Discovery
Ideas of finding, photographing or even salvaging the Titanic can even be traced back to 1912. Most of them, however, where rather crazy ideas which could not possibly be worked out in practice. The first attempts of discovering the wreck that could be taken seriously were made in the early 1980s: Three expeditions were sponsored by Jack Grimm, an oil millionaire from Texas, who had already searched for the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot and Noah's Ark. Although he hired top people and his search vessel was equipped with sophisticated technology, he was not successful.
In Summer 1985, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) teamed up with the Institut Français de Recherches pour l'Exploitation des Mers (IFREMER – the French Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Seas) to launch an expedition under the joint leadership of Dr. Robert D. Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel. In July, the French vessel Le Suroit searched a 100 nautical-square-mile search area with the help of a side scan sonar (SAR). They had to fight bad weather and did not succeed. Starting from August 24, the American vessel Knorr continued the search, this time with the help of an underwater camera vehicle, Argo. On September 1, 1985, at 1.05 a.m., with only five days remaining, a boiler came into view. The Titanic was finally discovered.
Eight days later, after having photographed the wreck with the Argo equipment, the Knorr arrived at Woods Hole, where there was a tumultuous welcome, and the discoverers were met by enormous international publicity.
Exploration – and Exploitation
In Summer 1986, Ballard returned to the site of the wreck, and made eleven dives down to the wreck with his submersible Alvin. He discovered that the ship had broken in two between the third and fourth funnel. The two parts lay some 2000 feet away from each other. In between, a debris field was found, where bottles, light fixtures, window frames, plates, crockery, pots, heaters, boots and shoes, five boilers, etc. were scattered all over the place. The stern section of the ship had obtained massive damage due to the fact that it had still been filled with air when it sank and that it had finally imploded due to the increasing water pressure, whereas the bow was still structurally intact, though all four funnels had disappeared and it was buried up to 50 feet in mud. When the underwater robot Jason Junior (JJ) was sent into the wreck, it was found that all the beautiful wooden interior had been destroyed.
In 1987, IFREMER returned to the wreck with its own submersible Nautile and recovered 1800 artefacts. This expedition caused widespread criticism and protest, as it was regarded as "grave robbing." Therefore, the US Senate passed a bill which forbade the sale or display for profit of any Titanic salvage in the USA. However, this bill is no longer in effect.
The next expedition was mounted in June 1991: During this joint Soviet and Canadian expedition, a film for a giant-screen IMAX documentary was produced, and deep-sea life as well as the environmental processes active at that depth were studied, too.
In 1993, RMS Titanic, Inc., formerly known as Titanic Ventures, which had already supported the 1987 expedition, was finally granted the legal right to work on the wreck by an American court. The enterprise's claim to the "salvor in possession" was granted, too, which meant that RMS Titanic Inc. had the sole right to the removal of any artefacts from the wreck.
Further expeditions to the wreck were mounted in 1993 and 1994 by RMS Titanic Inc. Again, 1800 artefacts were recovered. Some steel of the hull, which was salvaged during the expedition in 1994, was analysed, and it was found out that it became brittle when it was exposed to lower water temperature. Furthermore, it had a high sulphur content. This rendered the metal more liable to fracture in the very water conditions at which it had been exposed on that fateful Sunday, April 14, 1912.
![[Picture]](http://bernies-journeys.at/en/regions/usa/ca/la/img/13.jpg "RMS Titanic (model)")
Over the years, some of the salvaged artefacts were exhibited at several museums all over the world after being carefully conserved at the LP3 Conservation laboratory in France. The artefacts were first displayed at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in autumn 1994. Since, the artefacts were also exhibited in Memphis (Tennessee), in Hamburg (Germany) and in the California ScienCenter in Los Angeles, where I visited the exhibition in August 2003.
In 1996, RMS Titanic Inc. tried to raise a 22-ton section of the hull, measuring 14 by 23.5 feet. Unfortunately, the cables with which it was attached to so-called lift bags suddenly snapped just 215 feet below the water line and the piece of the hull gently sank to the ocean floor again. During this expedition, a very interesting discovery was made with the help of a new sonar technology with which one could "see through mud": The iceberg had not cause a 300-foot-long gash, but a series of six thin slits. The damage, incredibly, totalled no more than 12 square feet!
In Summer 1998, the part of the hull which should have been raised in 1996 was finally lifted to the surface. After analysing it thoroughly, it was found that the rivets also had played a very important part in the sinking: They had partly been faulty which had made it possible that the water had flooded the ship that quickly.
Also in the new millenia, the expeditions to the wreck of the RMS Titanic continue, though mainly for the purpose of exploration. These expeditions are very valuable as the wreck may decompose completely within the next few decades.
