i'm obsessive over sea sagas...this one above all others.
any interesting Titanic facts welcome here!
The bow of the Titanic rests on the bottom of the North Atlantic, about 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland. A team of scientists will launch an expedition to the Titanic on Aug. 18, 2010, to assess the deteriorating condition of the world's most famous shipwreck.
RICHMOND, Virginia -- A team of scientists will launch an expedition to the Titanic next month to assess the deteriorating condition of the world's most famous shipwreck and create a detailed three-dimensional map that will "virtually raise the Titanic" for the public.
The expedition to the site 2 miles 1⁄2 miles (four kilometers) beneath the North Atlantic is billed as the most advanced scientific mission to the Titanic wreck since its discovery 25 years ago.
The 20-day expedition is to leave St. John's, Newfoundland, on Aug. 18 under a partnership between RMS Titanic Inc., which has exclusive salvage rights to the wreck, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The expedition will not collect artifacts but will probe a 2-by-3 mile (3-by-5 kilometer) debris field where hundreds of thousands of artifacts remain scattered.
Some of the world's most frequent visitors to the site will be part of the expedition along with a who's who of underwater scientists and organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Organizers say the new scientific data and images will ultimately will be accessible to the public.
"For the first time, we're really going to treat it as an archaeological site with two things in mind," David Gallo, an expedition leader and Woods Hole scientist, told The Associated Press on Monday. "One is to preserve the legacy of the ship by enhancing the story of the Titanic itself. The second part is to really understand what the state of the ship is."
April 10, 1912: The British liner Titanic sails out of Southampton, England, at the start of its doomed voyage.
The Titanic struck ice and sank on its maiden voyage in international waters on April 15, 1912, leaving 1,522 people dead.
Since oceanographer Robert Ballard and an international team discovered the Titanic in 1985, most of the expeditions have either been to photograph the wreck or gather thousands of artifacts, like fine china, shoes and ship fittings. "Titanic" director James Cameron has also led teams to the wreck to record the bow and the stern, which separated during the sinking and now lie one-third of a mile apart.
RMS Titanic made the last expedition to site in 2004. The company, a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc. of Atlanta, conducts traveling displays of the Titanic artifacts, which the company says have been viewed by tens of millions of people worldwide.
"We believe there's still a number of really exciting mysteries to be discovered at the wreck site," said Chris Davino, president of and CEO of Premier Exhibitions and RMS Titanic. "It's our contention that substantial portions of the wreck site have never really been properly studied."
RMS Titanic is bankrolling the expedition. Davino declined to state the cost of the exploration other than to say it will be millions of dollars.
The "dream team" of archaeologists, oceanographers and other scientists want to get the best assessment yet on the two main sections of the ship, which have been subjected to fierce deep-ocean currents, salt water and intense pressure.
Gallo said while the rate of Titanic's deterioration is not known, the expedition approaches the mission with a sense of urgency.
"We see places where it looks like the upper decks are getting thin, the walls are thin, the ceilings may be collapsing a bit," he said. "We hear all these anecdotal things about the ship is rusting away, it's collapsing on itself. No one really knows."
The expedition will use imaging technology and sonar devices that never have been used before on the Titanic wreck and to probe nearly a century of sediment in the debris field to seek a full inventory of the ship's artifacts.
"We're actually treating it like a crime scene," Gallo said. "We want to know what's out there in that debris field, what the stern and the bow are looking like."
The expedition will be based on the RV Jean Charcot, a 250-foot (76-meter) research vessel with a crew of 20. Three submersibles and the latest sonar, acoustic and filming technology will also be part of the expedition.
"Never before have we had the scientific and technological means to discover so much of an expedition to Titanic," said P.H. Nargeolet, who is co-leading the expedition. He has made more than 30 dives to the wreck.
Bill Lange, a Woods Hole scientist who will lead the optical survey and will be one of the first to visit the wreck, said a key analysis will be comparing images from the first expedition 25 years ago and new images to measure decay and erosion.
"We're going to see things we haven't seen before. That's a given," he said. "The technology has really evolved in the last 25 years."
Davino said he anticipates future salvage expeditions to the wreck, and Gallo said he doesn't expect the science will end with one trip.
"I'm sure there will be future expeditions because this is the just the beginning of a whole new era of these kind of expeditions to Titanic -- serious, archaeological mapping expeditions," Gallo said.
RMS Titanic is still awaiting a judge's ruling in Norfolk, Virginia. on the 5,500 artifacts it has in its possession.
