Goodbye, and Keep Well
June 9, 2004
Two port side bits and a falling railing, near the bow of the Titanic, are photographed in high-definition video on 6/1/2004 by the ROV Hercules.
Video image © Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island
Dr. Robert D. Ballard said goodbye Tuesday to Titanic and, overcome by the moment, threw his hat over the side of the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown.
The ship got under way for Woods Hole, Massachusetts, under gray skies and a steady rain. A thousand sea birds riding the rising swells saw the Ron Brown begin its 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) journey west.
Their work done, the remotely operated vehicle Hercules and the towed sled Argus were lashed to the deck.
The end of the Return to Titanic expedition came just in time. The barometer fell steadily during the morning and early afternoon, and the bridge kept the control van updated on the worsening winds and seas.
As the ship rolled, Hercules's and Argus's pilots babied the ROV's tether to keep it working until the last minute.
"We're about at the end of our useful life with these tethers," Institute for Exploration engineer Dave Lovalvo said. "I'm trying not to put too much strain on this one."
It was the last full-length tether on board.
"We were coming down to the cliche, ?the last wire,'" navigation consultant Justin Manley said later.
The tether held despite being hastily connected Monday night to replace one that had fizzled.
On the last day of exploration, Herc's pilots turned its high-definition video cameras on the stern. The ROV completed a series of pictures that will be converted into a photomosaic, similar to one planned for the bow section. Video cameras were drafted into duty when the downward-looking, still-frame cameras refused to work.
The stern lacks the majesty of the bow. Ruptured by implosion as it sank and flattened by a catastrophic impact with the ocean floor, it lies in a jumble of metal.
Herc explored the underside of flipped-over deck plates, turned back upon themselves like the lid of a sardine can. It dropped below the fantail and inched beneath the overhanging rusticles. The ghostly edge of the rudder and two tracks from Dr. Ballard's 1986 visit in the submersible Alvin lay at the far edge of the lights.
The crew dared not go farther for fear of getting the tether tangled in overhead obstructions. The two vehicles backed away without touching the ship.
While they finished their work, Dr. Ballard spoke at 2 p.m. ET via satellite to the G-8 summit at Sea Island, Georgia, about the need for international cooperation to protect shipwrecks.
"The deep sea is a museum that contains more history than all of the museums of the world combined," he said. "Yet there is no law covering the vast majority of shipwrecks, and a great deal is at risk."
He referred to shipwrecks as "pyramids of the deep."
After his remarks, Dr. Ballard gave the order to bring Herc and Argus out of the water.
As they began to rise, Herc's parting image from Titanic filled the plasma monitors in the control van: The giant reciprocating engines that once drove the mighty ship.
They stand as monuments to the size and grandeur of the most legendary of shipwrecks. And if microbiologist Roy Cullimore is right, they will stand for a long, long time. If the shipwreck continues to decay, those engines someday will be the last remaining piece of the stern, he said. Rusticles that have been consuming the ship's iron have found it tougher to get a toehold on the thick metal of boilers and engines than the relatively thin deck and hull plates, he said.
The reciprocating engines disappeared in the gloom. The video images faded to blue.
(Note: nationalgeographic.com does not research or edit dispatches.)
