Titanic had lay out of reach for years, but that never stopped people from fantasising about finding her. As early as only a few days after the sinking, Vincent Astor had organised to find the wreck and blow it up to retrieve the body of his father John Jacob Astor , but the plan was abandoned after his body was recovered by the Mackay-Bennett. One man who had wanted to find the ship was Texas Oil Tycoon Jack Grimm. Grimm had previously organised searches for the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and Noah’s Ark, but since his target this time proved to be something the defiantly existed, he was determined to succeed. He never did though. Of his three trips to the middle of the Atlantic, not once did he find anything man made, and everything he thought was part of Titanic turned out to be rocky outcrops.
Then came Dr. Robert Ballard. Not a treasure hunter but an oceanographer, he wanted to find the wreck to test underwater photography and to conduct research. His expedition aboard the French ship Le Suroit was plagued by bad weather, but on September 1st, 1985, small man-made items began appearing on the monitor from the ship’s ‘Dope on a Rope’, Argo, the deep towed underwater camera. Ballard was summoned to the control room in time to see a large cylinder appear on the monitor. Ballard had studied the ship’s interiors for weeks and months before hand and there was no mistaking this for a boiler.
Armed with miles of videotape and hundreds of stills, Ballard headed back to land. There he was given a heroes welcome. If the loss of Titanic had caused public mourning, its discovery had done just the opposite. Ballard reported that the ship was in ‘Show Room Condition’, but on September 3rd, Ballard reported he was having trouble finding the stern section. It was now painfully clear that after the stern had risen out of the water, the stresses amid ship had caused her to break un two.
On July 14th, 1986, Ballard had returned, this time in a manned submersible Alvin. Alvin’s lights shone over the muddy bottom of the Atlantic when suddenly a huge black wall of metal rose from the sediment on the bottom. Ballard had realised his dream, to see Titanic for real. During the 1986 exploration project, hundreds of photos were taken of the ship. Because of the lack of light that far down, Ballard said that it was like crawling over the ship with a torch. None the less, he explored the whole ship.
The bow seemed to be in good shape. The forward most davits are still there, the starboard one cranked inboard to collect boat A, and port ones still outboard, as they were left after lowering collapsible D. Most of the woodwork had gone, and where the impressive grand staircase once was, there is just a shaft topped by a gaping hole where the wrought iron dome once was. Chandeliers and light fixtures still hang from to roof however in here. Below the forward well deck, the ship buckles where it hit the bottom, and the forepeak is buried by 50 feet of mud, covering the area of damage caused by the iceberg. The ship slopes downward amid ship at a steep angle where the ship broke up. All that remains of the bridge where Captain smith reportedly met his fate is the bronze telemotor. The wood covering has gone, and the foremast has fallen where the bridge once was.
The stern is in a terrible state compared to the bow. Because it was still mostly filled with air when it went under the water, the pressure caused the ship to implode. The whole starboard side has gone, and so has much of the port side. The poop deck, where man a brave man stood until the end has been blown backwards and has folded over itself. The boat deck is in ruins, but one thing that remains remarkably intact compared with the rest of the deck is the second class entrance at the very aft end of the boat deck. The aft mast is bent over the port side of the ship, and a few lifeboat davits littler the ground. No funnel remains on the ship, though some remains lie around the stern area and where the forward one once stood. The propellers are sunk under the mud at the bottom, as is much of the rudder. Cranes and parts of bulkheads litter the ground near the stern. The reciprocating engines still just out from the break in the ship like ghastly teeth. The stern and bow lie some 1,970 feet apart, both facing different directions and on slightly sloping terrain overlooking a canyon.
RMS Titanic Inc., the company that holds wreckage rights to the ship has brought up many thousands of artifacts from the liner. Many are displayed over the world, and though preserved, show that the ship has been grave robbed. In 1996, they tried to bring up a huge piece of the hull that once formed the wall of first class cabins C 79 - C 81. However, near the surface, the cables snapped and the hull piece shot back down to land 10 miles from where it lay, upright in the mud. Recently, they succeeded in raising the hull piece and it is not preserved at one of the many Titanic museums across the globe.
All over the wreck are long ‘rusticles’ consisting of lots of organisms that are mercilessly eating through Titanic as a rate of 2 tonnes a fortnight. It is estimated that by 2025, the ship will have collapsed in on itself and soon all that will be left of the ship is orange dust and debris. Soon, all that will remain of the ship of dreams is the dream itself. |
