmth. Said Supervising Diver Steve Jennings: "This is the hardest--bad currents, high seas, a rotting ship. The Doria was a weird wreck, very unforgiving." After a week of clearing debris from the first-class foyer and purser's office, the team found two safes. The divers were able to free one, a Bank of Rome safe, with acetylene torches and hoist it on board. They also solved a question that had long haunted Gimbel: Why had the ship gone down so swiftly? Descending through the hulk, Gimbel and Diver Ted Hess cut a hole in a duct and pushed down past three decks to the generator room, squeezing through silt and broken steel plates until, astonished, they found themselves on the sea floor. The icebreaker bow of the Stockholm, Gimbel concluded, had simply "torn the guts out of the Doria" Several days later, expedition members, suffering from colds and ear infections, voted to quit while they were ahead.

The retrieved safe will be opened on television as a gimmicky finale to the documentary. Until then the coffer will rest in the aquarium, not so much for display as for preservation and protection. "Sharks," observes Andersen wryly, "make good guardians." The great moment may be anticlimactic: the Bank of Rome doubts there is any treasure in the safe. If millions in forgotten diamonds do turn up, a great legal tangle could result. Underwriters could sue Gimbel for possession of any treasure on the grounds that they had not legally "abandoned" it. Original owners who had received insurance payments could then try to buy back their jewels from the insurers. Even if sued, Gimbel could still get up to 50% of the salvage, depending on the courts. He will have to pay import duties on everything except currency and antiques. "This was not a treasure hunt," insists Gimbel, who was welcomed at the dock by U.S. Customs agents. Will he go down to the Andrea Doria again? No, says he. "I think it is time to stop testing myself."

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