Blog 141 - TITANIC - Part I - The Wreck and the Remains

Although the event took place over a hundred years ago, the sinking of the Titanic with its colossal loss of lives, has remained forever embedded in the collective memory of human consciousness. Being made into a film in the 1980s, with all its flaws, has only made it more appealing to the human mind as a romanticised tragedy.

The Titanic sank, after hitting an ice berg, on the 14th of April 1912. The finding of its wreck took 73 years, on 01st Sept 1985.

The wreck, scattered over a large area, was lying at depths of around 3780 metres. 

It lay undiscovered for those 73 years, as mankind had not attained the technology and sophistication required to operate at deeper depths in the water, without succumbing to the pressure those depths create.

The first deep sea diving vehicle, the “Bathysphere” was built and operated in 1930. It was a spherical steel chamber with quartz windows and could reach depths of around 435 metres, mainly used for spotting shoals of fish.

By the 1980s, Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) were exploring ocean depths up to 10,900 metres.

The spotting of the wreckage of the Titanic was more by accident than by design.

I would call the spotting of the wreckage more of a ‘quid pro quo’ deal by the US Navy with Richard Ballard, as the latter had developed a deep sea diving remote controlled vehicle, but had no means to finance the operation for testing it. The US navy wanted him to check the whereabouts of two lost submarines. And so it came about  that the  ROV “Argo” was used on a top secret US Naval operation to discover the wreckage of a couple of submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher (source : Google) that were lost in the area, rather than a search for the Titanic’s remains. 

During this search, Ballard noted the presence of a lot of debris and, knowing he was on to something big, requested the Navy to help him after he found their submarines.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's (WHOI) imaging vehicle Argo discovered the wreck of the Titanic on 01st Sept 1985. The ROV was towed from the Research Vessel Knorr and deployed by Dr. Robert Ballard and his team.

While Argo was the vehicle equipped with sonar and towed behind a ship, it had a robot named Jason tethered to it that could roam the ocean floor, take close up images and collect specimens.

Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel found the wreckage 73 years after the ship sank.

A boiler was spotted first which led to the debris trail.

The wreck was found about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The Titanic lies in two main pieces, separated by about a third of a mile (slightly more than 500 metres apart). The bow is mostly recognizable, but the stern is ruined from damage during the sinking

The fascination of more details of the wreckage and recovery of more pieces of the wreckage has not diminished since the discovery of the remains.

Some of the first photographs of that 1st Sept 1985 dive was published in Time Magazine.

Courtesy - Titanic Belfast

Following were taken later - circa 1988 ~ 1991

The iconic forecastle / prow of the vessel, that has captured the imagination of millions through the movie “Titanic”, the photograph taken sometime after 1985.  - Ralph White—Corbis

The insides of a power turbine of the Titanic - Ralph White—Corbis

China dishes are part of the debris left from the wreck of the Titanic - Ralph White—Corbis

Starboard Wing Propeller from Titanic Shipwreck - Ralph White—Corbis

 The Low Pressure cylinder head of the port steam engine of the shipwrecked Titanic. Ralph White—Corbis

Some of the items salvaged from the debris of the Titanic kept in a warehouse in the UK (below):

Location : 370 nmi (690 km) south-southeast of Newfoundland, North Atlantic Ocean

Co-ordinates : 41° 43′ 32″ N, 49° 56′ 49″ W

The Big Piece (below) is a large section of the Titanic's starboard hull extracted from its wreck. Recovered in 1998, it is the largest piece of the wreck to be recovered and weighs 15 short tons (14,000 kg). It is currently located at the Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at Luxor Las Vegas. Note the riveting of the hull plates, as they played a key part in the sinking of the Titanic.

Although the first few dives of remote controlled vehicles were unmanned, it did not take long for Bollard to find himself in a manned vehicle - 1986 - which reached 3900 metre depth, in order to survey and photograph the wreckage. He was on a research vessel RV Atlantis II, which had on board a deep sea diving submersible DSV Alvin.

The DSV Alvin in 1978, exploring hyperthermal vents. The rack hanging at the bow holds sample containers

With the DSV Alvin, they descended the depths and were the first persons to see the wreckage after she sank in 1912. A remote operated vehicle even descended the iconic stairs of the lounge on the Titanic and “photographed the remarkably well preserved interiors, including the  chandeliers that were hanging from the ceilings.” (Wikipedia).

After the location of the wreckage, it became a free-for-all race to reach the site and, controversially, remove artefacts from the site, more than 2000 such items having been salvaged.

So much so, the site of the Titanic resembled an underwater carnival. In a really morbid event, one couple even decided to get married in an underwater vehicle resting on the bow of the Titanic. (The ghosts of the dead were probably stirred by this sacrilege).

Since then, numerous dives have taken place, mostly for scientific reasons. A few of them were to ascertain the condition of the steel. A few of them were to study the eco system that grew around the wreck.

It is estimated that very little of the wreckage will be left by 2035 having succumbed to the ravages of the sea and metal eating bacteria. The hopes of finding any bodies has long been shelved and most have now come to believe that the site is a watery grave for the thousands who perished and, as such, should not be desecrated or disturbed.

“The Titanic became a UNESCO cultural heritage site in 2012 (exactly a hundred years after she sank). The site is also protected by other international agreements and domestic laws, including: 

• UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage: This 2001 treaty aims to protect underwater cultural relics, including wrecks, and promote public access to them. 

• US-UK International Agreement on Titanic: This agreement gives the UK and US governments the power to grant or deny licenses for entry to the wreck and removal of artifacts. 

• R.M.S. Titanic Maritime Memorial Act of 1986: This US law called for the international agreement and NOAA guidelines. 

• Section 113 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017: This US law prohibits anyone from disturbing the wreck without authorization from the Secretary of Commerce. 

• The Protection of Wrecks (RMS Titanic) Order 2003: This UK law protects the Titanic. 

The Titanic is located in international waters, so no single state can claim the site. The wreck is slowly deteriorating due to metal-eating bacteria, and some predict it could vanish in decades. 

On 14 April 2012 (the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking), the wreck of the Titanic became eligible for protection under the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.”

Although the site was protected by various bodies and statutes, some companies made it a tourist site and charged exorbitant fees for viewing the wreckage up close. Under the guise of ‘scientific research’, it became a tourist spot, costing each one of them as much as $250,000.

In 2023, June 18th, the submersible morbidly named the ‘Titanic’, imploded during one of those dives, with 5 people on board, including a father - son party, with 3 of the 5 being businessmen, having no business being in the vehicle. The wreck of this submersible was spotted a few months back.

Theories abound as to the cause of the implosion - imperfections in the design and the materials used. But my take is that the submersible had completed one too many dives where it had been subjected to about  350 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level repeatedly and had been subjected to fatigue, like all materials that work at the outer edge of their capacity. The submersible was subjected to around 354 bar pressure = 35400 kilonewtons / square metre and returned to 1.01325 bar pressure at sea level, when raised. The fatigue caused by this extreme variation may have imploded the submersible.

Post Script : This is the first part of a series on the “Titanic”. I anticipate that it will, finally, resemble an article with several chapters of

The Wreck (as above)

The Construction Period

The Voyage Period 

The Events that led to the Collision with the Ice Berg

The Sinking and the Rescue

The Fall Out from the accident and the huge impact it had on Marine Laws.

All the details that I am enumerating are from material available in the print media, research papers, books. Most of the events that I write about will have an engineer’s slant, rather than that of a story teller.

Please do comment.

AR