The company is seeking limited ownership of the artifacts as compensation for its salvage efforts. In its court filing for a salvage award, the company put the fair market value of the collection at $110.9 million.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, a maritime jurist who is presiding over the hearings, has called the wreck an "international treasure."
there is currently a new expedition to the wreck, but it had to be suspended because of the hurricane coming. i'm hoping there will be much more to see when they are able to resume filming.
(CNN) -- The frigid waters of the North Atlantic aren't among the most prominent cruise destinations, but that may change as the world remembers one of the worst maritime disasters in history.
At least two cruises are planned in the spring of 2012 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, with both touting special activities, lectures and memorials to commemorate the tragic voyage.
Organizers insist it's a learning opportunity and a way to remember the victims, but some critics have called the trips tasteless and dubbed them "disaster voyeurism."
Still, both voyages are attracting interest as Titanic -- the subject of countless books and movies -- continues to fascinate.
"There's a magic about Titanic that transcends reality," said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of CruiseCritic.com, a website that features cruise reviews.
"Perhaps what makes it special is that its story, and that of the passengers who didn't survive their journeys, never did have a satisfying conclusion. And so that's why the ship continues to live on."
The Titanic Memorial Cruise on the Balmoral will retrace the doomed ship's original itinerary, departing from Southampton, England; passing by Cherbourg, on the French coast; and calling into the Irish port of Cobh before sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to the sinking site.
Once there, a memorial service will be held at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 2012 -- exactly a century after Titanic sank.
The ship will take 1,309 passengers on the trip, the same number of people who were on the Titanic.
More than 30 relatives of Titanic survivors and victims will be on board, said Miles Morgan, managing director of the cruise. He wasn't surprised the voyage has almost sold out, despite the grim occasion.
"An awful lot of the people are simply just really interested in the Titanic and everything about it and to them it's the opportunity of a lifetime to do something very, very different," Morgan said.
Sailing from the U.S.
Meanwhile, Voyages! Titanic 2012 is a cruise that's set to depart on the Azamara Journey from Boston, Massachusetts, on April 9, 2012.
The ship will take up to 680 passengers to Halifax, Nova Scotia -- which received many of the Titanic victims -- and then sail to the sinking site. It too will hold a memorial service on the anniversary to honor "that fateful day in history."
An expedition ship with a remotely operated diving vehicle will follow along so that, weather permitting, passengers will be able to see live images from the wreck, said organizer Bill Willard.
"There are people who have studied and researched and read and want to know as much as they can about what happened that night and about the people who were on board. This is their chance to touch something real about Titanic, to be at the site," Willard said.
Both cruises will recreate some of the menus featured on Titanic, and both anticipate that some passengers will dress up in fashions of the era.
Critics say a fun vacation is no way to commemorate a disaster in which more than 1,500 people died.
"There seems to be something rather tasteless about the whole affair," wrote Luke Turner, a British blogger. "This Titanic cruise ... smacks of disaster voyeurism."
'Fresh memory of loss'
In a forum discussion on CruiseCritic.com, a poster recently slammed passengers for planning to dress up and "party" on the somber anniversary.
The member, identified as "dd714," wrote that his wife's great-grandfather died in the disaster.
"Who will be taking a memorial plunge in the 30 degree Atlantic ocean at the place where he met his death 98 years ago to experience what was described by survivors as 'a thousand knives going into the body?' " the poster wrote last month.
"This Titanic relative will NOT be attending, and I only ask when you put on your Jack and Rose costumes [from the "Titanic" movie] and drink your martinis, to remember that it is still a fresh memory of loss to many families."
But Morgan countered that the victims' relatives who have booked his cruise consider it a wonderful opportunity to commemorate their loved ones.
Nothing about the cruises is in poor taste, Willard added.
"We're not doing this to be gaudy or to be crass, we're doing it with respect and reverence and keeping in mind the moment and the occasion that we're there for," Willard said.
09-22-2010 11:10 AM
QueenBee
Boring Bitch
Posts: 2,105
Joined: Nov 2008
LC, have you heard that they are planning two cruises to follow the original route of the Titanic? Minus the iceberg of course. They plan it to coincide with the 100th anniversary. Some folks are callig it morbid...but I think people, like you, who are interested in everything Titanic would jump at the chance.
Check it out here http://www.titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk/
I had a hard day. My imaginary friend was running with scissors, the voices in my head were fighting with themselves, and I think 1 of my personalities ran away
09-22-2010 09:06 PM
QueenBee
Boring Bitch
Posts: 2,105
Joined: Nov 2008
Oh, never mind..I posted the above before reading your entire last post.
