Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks

by James Delgado

  I have tears in my eyes as we pass over the davit. Some people think archeology is all about science, while others argue that it is about humanity. I tend to agree with the humanists, for though science does play in a role in what we do, we should never lose sight of the fact that the focus of our work is people. The power of Mrs. Straus’s sacrifice is a reminder of that, and as I cry, I notice I am not alone. The wreck of Titanic, down here in the darkness and silence, preserves a sense of immediacy and a link to tragedy, both large scale and individual, that you do not often experience.

  We then rise, passing over the gaping doorways and windows of the officers’ quarters. Glass in the panes brightly reflects our lights. Ahead is the skylight that looks down into the Marconi Wireless Room, where the SOS was broadcast from the sinking ship. Here, some of the heroes of the disaster, like senior wireless operator Harold Bride, worked to the very end, trying to get help.

  We turn around and move aft to where the first-class staircase, in all of its ornately carved splendor, once led below. At the edge of one deck, two chandeliers are visible, hanging from their wiring, a reminder of former elegance in this ruin. We follow the sloping deck to the break in the hull where the ship ripped apart as the stern rose high into the air. For years after the tragedy, some people argued that Titanic sank intact, while others insisted that the ship was torn apart. The arguments ended with the discovery of the wreck in 1985.

  We descend to the seabed again, turning forward to look into the severed bow section’s boiler room. Here Titanic fractured: the torn and crumpled steel, the half crushed and twisted water and steam pipes, and the five massive boilers that rise before us as high as a three-story-tall wall, are impressive not only in their mass but in the gargantuan scale of the damage. The steel is deformed and stretched in some areas like saltwater taffy on a hot summer’s day. Other hull plates have jagged edges like a shattered porcelain plate. Everywhere is a tangled mess of electrical wires. As we edge along this open wound, we look up to see the towering mass of the decks above us. The danger of a sudden collapse and our burial in the debris spurs Genya to pull away at last and head out across the abyssal plain to examine the stern.

  The debris field that lies between the two sections of the hull is an array of hardware, hunks of steel, lumps of coal and occasional items that speak to the splendor of the ship and the lives changed by or lost in the disaster. I see linoleum tiles, a ceramic sink bowl, plates, a section of brass bench and shoes. I also see a copper pan from the ship’s galley, looking amazingly bright after nearly nine decades in the sea. The shifting sands keep it polished, Genya suggests. I have been told that the debris field looks as if a small city exploded in space and rained down, and it is an apt description.

  The bow section of Titanic is separated from the stern by some 1,790 feet. That distance seems to go on forever down here, but gradually, the pieces of debris get larger. We pass a crank from an engine that seems to be as big as an average family minivan, and then one of the ship’s boilers. Finally, we reach the stern. The stern is a mangled, deformed mass of steel, but in its wreckage we can discern the form of the hull as it swept back to the rudder, the deckhouses, a half-fallen cargo crane, the stub of a mast and the graceful curve of the poop deck. We edge forward to view the massive reciprocating steam engines. The cast iron is fractured because the cylinders, each the size of a large truck, imploded with the pressure of the sea as the stern sank. Nestled between the cracks and broken pipe is a beautiful ceramic teapot; its handle is intact but the spout is broken. Lighter debris, like the teapot, rained down for hours after the ship sank, falling onto the heavier wreckage that had plummeted to the bottom first.

  Titanic is such a part of the mass-media world in which we live that my mind keeps flashing back to the various written stories and films. Here, inside the engine room, as I look at the teapot, I think back to a scene in the 1958 classic movie A Night to Remember. The chief engineer is talking to the men who are running the electrical system. The chief is asked, “How are things up top, sir? Any chance for us?” He stops and says, “Whatever happens, we’ve got to keep the lights going. I’ll give the word when it’s time to go, and then it’s every man for himself.” He pauses and goes on. “But it won’t be so bad, they say the Carpathia is on her way to us, should be here any time now.” As he leaves, the engineer in charge turns to his men and says, with a slight smile, “Well, let’s hope they’re right, eh boys? If anyone feels like praying, you’d better go ahead. The rest can join me in a cup of tea.” It’s just a movie, but I remember that scene of understated British heroism as I look at the teapot in the wrecked engine room.

