Titanic will be gone by 2028
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stealthman — 19 years ago(January 12, 2007 05:47 AM)
I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I feel nothing should be taken from the Titanic.
Photograhping and studying is ok, but it's a grave site, and should be left alone.
Stealthman.
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND THEY IS US"
POGO -
flashbuck — 19 years ago(January 12, 2007 06:58 AM)
I totally respect your point of view, Stealthman, but it's not only a gravesite, but also a historical site. There are a lot of unanswered questions. I suppose you could argue it doesn't matter now, considering anyone who might have survived would be dead by now anyway, and we don't travel in riveted, steam-driven ships anymore, so anything we might learn from the Titanic tragedy would not be applicable to today's world, but just for the knowledge of history I think we should continue exploring the wreck. And if we take anything, it should be for that purpose, not for souvenir-hunting and salvage.
The most practical things we can learn from the Titanic tragedy are well documented in White Star's records, and they involve administrative decisions that led to the disaster. That's something we never seem to learn, and we repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Hindenburg, Challenger, Columbia, September 11th, Hurricane Katrinathe same series of oversights, bureaucracy, and complacent inaction continually lead to disaster. When will we learn to think ahead?
Collin R. Skocik -
stealthman — 19 years ago(January 12, 2007 07:43 AM)
I heartily agree Collin.
The souvenir and treasure hunting is awful and should not be allowed.
As far as learning from the past, we don't have a good track record of that.
Tom Lepone
(Stealthman)
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND THEY IS US"
POGO -
bbbcouple — 19 years ago(February 14, 2007 02:21 AM)
The wreck is deteriorating because of damage caused by visitors to the site. The foremast crows nest was destroyed by the French expedition attempting to recover the ships' bell rung by lookout Frederick Fleet when he sighted the iceberg. The roof above the gymnasium is collapsing due to submersibles "landing" there to deploy ROV cameras. The entire "Titanic is falling apart" thing is to justify raping the wreck for anything of monetary value. There are no archaeological benefits to be had in exploiting the site. The construction and all other aspects of the vessel were well documented at the time of the sailing. We are not talking about an ancient shipwreck containing amphorae here. This ship went down within living memory, and there are presently two living survivors (Elizabeth Dean and Barbara West) of the disaster. There are the remains of 1496 passengers and crew down there.
How would you feel if someone dug up the grave of one of your ancestors that died in 1912, pried the rings from their fingers, pulled off their burial shrouds and put them on display for profit? Would you be satisfied with the explanation given?
"We need to document this, before it falls apart"
IT'S FALLING APART BECAUSE YOU WON'T LEAVE IT ALONE!!
If those responsible for looting the wreck were to display the artefacts at no charge, as a tribute to the victimsfine. But to profit from grave robbing is morally reprehensible. -
bbbcouple — 19 years ago(February 14, 2007 12:07 PM)
Why, thank you, stealthman.
I just wanted to add something. Scientists estimate that 200 pounds of steel are consumed daily by bacteria and converted into "rusticles". The hull of Titanic displaced 24,360 tons, the overall gross tonnage was 46,328. Now not all of the vessel is metal, but just the hull alone is almost 49 million pounds. At 200 pounds a day times 34,675 days (95 years) equals 6,935,000 pounds (approximately)of the hull consumed to date.
That leaves around 42 million pounds. At 73,000 pounds a year consumed, it should last until 2582 AD.
And that's just the hull. -
jimpoz — 19 years ago(March 24, 2007 08:12 PM)
Ironic, isn't it? Had Titanic never sunk, she probably would have followed Olympic to the Inverkeithing scrapyards in the late 1930's, thus already having disappeared forever. It's only because she was destroyed that she still exists.
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mitcherz — 18 years ago(April 06, 2007 02:25 AM)
Yes, one day it will just be a big stain on the bottom of the ocean. There are a few things that will be there forever though, like the propellers.
"I have no interest in prisoners. Kill them all."- White Witch
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hobnob53 — 18 years ago(April 19, 2007 10:22 AM)
How do you paint a wreck 2 miles under water, covered with rusticles? I'm surprised Ballard would seem to advocate such a proposal. He's the number one proponent of leaving the wreck alone. Its fate should be left to natural processes. Anyway, paint would only mask rust, not eradicate it the whole thing sounds stupid and senseless.
I have mixed emotions about what some call "looting" the wreck. I used to agree that it should be left entirely alone, nothing taken, etc. But over time I've changed my mind, at least to some extent. What good to leave all those items at the bottom of the ocean? Retrieving what can be salvaged without destroying the structure of the wreck itself now seems to me to be reasonable things like dishes, bottles, even various personal effects. I wouldn't disturb items like the sadly famous pair of shoes lying on the seabed, where once a body obviously lay. On the other hand, retrieving and identifying less sensitive personal effects and giving them to their owners' descendents seems fair, as has been done in a few cases. I'm a little less sure about removing items belonging to the ship itself. Perhaps, if doing so did not undermine the wreck's remaining structural integrity. (The ship's brass wheel base, for example.) But cutting out large swaths of the ship, or salvaging objects that are part of the ship's basic infrastrucutre, seems unnecessary.
