RMS Titanic, Inc. - 1998 Research and Recovery Expedition

Reports written by Susan Wels

Images produced by Matt Tulloch

Monday, August 3, 1998

"Rowing away, looking at the Titanic, it was a beautiful sight outlined against the starry sky, every porthole and saloon blazing with light."

--Ruth Becker Blanchard
Second-class passenger
The Titanic

Ten miles from the Titanic’s wreck site, more than 11,000 feet beneath the waves, lies a massive, 22-ton section of the Titanic’s hull, known as the Big Piece. It was once part of the outer wall of the Titanic’s C-Deck, and behind its four portholes—still intact on the sea floor—were first-class staterooms, until the early morning of April 15, 1912.

Two years ago, in 1996, George Tulloch and his expedition team tried to raise the Big Piece, and they managed to bring it up within 200 feet of the ocean’s surface. But just as they were winching it onto a recovery vessel, Hurricane Edouard blew in, and the Big Piece plunged back to the bottom. Divers on the submersible Nautile found the hull section upright on the sea bed, and they hung a sign on it: "I will come back, George Tulloch."

This afternoon, George and the crew of the expedition ship Nadir did come back to the patch of ocean above the hull section’s position, and they successfully located the Big Piece once again.

Crew member during the 1996 attempt to recover the Big Piece

This time, they’re certain that they’ll raise it. If they succeed in a few days, it will be the first time that the Titanic’s portholes will be above the waves since 1912—in a small way, a resurrection.

The good news from the Nadir was a bright spot in an endless day of grey skies, grey rain and grey water. We are making our way, slowly, to the Titanic site, and the Ocean Voyager’s technical and television crews are completing their last plans and preparations.

Overseeing all the underwater systems is a marine scientist and engineering expert named Tom Dettweiler. On this trip, Tom is making his own return to the Titanic after an absence of 12 years.

Tom was an underwater systems engineer on the 1985 French-American expedition that discovered the Titanic. The next year, he returned to the wreck with the second U.S. expedition, this time shooting thousands of still photos of the Titanic with a camera-equipped underwater towed device called ANGUS.

Marine scientist and engineer Tom Dettweiler

Tom knows the wreck so well, he admits, it’s as though he has a model of the Titanic in his head. "You can’t ever get the Titanic out of your system completely," he concedes. So he’s back in 1998, this time with far more sophisticated cameras, fiber-optic lines and the technology—for the first time—to broadcast live images from the manned submersible Nautile.

All the new technology, he predicts, will most likely lead to more mysteries about the Titanic and to more unanswered questions. "The Titanic is so big," he says, "that you could come out here 100 times and never learn everything about her."

Back to the Expedition Calendar



		Reports written by Susan Wels	Images produced by Matt Tulloch

		Monday, August 3, 1998 "Rowing away, looking at the Titanic, it was a beautiful sight outlined against the starry sky, every porthole and saloon blazing with light." --Ruth Becker Blanchard Second-class passenger The Titanic
		Ten miles from the Titanic’s wreck site, more than 11,000 feet beneath the waves, lies a massive, 22-ton section of the Titanic’s hull, known as the Big Piece. It was once part of the outer wall of the Titanic’s C-Deck, and behind its four portholes—still intact on the sea floor—were first-class staterooms, until the early morning of April 15, 1912. Two years ago, in 1996, George Tulloch and his expedition team tried to raise the Big Piece, and they managed to bring it up within 200 feet of the ocean’s surface. But just as they were winching it onto a recovery vessel, Hurricane Edouard blew in, and the Big Piece plunged back to the bottom. Divers on the submersible Nautile found the hull section upright on the sea bed, and they hung a sign on it: "I will come back, George Tulloch." This afternoon, George and the crew of the expedition ship Nadir did come back to the patch of ocean above the hull section’s position, and they successfully located the Big Piece once again.
		This time, they’re certain that they’ll raise it. If they succeed in a few days, it will be the first time that the Titanic’s portholes will be above the waves since 1912—in a small way, a resurrection. The good news from the Nadir was a bright spot in an endless day of grey skies, grey rain and grey water. We are making our way, slowly, to the Titanic site, and the Ocean Voyager’s technical and television crews are completing their last plans and preparations. Overseeing all the underwater systems is a marine scientist and engineering expert named Tom Dettweiler. On this trip, Tom is making his own return to the Titanic after an absence of 12 years. Tom was an underwater systems engineer on the 1985 French-American expedition that discovered the Titanic. The next year, he returned to the wreck with the second U.S. expedition, this time shooting thousands of still photos of the Titanic with a camera-equipped underwater towed device called ANGUS.
		Tom knows the wreck so well, he admits, it’s as though he has a model of the Titanic in his head. "You can’t ever get the Titanic out of your system completely," he concedes. So he’s back in 1998, this time with far more sophisticated cameras, fiber-optic lines and the technology—for the first time—to broadcast live images from the manned submersible Nautile. All the new technology, he predicts, will most likely lead to more mysteries about the Titanic and to more unanswered questions. "The Titanic is so big," he says, "that you could come out here 100 times and never learn everything about her." Back to the Expedition Calendar
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