  The bow of RMS Titanic at the bottom of the North Atlantic. James P. Delgado

  Slowly, we pull back from the engines, past warped walkways, torn pipes and hanging wires. We turn, and Genya pilots us back to the stern. A narrow opening between the sea floor and the overhanging steel mass of the stern beckons us, and as Genya slowly pilots Mir 2 into the gap, we enter a rusting cave. I ask Genya what our clearance is. He glances at the sonar, makes a quick calculation, and answers that we have 20 inches of clearance from the bottom, and the same between us and the steel wreckage above. We edge in without a bump, stopping just ahead of one of Titanic’s 21-ton bronze propellers, half buried in the silt. Genya not only manages to get us in but extracts Mir 2 without a scrape, then takes us to the propeller on the other side of the stern. Despite Genya’s skill, the maneuverability of Mir 2 and the reassurance of looking at hull plates still covered with black paint and with very little rust, Scott and I breath a sigh of relief when we’re out.

  Genya nudges the controls and we drift up past the tip of the stern, where the words “Titanic, Liverpool” once were. The edge of the poop deck, with its collapsed railing, marks the last piece of the ship to sink, and we stare silently, thinking of the struggling crowd of people who clustered here, hands grasping that railing, clinging on as the stern climbed higher and higher, then dropped into the deep. I also think of the ship’s baker, Charles Joughlin, who balanced himself on this rail, clad in a thick fur coat and drunk as a lord. He stepped off the rail just as the stern sank and reportedly didn’t even get his head wet. Lubricated by the alcohol and insulated by his coat, he was not killed by the cold water. He was pulled into a lifeboat and survived.

  Before we start our ascent, we briefly tour the debris field around the stern, noting huge pieces of hull, a broken-off engine cylinder, a cargo crane, the ornate bronze end of a deck bench, wine bottles and plates. Off to one side is a pair of boots. Small, flat-heeled and calf-length, they are the boots of a working-class woman, perhaps a steerage passenger. They lie side by side and are still laced tight. We pass over them in respectful silence, for while the body is long gone, consumed by the sea, this is a place where one of Titanic’s dead came to rest. It’s much colder now, and I pull on a sweater, wondering as I do if it is really the lower temperature or what we’ve just seen.

  My thoughts are on many things as Genya powers the thrusters and we start to rise, pumping seawater out of the ballast tanks all the way as the outside pressure relents, bit by bit, during the two-hour ride to the surface. We’re elated with excitement because of our visit to this undersea museum, historic site and memorial, but we’re also reflective and somber. After years of studying Titanic, reading the history books and watching hours of video of other dives, this dive has put all the pieces together for me.

  We reach the surface at 6:50 p.m. After thirty minutes of bobbing and rolling on the surface, we rise dripping, out of the sea to land on the deck of Keldysh. At 7:25—after nine hours and forty minutes inside Mir 2, we step out into the last light of day. It feels good to breathe in the sea air and watch the sun set over the North Atlantic.

  This place is more than a memorial, more than a museum. It is a place that, like a battlefield, the pyramids of Egypt, or the Forum in Rome, is a reminder of humanity’s achievements and the price we often pay in our quest. Titanic should not be
left to the salvagers, nor should it be surrendered entirely to the dark solitude of the deep. We must keep the stories and the lessons alive and ever present.

  Back in St. John’s, I pack my bags for a flight home to Vancouver. There, I repack my bags and prepare for a return trip to the east coast of Canada. A new venture I’m involved in, a documentary television series called The Sea Hunters, has started what we hope will be a long-running series based on Clive Cussler’s best-seller of the same name. We will search the world’s oceans for famous shipwrecks. While I’ve been out exploring Titanic, some of the crew members of The Sea Hunters have been searching for Carpathia, the ship that rescued Titanic’s survivors.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CARPATHIA

  THE NORTH ATLANTIC! APRIL 15, 1912

  Harold Thomas Cottam’s watch was long over, but the wireless operator of the Cunard liner Carpathia was still at his post, listening to the dot-dit-dot-dit Morse transmissions of other ships and the shore. Cottam’s late-night wakefulness was unusual, but he wanted to catch the latest news flashes from the station at Cape Race. As he reached down to unlace his boots, he suddenly stopped, stunned by the message coming in over the airwaves.

