below some seventy feet (21m) of entangled debris. On this sour note, the expedition ended. For Gimbel, another nine years
passed before he returned to the Doria: his fifth visit to the famous liner. The year was 1975. This was no impromptu daytrip, but a full-scale expedition that was funded by the Xerox Corporation. Gimbel was now prominent in the movie business as a result of his blockbuster theatrical production about great white sharks, ‘Blue Water, White Death’. He rode the tide of his success by organizing a crew of underwater camera operators to film a television special entitled ‘Mystery of the Andrea Doria’. The premise of the television
special was to ascertain why, with twenty-two watertight compartments, the Doria listed so badly that she finally sank. She should have been ‘unsinkable’. Gimbel’s partner and co-
producer was actress Elga Andersen. For diving support he hired International Underwater Contractors. Sharing the underwater camera work was Al Giddings.
Mooring shackle broke free of the wreck and the buoyant habitat shot to the surface in a tangle of rigging lines
Like Rodocker and DeLucchi,
Gimbel planned to breathe a helium mix and work from a diving bell. However, they did not plan to saturate, but to make hour-long dives followed by six hours of decompression. This bell operated differently from
the previous one. It was designed and built by Phil Nuytten, later of Newtsuit fame. Instead of tethering the bell to the wreck, this one was intended to be used as an elevator car in which the divers would ride down to the wreck, exit and breathe from umbilical hoses while working, then return to the bell and ride up to the surface. This system allowed the bell to be moved as needed to different locations. The Doria is a fickle wreck. It
lies in an area of uncertain and constantly changing current. When the bell was lowered into the water, the current caused it to swing and twist uncontrollably. While
modifications were made, Gimbel and his fellow divers made surface jumps of short duration, then decompressed in open water. The bell was ballasted with a
five-ton anchor. This extra weight helped to stabilize the load. However, the decision was made not to use the bell as a transfer capsule. Instead, it was hung at a depth of 70 feet (21m). Divers made surface jumps on umbilical hoses from the boat, explored the wreck, then ascended to the bell and used it as a decompression chamber. Now the divers could decompress in relative comfort.
Surprising Discovery The mission was to explore the collision area. To reach it, Gimbel and Giddings took turns in entering the hatchway that led to Number 2 hold, then working their way aft and ‘down’ three deck levels to the bottom of the hull. They squirmed through the rubble of the garage, but bent and twisted bulkheads prevented further penetration. Giddings burst an eardrum during
decompression as the bell heaved in rough seas. He was replaced by
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