The Discovery Of Titanic

One of her boilers....

July 14th, 1986: The three-man submersible Alvin pierces the darkness of the North Atlantic's bottom floor with her seven bright lights. Her three occupants, Ralph Hollis, Dr. Robert Ballard, and Martin Bowen, all from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, peer in the darkness in search of any sign of the gigantic ship that is supposed to be nearby. Suddenly, as if in a dream, the bow of Titanic appears from the darkness and looms before them. They are the first to see the ill-fated vessel in over seventy-four years. This dramatic encounter with the Titanic was the result of many years of planning and hard work, as well as several unsuccessful attempts to locate her.

The idea of finding the Titanic wreck has been a dream of thousands since she sank in April, 1912. In 1914, the magazine Popular Mechanics predicted that one day the survivors and children of the victims would see pictures of the Titanic wreck. However, it was not until fifty years later that technology and a renewed interest in the Titanic that searching and salvaging the wreck would even be feasible.

Many dreamed that the wreck would be found in one piece and that it could be risen back to the surface of the ocean and made into a floating museum. There were numerous suggestions of possible ways to raise the wreck, some as farfetched as filling the hull with ping pong balls to make her buoyant. Ofcourse, this did not take into account the fact that a ping pong ball would collapse due to the tremendous pressure found in depths of the ocean. This, ofcourse, was based on the theory that the Titanic wreck was intact and in relatively good condition. Some envisioned a wreck untouched by decay and time. Experts even theorized that because of the lack of oxygen at extreme depths and the cold, decomposition of wood, fabric, and perhaps even bodies would have been prevented. The Titanic would be a perfect time capsule of the Edwardian era. Sadly, however, this was not the case. Materials such as cloth, paper, and most woods were eaten away by deep sea organisms. Any human remains have long since vanished, leaving only a few pairs of shoes to indicate were bodies had once rested. The wooden decking of the ship is nearly all gone as well.

The fact that the Titanic's stern lies 1,970 away from the more intact stern reveals the true story of what happened when the gigantic leviathan sank. After the stern rose out of the water, the ship apparently broke into two, between the third and fourth funnels - a weak point in the ship due to the large open spaces in the ship's hull. As the ship sank to the bottom, the three remaining funnels were swept away by the tremendous drag created. The bow glided to the bottom of the ocean at an angle, striking nose first into the floor and burying itself sixty feet into the mud. As a result of this, plates buckled and ruptured along both sides. The stern of the Titanic, which had not fully filled with water like the bow, plunged straight down, quickly gaining speed. The remaining air was forced out by the incoming water and caused major damage. The poop deck was torn open and folded back in upon itself. The stern then smashed into the ocean floor with such force that the decks came crashing down upon one another causing the sides of the hull to bulge outwards.

And so this is how the Titanic wreck now lays upon the ocean floor. Yet, her resting site is not a peaceful one. Despite attempts by the American and Canadian governments to prevent looting of the wreck, the submersible Nautile, sponsored by American, European, and French investors, dove on the site in 1987 and plucked hundreds of objects from the debris field and the wreck itself. The crow's nest bell was also retrieved and caused the destruction of the crow's nest when it was pulled away. Not unexpectedly, this caused an uproar of protest from around the world. The late Eva Hart, one of the survivors of the Titanic (she was seven years old at the time of the sinking), was to become the most outspoken. "To bring up those things from a mass sea grave just to make a few thousand pounds shows a dreadful insensitivity and greed, " she explained to reporters. "The grave should be left alone. They're simply going to do it as fortune hunters, vultures, pirates!"

The United States responded by passing a bill which forbade the sale or display for profit of any Titanic salvage in the United States. This, however, did not stop the broadcast of "Return to the Titanic...Live!" in October of 1987 in Paris. During this show, hosted by Telly Savalas, a valise recovered from the debris field by the Nautile was opened. Inside the valise was currency, coins, jewelery, etc. It doesn't appear that the 1987 expedition treated the wreck as an archaeological site. If, indeed, the location of artifacts retrieved from the wreck were documented, they have never been made available. A more recent voyage to the wreck in June 1991 consisted of a joint Soviet and Canadian effort. They spent nearly three weeks on site and shot over 40,000 feet of 70-millimeter film for the giant screen IMAX film Titanica (currently showing at Ontario Place in Toronto, Canada). The film itself is a marvel to behold, giving the viewer the feeling that they are actually at the bottom of the sea exploring the most famous shipwreck on Earth. It is obvious, now that the wreck has been found and more than ever in the public eye, that more expeditions to the wreck will take place. Lets hope that any such visits will respect this grave site and leave it untouched for future generations to rediscover and explore.