From Luxury Liners to Pirate Ships,
Most Famous Shipwrecks in history
happened in New England

New England was built along the sea — and in many respects, it was built by the sea. We marvel at its beauty and partake of its bounty, and many have become wealthy navigating its waters. But life on the sea is fraught with danger, too. Hundreds of ships and many lives have been lost off the New England coast. Here is one of the region’s most famous shipwrecks.

S.S. Andrea Doria: New England’s Titanic

The 697-foot Andrea Doria was a superstar ship of the 1950s. Decked out in luxurious furnishings and sporting an unprecedented three outdoor swimming pools (one for each passenger class), it was a premier luxury liner of its day. Launched in 1953, the ship had completed 100 transatlantic voyages by July 25, 1956, when human error set it on a collision course with the icebreaker bow of the Stockholm off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The impact left the Andrea Doria taking on water and listing so sharply to the side that half of its lifeboats were inaccessible. Other ships in the vicinity responded quickly and were able to rescue all but 46 of the approximately 1,700 people on board (five people aboard the Stockholm were also killed). Just after 10 o’clock the next morning, the giant ship disappeared into the sea.

The Andrea Doria now sits in 240 feet of water and has become a popular, if perilous, diving destination. Since it settled to the ocean floor, the ship has claimed the lives of at least 16 divers. In a 1984 TV event, the safe used by first-class passengers yielded not the multimillion-dollar haul of valuables that some had predicted, but rather a small cache of mostly paper currency.

Survived Passengers
Actresses Ruth Roman (Farley Granger’s girlfriend in Strangers on a Train) and Betsy Drake who was married to Cary Grant and starred with him in Room for One More survived the sinking of the Andrea Doria as did the mayor of Philadelphia and Mike Stoller of the songwriting team Leiber and Stoller.

ABC Radio News reporter Edward Morgan covered the story and never mentioned that his daughter had been on the ship and was believed to have died. She had not; she’d been thrown on the deck of the Stockholm in the collision. Morgan found out that his daughter survived the next day.