RMS "Titanic": Rest in Peace or Wrest in Piece

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The first of September 2015 was the thirtieth anniversary of the discovery of the wreck of RMS “Titanic” by a joint American-French expedition, led by Dr Robert Ballard of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, and Jean- Louis Michel of the French National Institute of Oceanography (IFREMER). This article discusses the operation that discovered RMS “Titanic” and what has happened to the vessel since that time.  

RMS “Titanic” had last been seen sliding under the black waters of the icy North Atlantic at 02:20 on 15 April 1912, 380 miles southeast of Newfoundland. She would not be seen again for 73 years, 4 months and 17 days. Although a few survivors reported seeing the ship break in half, the prevailing view was that her hull sank in one piece, and the idea of locating and raising the wreck never went away.¹ However, the technology to explore the deep ocean would not be available until the early 1980s, by which time explorers had access to unmanned vehicles equipped with sonar imaging systems and video cameras, towed above the ocean floor using long fibre-optic cable.  

When planning their joint expedition in 1985, Ballard and Michel suspected the position given in “Titanic’s” distress call calculated by her Fourth Officer, Joseph Boxhall, who survived the disaster, was wrong. Boxhall had accurately calculated the latitude from stellar observations, but he had overestimated the ship’s speed when calculating the longitude. He thought “Titanic” had been steaming west at 22.5 knots, but the easterly Gulf Stream would have slowed her progress and her speed was probably below 21 knots.²  Before she sank, “Titanic” was also pushed southwest by the Labrador Current, which is where RMS “Carpathia” found “Titanic’s” lifeboats.  

The expedition’s search area was 100 square miles. After six weeks of searching using sonar, the expedition had covered 80% of the search area without finding any sign of “Titanic”. Running out of time, Ballard decided to search for the ship’s debris field instead of “Titanic” herself. While heavy debris would not have travelled far, light debris would have drifted in the currents, forming a pattern resembling a comet and its tail. If they could find the debris field, they could follow it like an arrow to its source. Ballard also decided to switch from using sonar to using video cameras.  

After days of staring at images of blank, brown ocean bottom, at 12:48 on 1 September 1985, metallic objects began to stream across their screens. Confirmation that the wreckage belonged to “Titanic” came shortly afterwards when a boiler came into view. The pattern of rivets and fire doors matched photographs of the boilers in Harland and Wolff’s workshop. Having found the graveyard of not only a great ship, but also the 1,500 people who lost their lives when “Titanic” foundered, the expedition crew held a short memorial service and raised Harland and Wolff’s flag.  

Ballard and Michel discovered “Titanic’s” hull about 13.5 miles east-southeast of her distress call position. They found it upright but broken in two with gaping holes where funnels had once stood. As the bow section had flooded slowly, it was pressure compensated and sank virtually intact, gliding to the bottom. The impact, while enough to bury the bow in 60 feet of silt, did not ruin its appearance. In Ballard’s words “it has magic and majesty”. The stern section was found 1,970 feet away. Unlike the bow, it had not completely flooded, and as it plunged straight down, the incoming water forced out the remaining air, causing massive damage. Upon impact with the bottom, the decks collapsed down on each other causing the hull to literally blow apart. After 73 years nature had also taken its toll. An army of molluscs and worms had consumed the ship’s decks and woodwork, and “Titanic’s” steel was found to be covered in bacteria formations called ‘rusticles’ which feed upon the ship’s iron.  

When the expedition returned home to face the world’s media, Ballard remarked “The “Titanic” lies in 13,000 feet of water on a gently sloping alpinelike countryside overlooking a small canyon below. Its bow faces north and the ship sits upright on the bottom. There is no light at this depth and little life can be found. It is a quiet and peaceful and fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies to rest. May it forever remain that way and may God bless these found souls.” WHOI intentionally did not publicise the precise location of the wreck in order to discourage visitors.  

