Deep Descent: Adventure and Death Diving the Andrea Doria [Hardcover]

Kevin F. McMurray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2001

On a dense, foggy, late July evening in 1956, the Italian-flagged cruise liner "Andrea Doria," bound for New York, was struck broadside by another cruise ship. After an agonizing eleven hours, the relentless sea would drag her down, settling the "Doria" uneasily into the murky Atlantic ocean floor nearly two hundred and fifty feet below. AmazingIy, due to a daring and fevered rescue operation by her oceangoing brethren, only fifty-one of the more than 1,700 people on board both ships were killed in the collision. Years have passed since that tragedy, yet the "Andrea Doria" is still taking lives.

Deep Descent

Drawn by the sirens call of adventure, a small but fanatical group of extreme scuba divers has long challenged the "Andrea Doria," pushing themselves far beyond the limits of recreational divers, up to the very limits of human endurance. Not all of them have succeeded. In "Deep Descent," an author and frequent Doria diver Kevin McMurray takes you inside this elite club, offering an unsparing and unsentimental exploration ofthose men and women who dare to go deeper, farther, and closer to the edge than prudence or common sense might allow.

Considered the Mt. Everest of diving, the "Andrea Doria" is the ultimate deepwater wreck challenge -- lying in an area long known as the Bermuda Triangle of the Northeast, some fifty miles south of Nantucket Island and two hundred miles east of Sandy Hook, New Jersey. This region, no stranger to disaster, is fog-shrouded and prone to sudden changes of wind, weather, and tide. In addition to many shipping disasters, it has borne mute witness to such recent tragedies as the fatal crash of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s small plane and themysterious downing of EgyptAir Flight 990. It is an area that guards its secrets well, only surrendering its treasures to the bravest ormost determined seekers.

Told with a vivid and startling clarity, "Deep Descent" is a story of courage and bravado, of the human spirit overcoming human frailty, and of fearsome risks traded for a hardwired adrenaline rush. With each page, McMurray draws us deeper into the cold heart of the unforgiving sea, giving us a powerful vision of a place to which few will ever have the skills or the daring to go.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

McMurray's is an earnest journal of deep-sea wreck diving, mostly over the Italian passenger liner Andrea Doria, which sank in a collision off Cape Cod in 1956. The Doria still draws extreme scuba divers 235 feet down to "the Everest of scuba," where, over the last 20 years, 12 divers have met their deaths. After a Night to Remember-style introduction to the ship's history, the author turns his talents as a journalist and diver (he has reached and explored the Doria hulk several times) to question why inverse mountaineers still come back to the wreck. McMurray renders a shared obsession, mostly through fuzzy sketches of expeditions to the wreck in the 1980s and '90s, and follows a dozen divers down to the Doria. Yet his descriptions are uninspiring; even the accounts of fatal dives are flat (despite a multiple-photo series of a body being hauled to the dive boat). His we-band-of-brother-divers tone can't substitute for description or character; indeed, it proves an obstacle to thoughtful storytelling. McMurray the scuba diver never quite admits to McMurray the journalist-observer that divers visit the Andrea Doria because of not in spite of the risks. 75 b&w photos. (June) Forecast: Despite the current public fascination with dangerous sport, this book won't appeal to the uninitiated. McMurray could become a sort of Sebastian Junger-esque celebrity he holds a world record for swimming around the island of Manhattan except that his book can't compare with The Perfect Storm. It is for fellow scuba samurai only.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In 1956, on her maiden voyage to New York, traveling at 21 knots in thick fog, the passenger liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish steamship Stockholm and sunk 160 miles off the coast of New York. McMurray, a skilled diver and adventure journalist who has written for Outside, Yankee, Men's Journal, Rock & Ice, and the New York Times, chronicles the underwater exploration of the wreck site by amateur divers in search of souvenirs. Because the Andrea Doria lies at a depth of 235', divers visiting the wreck exceed the maximum safe depth of 130' recommended for scuba diving and must use special dry suits and exotic breathing gear to avoid the "bends" when resurfacing. Two dive boats, the Wahoo and the Seeker, specialize in charter expeditions to the site, and though they are skippered by experienced and responsible crews with the latest equipment, there have been 12 deaths associated with the wreck. McMurray describes his own underwater experiences visiting the wreck and interviews crew and dive buddies so that he can vividly re-create each fatality. The result is a good history of noncommercial deep diving and a solid account of the sinking of the Andrea Doria. Exciting and powerful, this account is highly recommended for public libraries. John Kenny, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Atria; 1ST edition (May 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743400623
• ISBN-13: 978-0743400626
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,058,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellant book for wreck divers, May 21, 2001