  The news he heard changed his life — and probably saved those of more than 700 others. The White Star liner Titanic, bound to New York on her maiden voyage with 2,224 persons aboard, was calling for help.

  As Cottam acknowledged the signal, Titanic’s wireless operator, John George “Jack” Phillips called back: “CQD — CQD — SOS — SOS — CQD — MGY. Come at once. We have struck a berg. It’s a CQD, old man. Position 41.46 N, 50.14 W” CQD was the wireless distress call, and SOS was the new call just introduced to replace it. MGY was Titanic’s call sign. There was no mistaking the news, as much as Cottam could scarcely believe his ears. The new and “practically unsinkable” Titanic was going down.

  “Shall I tell my captain?” Cottam wired back.

  “Yes, quick,” came the reply.

  Racing to Carpathia’s bridge, Cottam blurted the news to First Officer Dean, who, without knocking, went straight into the cabin of Captain Arthur Rostron. In the 1958 classic movie A Night to Remember, the scene, as re-created, has Rostron yelling out, “What the devil!” and sitting up angrily in his bed, but Cottani’s quick explanation stops him from taking the wireless operator to task. In his memoirs, Rostron wrote: “I had but recently turned in and was not asleep, and drowsily I said to myself: ‘Who the dickens is this cheeky beggar coming into my cabin without knocking?’ Then the First Officer was blurting out the facts and you may be sure I was very soon doing all that was in the ship’s power to render the aid called for.”

  Rostron, a seasoned master known to his peers as “the Electric Spark,” was both decisive and energetic. He did not hesitate now. Again, as A Night to Remember reconstructs the scene, he ordered: “Mr. Dean, turn the ship around — steer northwest. I’ll work out the course for you in a minute.” The film’s script matches the decisiveness of the captain’s published memoirs. Rostron recalled that he asked Cottam if he was sure it was Titanic calling. “Yes, sir.” “You are absolutely certain?” “Quite certain, sir.” “All right, tell him we are coming along as fast as we can.”

  Carpathia was not the only ship to receive Titanic’s distress call, but she was the closest of them all. Still, she was 58 miles away. The 13,564-ton, 558-foot Carpathia was a ten-year-old veteran of Cunard’s fleet, three days out of New York with 750 passengers bound to Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. As Rostron worked out his position in relation to Titanic’s, he realized that at Carpathia’s top speed of 14 knots, it would take four hours to reach Titanic. That just wasn’t good enough. He knew that many people would not survive in the icy waters unless help arrived soon.

  Rostron called for more speed. Every off-duty stoker was roused and sent into the boiler rooms to shovel coal into the furnaces. To squeeze every bit of steam out of the boilers and into the engines, Chief Engineer Johnston cut off the heat and hot water throughout the ship, and pushed his men and machines to the limit. Carpathia surged forward at 15, 16 and finally 17 knots, faster than she had ever gone.

  RMS Carpathia, the ship that rushed to save the survivors of Titanic. Vancouver Maritime Museum

  As Carpathia raced northwest towards Titanic, Rostron was well aware that he was steaming into danger. Numerous warnings of ice from other ships and Titanic’s own collision with an iceberg made him wary. But he couldn’t slow down. Rostron posted extra lookouts, including Second Officer James Bisset, who stood in the open, the frigid wind blasting his face as he stared into the darkness. When Bisset looked back at the bridge, he saw his deeply religious captain, hat lifted, lips moving quietly in silent prayer.

  Carpathia’s crew was at hard at work, clearing the ship’s dining saloons to receive Titanic’s passengers, gathering blankets, uncovering the lifeboats and running them out. Stewards manned each passageway to calm Carpathia’s passengers and keep them in their rooms, out of the way. The galley staff brewed coffee and made hot soup, while the ship’s doctors readied emergency supplies and stimulants in makeshift wards. The deck crew rigged lines, ladders and slings to bring survivors aboard.