Ballard returned to “Titanic” on another WHOI expedition in 1986 to film and photograph the wreck. No artefacts were removed and when they discovered that the expedition’s ROV had accidentally snared a piece of “Titanic’s” cable, they threw it back. The US Congress passed the RMS “Titanic” Maritime Memorial Act of 1986 to encourage international negotiations to designate the wreck as an international memorial and to develop and implement guidelines Image:“Iceberg Right Ahead!” reproduced with kind permission of maritime artist Simon Fisher for her exploration. Pending an international agreement it urged that “no person should physically alter, disturb or salvage RMS “Titanic”.  

However, the wreck lies in international waters, and in 1987 IFREMER financed its own return to “Titanic” with the help of an American enterprise called Titanic Ventures, which aimed to recoup its investment in the dives by recovering “Titanic” artefacts, and which evolved into a company called RMS Titanic Inc. The 1987 expedition took 1,800 objects from the debris field and the ship herself, and led to RMS Titanic Inc establishing a claim to be sole salvor-in-possession. Dozens of dives throughout the 1990s in French and Russian submersibles brought the number of recovered artefacts up to 5,500. The artefacts were displayed to an eager public in travelling exhibitions. Documentary and film-makers also frequented in the 1990s.  

Scientists, historians and museum curators tend to agree that there is little purpose in recovering “Titanic’s” artefacts, because there is nothing to be learned about the Edwardian era from the personal items or from the ship’s fittings. The small number of survivors still living objected to the recovery of artefacts, as did Ballard who called it “robbing the old lady of her jewels in her grave”.³ In his view, leaving the artefacts in their context both respects the sanctity of the site and tells the “Titanic’s” story. For example, in 1986 he saw the ship’s crow’s nest still attached to the fallen foremast and the bell which the lookouts rang when they spotted the iceberg. Salvors have since removed the bell, the mast light and the lookout’s telephone, knocking the crow’s nest off the mast in the process.  

Others believe the recovery of artefacts is justified in order to preserve them for future generations, though items made of porcelain or glass, and leather treated with tannic acid are likely to survive on the ocean floor.  

Photographs from later expeditions show how the hull has deteriorated dramatically since 1985, with the collapse of the walls and roofs of many of the boat deck structures. The major damage is done by the ‘rusticles’, which suck several hundred pounds of iron from the ship each day, but it is possible that repeated landing and manoeuvring of submersibles has accelerated the destruction. “Titanic’s” decks also show signs of visitors including artificial flowers, plastic sampling bags, lead weights and empty drink bottles, apparently tossed overboard from passing ships. In 2001 a New York couple were married on “Titanic” in a Russian submersible, and more recently a Californian company called Bluefish Group has organised dives to the wreck, at a cost of US$60,000 per ticket, in collaboration with the Russians.

Ballard has advocated spraying the “Titanic’s” hull with anti-fouling paint in order to slow the decay. He is also in favour of using ‘telepresence’ to create a “wondrous underwater museum to be appreciated without being violated”, with lights, cameras and other equipment installed to send images of the boat deck, grand staircase and other features around the world.  

The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, which entered into force on 20 January 2009, applies to all traces of human existence which have been underwater for at least 100 years, and “Titanic” came within its remit on 15 April 2012. However, the Convention has not been ratified by the majority of the states with the technology to explore the deep ocean. The threats to underwater cultural heritage that motivated the Convention will intensify as technology advances and wrecks of historical importance become accessible by anyone with the resources to call upon such technology, whether they are motivated by scientific study or by commercial gain.

Article by Patrick Briton, Syndicate Associate

 

[1] The producer of the 1980 film Raise the “Titanic”, Lew Grade, remarked “it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic”.

[2] ”Titanic” was not trying to win the Blue Riband for the fastest North Atlantic crossing. She could never have achieved this as her designed service speed was 21.5 knots. The Cunard liner RMS “Mauretania” had a guaranteed service speed of 24 knots, with a maximum recorded speed of 28 knots.

[3] Ballard also labelled the two main camps arguing about ”Titanic’s” future as the “Rest in Peace” and “Wrest a Piece” contingents in the book he co-authored with Michael Sweeney: Return to ”Titanic” (National Geographic Books, 2004).