Okay, the Titanic is one of those famous failures that endures in our collective consciousness, but to want to keep visiting the wreck?
A US expert on the Titanic wreck believes tourist visits will resume despite the catastrophic implosion of the OceanGate last month that took the lives of five people.
Jessica Sanders, president of Royal Mail Ship Titanic, Inc., spoke candidly regarding the submersible implosion that took the life of her colleague, revered French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of the five victims, on the doomed vessel.
Though she shared her trepidation about the future of commercial expeditions since the catastrophic Titan tragedy, she also highlighted Nargeolet’s beliefs. ‘It’s difficult because this one ended in a tragedy. But do I think the response is you should never be able to go? Then that contradicts a person that I deeply respected.’
Sanders said Nargeolet believed, ‘it shouldn’t be just for a handful of people who can afford to get there.’
She shared his conviction: ‘Everybody should be able to see the artifacts, and it shouldn’t be just a millionaire, a billionaire or the military or a filmmaker that can go down to the wreck site.’
Sorry, but I don’t understand this at all. I recall reading Clive Cussler’s ‘Raise the Titanic’ back before the wreck was discovered and the imagined raising did make me wonder as if bringing it back to life would be something to see. But we now know how she broke up, so even if raising a ship from that depth was a feasible option, not in this case. But again, why? There are plenty of shipwrecks scattered across the oceans. Why would people want to go and look? From an archaeological point of view, I get it – document the remains, lift any interesting artefacts for research and then leave it at that. Raising the remains of the Mary Rose made archaeological sense as it tells us something of the period, that we did not otherwise know and it’s long enough ago not to have any scars from descendants. But morbid curiosity? No, I don’t. Let it rust in peace and the souls who went down with it, lie where they are.
“I recall reading Clive Cussler’s ‘Raise the Titanic’ …”
Good book, great (and underrated) film. The bit where Sir Alec Guinness folds up the flag he took off her and gives it to Dirk to put back if they do manage to raise her always makes me cry.
And a really great theme too from tthe incomparable John Barry.