The journey to the bottom of the ocean to reach the wreck of the Titanic is getting colder and darker, says one of the few people to have visited the luxurious liner’s watery tomb.
Tom Zaller, who runs the company behind “Titanic: The Exhibition,” said visiting the wreckage in a small submarine, like the one that disappeared into the North Atlantic on Sunday, was unforgettable but terrifying.
“As the depth increases, everything gets darker and darker,” he told AFP 23 years ago of his journey. “When you start on the surface, it’s pretty warm inside. But when you go down, it gets cold,” he added.
Zaller, whose exhibit opens in Los Angeles at the end of this month, said he desperately hopes the missing submarine can be found before the oxygen supply runs out, which is expected to happen next Thursday.
The 6.5-meter tourist ship lost communication with its mother ship less than two hours into the journey.
Named Titan, the submarine was carrying British billionaire Hamish Harding and Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who is also a British national, who paid $250,000 for the trip. Also on board are the company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, and French submarine operator Paul-Henri Nargeolet, nicknamed “Mr. Titanic” for his frequent dives to the site.
captain’s bath
More than two decades ago, Zaller traveled to the site, 400 miles from the nearest land, as part of a research trip aboard a Russian ship with two submarines.
“The submarine is a two-meter-wide sphere under pressure,” he said. “There’s a pilot’s seat in the middle and two benches on each side, with three lookouts. There’s an access portal at the top and when you get to the submarine’s interior you close it from the inside and there’s no way to go back there. It is a big commitment,” he added.
The submarine is lifted off the ship’s deck into blue waters that quickly darken as the ship begins to sink.
For two and a half hours there is practically nothing to see, with the submarine saving all its energy for use on the seabed.
“When you look out of the portal, it’s a little cloudy. And when you get buoyant, you start traveling forward and you go through that cloud. Imagine going through that cloud and into this completely still environment on the ocean floor knowing that it is 3800 meters deep and when we see a piece of wreckage, a giant piece of the Titanic, we see a cup or a teapot, the side of the ship that was separated from the rest of the ship and the captain’s bathtub Smith full of water,” he said.
“Terrified”
Zaller confessed that he was nervous about his journey to the bottom of the ocean, despite the obvious professionalism and attention to detail on the part of those making the journey.
“However, it remains a very small ship with a depth of three and a half kilometers, which is incredibly complicated and technical. It is just a seemingly artless sphere,” he stressed.
“I took a video camera and filmed it. I later watched what I recorded and was terrified,” he said.
Zaller has known subpilot Nargeolet for decades and had contact with CEO Rush shortly before embarking on this journey. Now he insists that the entire crew be saved.
“I stayed in that sub for 12 hours and everything worked fine. They’ve been there for four days. I can’t imagine. I hope and pray that they are safe and that they are found,” he wished.
Source: DN
