Amid the Scrapyard of the Stern
June 4, 2004
The collapsed promenade deck with the boat deck above, rests on the port side, forward section of the Titanic. It is photographed 5/31/2004 by ROV Hercules deployed from the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown.
Video image © Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island
The Return to Titanic expedition's roughest night at sea gave way to the calmest dawn Thursday, setting up Argus and Hercules for an easy launch and smooth trip to the shipwreck's shattered stern section. The two vehicles set out on their fourth descent at noon and arrived on site three hours later, virtually directly above the wreckage.
"It took us a while to realize it," Institute for Exploration engineer Jim Newman said of the pinpoint accuracy. "It's all a jumble down there."
When Titanic broke apart on the morning of April 15, 1912, the bow section sank smoothly because it had filled slowly with seawater.
The stern section, however, still contained huge air pockets as it descended. Mounting pressure caused a terrible implosion, contorting everything into a scrapyard of metal and showering the ocean floor with debris.
"It's not a very aesthetic thing. It's not like the bow," said Dr. Robert D. Ballard, head of the expedition.
Argus dangled a few meters above the crazily tilting plates and twisted metal while Hercules floated over the desolation.
Pilots in the command and control van on the stern of the surface ship Ronald H. Brown zoomed Herc's high-definition cameras in and out while Argus's lights illuminated the field of view.
"Think of Hercules as a curious creature," Dr. Ballard told his team. "It sees something, and it wants to go look at it."
Dr. Ballard found a spittoon next to an engine wrench.
A crane leaned at a 45-degree angle, its operational levers still in place. A squat lobster, blue as a robin's egg, perched on the crane platform. Nearby, a living coral, rough and feathery like a bottle brush, waved in the current.
Dr. Ballard ordered the camera operators to focus on the crane's electrical connection box and the brass plates of its operational levers.
The high-definition cameras brought individual bolts into sharp focus.
"Let's go down and count the threads," Dr. Ballard said.
He said that as the exploration vehicles gather photographs and make maps, he feels tugged by competing emotions.
"There is the professional carrying out the technical operation, and the human side. There are constant moments while we have explored the Titanic, where I just sit back, and take it in," he said.
While watching the stern on the 52-inch (1.3-meter) plasma monitors in the control van, Dr. Ballard told his team members they were looking at "the diving board of death."
Hundreds of people who failed to get a seat in one of Titanic's lifeboats made their way aft up the ship's tilting decks, hoping to stay out of the North Atlantic as long as possible.
Father Thomas Byles gave absolution and led prayers while frightened passengers, primarily Third Class, gathered near the stern rail. At the final moment, they jumped or plunged into the icy water. Most quickly froze to death.
Return to Titanic will air at 9 p.m. ET/PT Monday on the National Geographic Channel.
(Note: nationalgeographic.com does not research or edit dispatches.)
