Tag Archives: OceanGate Expeditions

Titanic news to Start the new year

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year celebration. To get the year off, here is some Titanic news for your consideration.

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The Titanic’s Forgotten Sister (Forbes, 1 Jan 2019)
Olympic’s story illustrates an important lesson that technologies generally evolve gradually and not in sudden spurts. As Henry Petroski reminds us, engineers learn from failure and innovate to avoid making mistakes in the future. From the sinking of the Titanic, naval architects learned how to properly design watertight compartments, company managers realized the business value in having fancier staterooms and of course, everyone saw the necessity of having more lifeboats, safety drills and radio communications. Olympic, in large measure, was only able to have a long and successful career because her owners and captains had learned from the loss of her younger sister.
Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/berniecarlson/2019/01/01/the-titanics-forgotten-sister/#3e3bad942706

Book Your Place For The Last Chance To See The Titanic Shipwreck (Forbes, 31 Dec 2018)
And now, more than a century after her sinking, the Titanic is about to welcome new guests courtesy of OceanGate’s Titanic Survey Expedition, conducting six missions to the wreck between June and August 2019 in its appropriately named Titan submersible. And while such expeditions are usually reserved for experts and researchers, OceanGate has opened up its invitation to regular citizen explorers like you and me.
Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2018/12/31/book-your-place-for-the-last-chance-to-see-the-titanic-shipwreck/#20eaee4537ca

‘Night to Remember’ featured Titanic survivor from Alabama (AdvanceLocal-Alabama,21 Dec 2018)
As the ship slipped under, Gracie jumped into the frigid water, eventually managing to cling to an overturned collapsible lifeboat until he was rescued and taken aboard the Carpathia. He was traumatized and injured, however; his body covered with cuts and bruised. He never fully recovered from the ordeal and died in Dec. 4, 1912. Before he died, he completed a rough manuscript of a book of his experiences called “The Truth about the Titanic.” It was published in 1913.Gracie IV is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. His headstone is etched with the words “Hero of the S.S. Titanic.”
Source:https://www.al.com/alabama/2018/12/night-to-remember-featured-titanic-survivor-from-alabama.html

https://youtu.be/iJ-ZU1QBkHY

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea–And It Will Cost!

Titanic Wreck Bow
Image: Public Domain (NOAA-http://www.gc.noaa.gov/images/gcil/ATT00561.jpg)

Some years ago enterprising chaps started charging people to see Titanic. No, not an exhibition or replica but diving two miles down to the bottom of the North Atlantic to see the wreck. This is no simple task considering it takes three hours down and back in a specially pressurized submersible with few comforts. It stopped for a while but now appears to be back according to various news sources. Blue Marble Private of London, UK is offering a diving expedition in 2018. The eight day journey begins in Newfoundland, Canada and paying customers will become client specialists to participate with the expedition team in the dive. And according to Blue Marble, the price is what it would cost to travel first class in Titanic today (with inflation): a whopping $105,129. It is claimed that is fully booked for the first voyage in 2018.

They are not alone. An Everett, Washington company called OceanGate Expeditions is planning a similar thing and its cost is remarkably the same: $105,129 which makes it look like they may be a US version of Blue Marble. Then there is a company called Blue Fish that is also going to offer dives as well but at a lesser price of $59,680. So it seems a voyage to the bottom of the sea has become popular again for those with a lot of disposable income. Hopefully they will not run into the variety of monsters that Irwin Allen’s show became famous for.

Sources
Titanic: Diving tours of wreck site to begin in 2018 (CNN, 21 Mar 2017)
Everett company planning Titanic expedition with civilians (KOMO,22 March 2017)