I had a hard day. My imaginary friend was running with scissors, the voices in my head were fighting with themselves, and I think 1 of my personalities ran away
Ijust learned of the existence of the "Nomadic" last night. This was the ship's tender which mostly ferried passengers to her I believe. It's been restored.
(09-23-2010 08:37 AM)Middle Finger Wrote: I recently saw an ad for a Titanic 2 movie. It made me think it was already made and out on dvd, but I am not sure.
it's some godawful piece of drek.
Titanic 2 is one of those jokes that everyone has made at sometime over the past decade. It’s the one sequel no one expects will ever be made. There was even a great mock trailer produced four or five years ago. The Asylum, the direct-to-dvd production company responsible for producing cheap knock-offs of the latest big budget Hollywood movies (termed “Knockbusters) has just finished production on Titanic 2.
On the 100th anniversary of the original voyage, a modern luxury liner christened “Titanic 2,” follows the path of its namesake. But when a tsunami hurls an ice berg into the new ship’s path, the passengers and crew must fight to avoid a similar fate.
(Sept. 22) -- A novelist whose grandfather survived the Titanic's sinking has revealed a long-held family secret: that the man behind the ship's wheel turned it the wrong way, crashing into an iceberg and causing the ship's demise.
Louise Patten's grandfather Charles Lightoller was second officer on the Titanic's maiden -- and only -- voyage when it sank in April 1912. He was in his cabin when the boat struck the iceberg, and vowed to stay with the ship rather than go to a lifeboat. As it sank, he jumped into the water and was sucked down into the depths -- but then miraculously thrown back to the surface by an underwater explosion, and picked up by a lifeboat.
As the most senior surviving officer, Lightoller testified afterward to official U.S. and British investigative panels, telling them he had no idea why the ship went down. But his granddaughter Patten now says that he was lying and that he told his wife the real story. She told Patten the story after his death.
Charles Lightoller was the most senior officer to survive the sinking of the Titanic. Although he told officials he didn't know why the ship went down, his granddaughter says he told his wife that the quartermaster accidentally steered it into an iceberg.
In her new book, "Good as Gold," Patten says the ship's steersman, who died on the Titanic, got mixed up and turned the wheel the wrong way. In 1912, ships were transitioning from using the tiller steering system of sailing ships -- where if you want to turn right, you push the tiller left, in the opposite direction -- to a new system on steam ships, which you drive like a car, turning the wheel in the direction you want to go.
"Crucially, the two steering systems were the complete opposite of one another. So a command to turn 'hard a-starboard' meant turn the wheel right under one system and left under the other," Patten told The Belfast Telegraph.
After the crash, Lightoller went to consult with the captain and first officer. "That is when they told him what had happened," Patten told another newspaper, London's Daily Telegraph. "Instead of steering Titanic safely round to the left of the iceberg, once it had been spotted dead ahead, the quartermaster, Robert Hitchins [whose name is also sometimes recorded as Robert Hichens], had panicked and turned it the wrong way."
Patten says her grandfather lied to investigators because he didn't want to damage the name of his dead colleagues. And she says the family kept his secret for so long, because they didn't want to tarnish the legacy of Lightoller, who went on to become a British war hero in World War II.
"I've known since I was 10," Patten told told The Guardian. Besides being a crime novelist, Patten is also a London business executive and wife of former Conservative education secretary Lord John Patten.
Hitchins' wrong-way turn wasn't the only mistake that led to the Titanic's sinking, Patten said. As the ship was going down, its officers held a final meeting with its owner, Bruce Ismay, chairman of White Star Line. Ismay believed the Titanic was "unsinkable" and persuaded the captain to keep sailing forward, rather than giving up and waiting for a rescue.
"My grandfather described the decision to try and keep Titanic moving forward as criminal," Patten told The Guardian. "The nearest ship was four hours away. Had she remained at 'stop', it's probable that Titanic would have floated until help arrived."
Instead, more than 1,500 people died as the Titanic went down on April 15, 1912.
Experts say Patten's explanation of the mix-up with steering mechanisms is a not a new theory. "In the Titanic world, it's always been one of those things that's referred to," Michael McCaughan, a maritime specialist and Titanic researcher, told The Guardian.
"But of course, as we come up to the centenary, this is clearly interesting. It's a new piece of aural evidence coming in to the public sphere and it will give rise to a lot of discussion and debate," he said. "People are still fascinated by Titanic because it's like a parable of the human condition, it's a story of profit, pleasure and memorialization."
Patten's book reveals her family secrets about the Titanic in a fictionalized account of a banker who survives the sinking.
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