By 

Dave Grimm (Warriors Mark, PA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Deep Descent: Adventure and Death Diving the Andrea Doria (Hardcover)

This is a great book about diving the Andrea Doria dealing mostly with the deaths that have occured and how they happened. If you have been around this type of diving for awhile you will recognize most of the people mentioned and quoted (Billy Deans, John Chatterton, Gary Gentile and so on). The deaths and the events leading up to them are described in graphic detail including several photos of the dead divers being recovered. Kevin McMurray goes into great detail in terms of analyzing the accidents including what boat they were diving on, who they were diving with, type of gas being used, type of equipment, the dive plan and such. No attempt was made to sugar coat the tragic events, just the hard details and facts with enough background information on each diver to help you better understand the complete picture.

This book was definetly not written for or about recreational diving. No single tank air dives on pretty tropical reefs and 82 degree water. This book is about hard core wreck divers pushing the limits in deep cold water with poor vis and strong currents.

If you enjoyed 'Last Dive' then you will surely like this book. I know that I couldn't put the book down.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every technical diver should read this book!, September 5, 2001

By 

Steve Lloyd "steveklloyd" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deep Descent: Adventure and Death Diving the Andrea Doria (Hardcover)

Kevin McMurray gives readers a glimpse into the real-life adventures of divers who brave the cold, dark waters of the Atlantic to visit the wreck of the Andrea Doria. The author's research is sound, the information he presents on the physiology of hyperbaric medicine and technical diving techniques is accurate, and his portraits of the men and women whose lives and work are most identified with Doria diving seem fair and unbiased.

Comparisons between Deep Descent and Bernie Chowdhury's recent book The Last Dive are inevitable, since both cover the experiences of people who have lost their lives diving deep wrecks. In my opinion, McMurray's book is the more readable and his coverage of the technology associated with the sport are presented in a more organized (and less repetitive) way. Not that Chowdhury's book isn't good--simply keep in mind that reviewers who like it better than Deep Descent are expressing an opinion, not a truth.

Yes, there are several textual errors in McMurray's book that should have been noticed by the copy editor, but they are few in number and don't detract from the overall story. I thoroughly enjoy each book written by Doria pioneer Gary Gentile, despite the copy errors (in fact, I recommend Gentile's Andrea Doria: Dive to an Era for some truly gripping accounts of the author's own dives into the bowels of the great liner).

I can recommend Deep Descent without hesitation to every diver who has, or wants to, dive any shipwreck at any depth at any time. Sadly, some of the most valuable lessons for technical divers are learned by examining the fatal mistakes made by others.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting reading, but technically weak, August 6, 2001

By 

Sailfish55 "sailfish55" (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Deep Descent: Adventure and Death Diving the Andrea Doria (Hardcover)

I found Deep Descent to be good reading, albeit weaker technically than it should have been. The author states he has many years of experience, but the reality is, he has one year of experience, many times. He was NOT a very advanced diver, rather a diver with novice experiences, over many years. One picture in the book has a caption that explains we are looking at the data on a dive computer. Actually, it's not a computer, but a bottom timer. Apparently a minor distinction, but not to a true technical diver. Chowdhury's book is far better technically, in addition to being great reading. I can recommend Deep Descent, but I can't rave about it. Read it, but don't expect to be glued to it like you were to The Last Dive.