  Aboard Titanic, the end was fast approaching. At 1:45 a.m., Phillips called Cottam to plead, “Come as quickly as possible, old man; engine room filling up to the boilers.” The last boats had pulled away — many only half full — as a crowd of some fifteen hundred people raced towards the stern, which was rising out of the sea as Titanic’s bow went under.

  Cottam kept trying to raise Phillips, but Titanic’s faint signals showed that power was failing aboard the sinking liner. At 2:17 a.m., Cottam heard the beginning of a call from Titanic, then nothing but silence.

  On Titanic, Phillips and assistant wireless operator Harold Bride stayed at their posts nearly to the very end, frantically working the radio to urge the ships racing to Titanic to hurry. As Titanic’s stern rose higher in the air, the engineers — all of whom had remained at their posts, knowing that they would die, but who nonetheless kept the dynamos running to keep the lights burning and to give “Sparks” every remaining bit of electricity to call for help — lost their battle as the machinery tore free of its mounts. The lights blinked out, surged on briefly, then went out forever. Once the power was gone, Phillips and Bride joined the crowd of people on the sloping decks. Titanic, straining in the water, half submerged, tore apart. The stern bobbed free for a minute, then joined the bow in a 2¼ mile fall to the ocean floor.

  It was 2:20 a.m., and Carpathia was still nowhere in sight. Hundreds of people huddled in twenty lifeboats, while in the water more than fifteen hundred people thrashed, struggled and screamed for help until the icy water took their lives. “The cries, which were loud and numerous at first, died away gradually one by one… I think the last of them must have been heard nearly forty minutes after the Titanic sank,” reported survivor Lawrence Beesley, floating in the distance in the relative safety of a lifeboat.

  Two of those struggling in the water were Phillips and Bride. They made their way to one of the ship’s collapsible boats that had been washed off the deck when Titanic sank. Floating half submerged on the overturned boat through the night, they suffered from the cold with a handful of passengers and crew. As the long night wore on into early morning, Phillips died. Second Officer Charles H. Lightoller, washed into the sea as the ship sank, had also struggled onto the overturned lifeboat and took command of the precarious perch. “We were painfully conscious of that icy water, slowly but surely creeping up our legs. Some quietly lost consciousness, subsided into the water, and slipped overboard… No one was in a condition to help, and the fact that a slight but distinct swell had started to roll up, rendered help from the still living an impossibility.”

  Lightoller hoped that help would come soon. “We knew that ships were racing to our rescue, though the chances of our keeping up our efforts of balancing until one came along seemed very, very remote.”

  Rost
ron kept a careful lookout as Carpathia rushed into the darkness. “Into that zone of danger we raced… every nerve strained watching for the ice. Once I saw one huge fellow towering into the sky quite near— saw it because a star was reflected on its surface — a tiny beam of warning which guided us safely past.” At 2:40 a.m., he spotted a green flare on the horizon, just as the first icebergs came into view, but he did not slacken speed. Firing rockets and flares to signal his arrival, Rostron dodged the ice and he pressed on. He knew that the Titanic was probably gone, but he also knew that every minute counted for the survivors on — or in — the frigid sea. “It was an anxious time,” he later recalled. “There were seven hundred souls on the Carpathia; these lives, as well as all the survivors of the Titanic herself, depended on a sudden turn of the wheel.”

  At 3:50 a.m., Carpathia slowed, and at 4:00 stopped. She was at Titanic’s position, but the ship was gone. Then, ahead, just a few miles off, a green flare blazed up from the water, and the dim outline of first one, then several lifeboats, came into view. In the boats, the survivors, many of them sitting in stunned silence, watched as Carpathia slowly approached, picking her way through the ice. As the profile of the ship, portholes filled with light, came into sight of the survivors in the boats, Titanic passenger Lawrence Beesley recalled: “The way those lights came into view was one of the most wonderful things we shall ever see. It meant deliverance at once… everyone’s eyes filled with tears … and ‘Thank God’ was murmured in heartfelt tones round the boat.”