Obviously one's motive in bringing up artifacts counts for something morally. But let's face it, we routinely sift through and remove things from wrecks, gravesites, ancient buildings, everything. We even relocate actual graves if they're discovered on building sites. Whether we should do these things is one issue; the fact is this happens literally on a daily basis on one level or another. Why the Titanic should be singled out when so much other retrieval/removal/looting goes on at sea and on land is beyond me. You can't decry removing artifacts from the Titanic, for example, then blithely go buy tickets to see, say, the Tutankhamen exhibit as I'm sure many have.
(Oh, and despite an earlier contributor's rants about "Yanks" looting the ship for mercenary reasons, the fact is most "looters" have been Europeans; it's the US Congress that tried to control salvaging operations at the wreck, though without jurisdiction that's impossible. Just a corrective touch of jingoism.)
As to the "graveyard" issue.Many people have said this is the grave of 1500 people and should be left undisturbed because of that. Unhappily, that's emotion and hyperbole. The fact is most people who died on Titanic died in the water (some in lifeboats), not on the ship itself. Hundreds of bodies were later recovered and buried ashore. Some people did indeed "go down with the ship" in the literal sense, and other unrecovered bodies would have eventually sunk to the ocean floor, though all of these most certainly would have fallen miles from the wreck after being carried along by the currents. Yes, the ship itself is the gravesite for some people and needs to be respected because of that. But the fact is it is not the grave of the vast majority of the people lost that night.
One thing that should stop is every expedition dropping their own little plaque on the wreck. That's selfish and obscene (and when the wreck finaly collapses, pointless). These should all be removed, even Ballard's original plaque we can blame him for starting this "tradition", though he surely didn't understand the precedent he was setting.
By the way, Ballard in one of his books said he expected Titanic to last another 75 years before it disintegrated, although a rusty stain amid non-decaying debris will always remain at the place. That would be, from his time of writing, about 2065. Disintegration seems to be accelerating, however, so whether it's 2028 or later it's clear the wreck as we've come to know it won't survive many more decades certainly not until the year 2500 or so, as stated in an earlier post.
Sorry for the lengthy post, there's a lot of topics covered here. Thanks for reading! -
valerie_lp — 18 years ago(April 20, 2007 02:02 PM)
He was quite sure it can be done. They have the technology to paint Navy tankers that never come out of the water. The paint (which contains an antioxidant preservative) dries underwater. (Trust me, my explanation is not doing justice to the planhis version was a lot more scientific.)
Balalrd is anti-salvage, but not pro-leaving-it-totally-alone. He's fine with people visiting it, he just doesn't approve of taking stuff from the wreck or landing submersibles on the deck and crushing it (as the Russians tend to do). He's very interested in preserving Titanic as it is for eternity, to be enjoyed and visited virtually through robotic submersibles that we will one day be able to receive signals from at will.
His website can probably tell you more. -
hobnob53 — 18 years ago(April 22, 2007 08:14 PM)
Thanks. I have a vague idea of the kind of thing you're talking about. I'm sure "preservation" efforts could be made, but that would transform the ship into something else, certainly not the "beautiful ruin" it is. We can't restore Titanic, and really can't keep it around forever, so I think leaving it to its natural fate is best. But you're right, we should stop further man-caused degradation of the fragile wreck.
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hobnob53 — 16 years ago(October 06, 2009 08:49 PM)
Well, do you mind looting pyramids for their artifacts? That's a tomb. What about the
Andrea Doria
? Thousands of items have been removed from that vessel, which carried 40 or more people down with her. As I wrote a couple of years ago, right or wrong, this sort of thing has always gone on. Where do we draw the line?
As to your specific question, again, where do you say "stop"? Other "war graves" not only from both world wars but dating back thousands of years have had articles removed from them. Why single out these two vessels or any? Now I agree, I can't see any reason to take anything from either
Hood
or
Bismarck
, and think they should be left alone, but that's a call based in part on the historical information that might be gained from removing an item from either ship, which I think is limited. But let's face it, most sunken ships can be termed "graves", even if somewhat inaccurately or hyperbolically, and few people oppose retrieving artifacts from them. How does one make an exception for
Hood, Bismarck
or
Titanic
, but not others? Perhaps you personally apply this philosophy to all ships, and if so I commend you for your consistency, but it's a tricky issue with, to me, no clear resolution.
I think respecting the wreck, and not disturbing any bodies or remains, is the paramount thing. The families of the sunken Great Lakes freighter
Edmund Fitzgerald
agreed to have the ship's bell brought to the surface but otherwise want the wreck left alone. Since it really is the site of the bodies of all (or nearly all) of the crew that perished, and there is little of historic interest aboard the ship itself, this solution seems fair. But not all wrecks are so neatly dealt with. Even where artifact-retrieval isn't an issue, sometimes a ship is raised or dismembered, or items brought up, because of the need to investigate the cause of its sinking, or other scientific or technical considerations. The Russian submarine
Kursk
was raised to retrieve the bodies, but after these were removed would the sub constitute an inviolable "grave"? I don't think there's a black-and-white policy applicable in all instances. -
The_Dying_Flutchman — 16 years ago(October 07, 2009 08:48 AM)
From what I know of sunken ships that went down long ago, human remains have long since been devoured by the salt water as they do not last more than a few decades if even that long. As an underwater archaeologist enthusiast this is where my knowledge comes from.
What is the sound an imploding pimp makes?