Since the famous ship sank in April, 1912, there have been at least seventeen attempts to put together an expedition to find the wreck. Many of these attempts seemed credible at the time, but most of them failed owing to a lack of funding. Finally, after failing to find the sunken ship in a 1977 expedition, Dr. Robert Ballard and his expedition team located the wreckage early on the morning of September 1, 1985. The first pictures taken by the remotely controlled Navy submarine, the Argo, used in Ballard’s expedition, made headlines around the world.
Early Attempts to Salvage the Wreck: Soon after the disaster proposals to salvage the wreck surfaced. The lack of submarine technology coupled with the uncertainty of the exact location or condition of the wreckage hampered most of the credible attempts. These problems contributed to a lack of sponsorships and corresponding funding. Two years after the disaster, World War I broke out, followed by the world wide depression of the 1930’s, and then World War II. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that proposals for raising the Titanic returned to forefront. Some attempts included filling the hull with ping pong balls, or with molten wax or Vaseline, or glass spheres. Other attempts sought to attach helium balloons to the hull, or use electromagnets to winch the ship up to the surface. All attempts failed with most never getting of the drawing board.
Wrong Co-ordinates: One of the most serious obstacles in the way of finding the sunken ship was the lack of exact co-ordinates. A 1980 expedition put together by a Texas oilman named Jack Grimm using Sea MARC sonar equipment thoroughly canvassed the area covered by what was thought to be the last known co-ordinates and identified fourteen possible targets. However the technology used was new and untested, and the magnetometer needed for detecting metal was damaged, making it difficult to confirm if any of the findings came from the Titanic. Grimm’s expedition returned a year later with an updated sonar device, but was only able to confirm that the fourteen possible targets were found to be natural features of the environment and not related to the ship.
The Debris Trail Discovery: One major accomplishment of Grimm’s expedition was a thorough canvassing and detailed mapping of an area of approximately 500 square nautical miles where the last known co-ordinates were. This meant that the co-ordinates were wrong—either by the wrong co-ordinates being given in the distress signals, or by the ship drifting away after the last distress signal was sent. With this in mind Dr. Robert Ballard, a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island and a former Navy officer, guided another expedition to the same site and used a different tactic. Ballard was required to look for two sunken Navy submarines as a part of the deal enabling him to use the Argo. During the search for the submarines, Ballard noticed that a debris field formed near where the subs rested pointing the way to the remainder. The search for the Titanic shifted from looking for the hull to looking for a debris field that could point the way to the hull.
The Condition of the Wreckage: To try again to locate the wreck, Ballard partnered with the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea. In July, 1985, the French Institute sent a research vessel to comb the entire area where the Titanic was believed to rest. Using a side-scan sonar system towed beneath the research vessel, the French contingent swept back and forth using a technique known as “mowing the lawn.” This effort continued for five weeks, but failed to turn up any evidence of the wreckage. Knowing that the area had been thoroughly searched, Ballard switched tactics by dragging Argo along the seafloor and monitoring the live video signal. After working around the clock in shifts, Ballard’s crew discovered some riveted hull plates and one of the ship’s boilers. They followed the trail of debris and the next morning found the ship’s bow. Further examination showed that the Titanic had broken into two large pieces as it sank. The bow sat upright on the bottom, and the stern was about 400 meters behind. They only had four days to document the find as bad weather was setting in. Ballard used a different remote-controlled submarine to take pictures of the wreck. The huge debris field included such things as China dinner plates, furniture, many pairs of leather shoes, and an unopened case of champaign. No human remains were found as they were presumed to have been consumed by sea scavengers.
Subsequent Visits: Ballard returned to the site a year later with a different submersible vessel, DSV Alvin. He brought with him two other devices that enabled the explorers to view the interior of the wreck and make photographs of the debris field. In the interior they found remarkably well preserved artifacts including ornate chandeliers still hanging from the ceilings. The next year, the French team returned to the site and made thirty-two dives to the wreck with a submersible and retrieved over 1,800 objects. In 1991, a joint Canadian-Russian expedition of 130 scientists and engineers made a thorough examination of the ship encompassing extensive scientific research. They employed two submersibles that photographed over 40,000 feet of IMAX film used to create a documentary in 1995 named Titanica. Numerous other trips to the site have been made including one where a couple was married in a submersible situated on the sunken bow.
Aftermath: Ballard did not retrieve any portion of the Titanic considering the wreck to be tantamount to a cemetery. Grimm, however, claimed ownership of the wreck as he considered himself to be the first one to have discovered its whereabouts. The artifacts brought up by the second French expedition drew much controversy as to the ownership rights, and the common courtesy of not disturbing a graveyard. In 1986 an attempt was made by congress to establish strict scientific guidelines concerning the exploration of the site. It was signed into law by President Reagan, but it lacked popular appeal in other parts of the world, and it was virtually unenforceable as the wreck was outside U.S. territorial waters. The debate has continued into this century as to whether the artifacts from the site should be retrieved and conserved, or the entire site should be left alone.
Conclusions: To read the first part of this series, A Deeper Look into the Titanic’s Sinking, please copy this link and paste it into your browser: https://bit.ly/3owGgDJ
Sources: Wikipedia, Wreck of the Titanic.
History.com, The Real Story Behind the Discovery of Titanic’s Water Grave, February 16, 2023.