Stunning new footage from the wreck of RMS Titanic shows the ship in 8K for the first time.
OceanGate Expeditions released a video from its latest expedition to the site on YouTube on Tuesday:
“Early in the video you can see the crane used for deploying the enormous 15-ton anchor still located on the deck of the shipwreck and the shackle that was originally attached to the main mast that has now collapsed,” veteran Titanic diver PH Nargeolet said in an OceanGate news release, adding:
“Later in the video you see three round structures along the inside of the railing. These are the triple fairleads that were used to feed the docking ropes to the bollards on shore to secure the ship to the dock when the Titanic was at port.”
Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, then sank early in the morning of April 15. Some 1,500 people died in the disaster, which took place in the North Atlantic during the ship’s maiden voyage.
Titanic was the world’s most famous “lost” ship for most of the 20th century until its discovery in 1985. It was later revealed that the discovery was part of a secret hunt by the U.S. Navy for two lost nuclear submarines. The Navy used the Titanic mission as a ruse so the Soviets wouldn’t get suspicious.
Nearly 40 years after the discovery, new details are still being learned.
Rory Golden, a deep-sea explorer who serves as OceanGate’s Titanic expert, said he’s already spotted something he’d never seen before in this image of the ship’s anchor:
“For example, I had never seen the name of the anchor maker, Noah Hingley & Sons Ltd., on the portside anchor,” Golden said in the news release. “I’ve been studying the wreck for decades and have completed multiple dives, and I can’t recall seeing any other image showing this level of detail. It is exciting that, after so many years, we may have discovered a new detail that wasn’t as obvious with previous generations of camera technologies.”
Golden wrote on an OceanGate blog that at the time it sailed, the ship’s 15-ton anchor was the largest anchor ever forged by hand.
The new footage, he added, also includes one of the single-ended boilers that fell when the Titanic broke after hitting the iceberg.
“Notably, it was one of the single-ended boilers that was first spotted when the wreck of the Titanic was identified back in 1985,” Golden said.
The team behind the new footage also confirmed what other visitors had seen and documented in recent years: Titanic is deteriorating.
A 2019 trip by Atlantic Productions, which led to the first-ever 4K footage of the wreck, found parts of the ship collapsing, including Capt. Edward Smith’s quarters, which were once visible right down to his bathtub.
“The captain’s bathtub is a favorite image among Titanic enthusiasts, and that’s now gone,” Titanic historian Parks Stephenson told the BBC at the time. “That whole deck house on that side is collapsing, taking with it the staterooms. And that deterioration is going to continue advancing.”
This is how it once appeared:
That situation has only worsened, OceanGate said.
“The deterioration of the world’s most famous shipwreck is continuing apace,” the organization wrote on Facebook, adding that it would have more data next year.
OceanGate sells spots on its expeditions to well-heeled wannabe explorers, with seats as a “mission specialist” selling for $250,000 a pop.
There was also a contest for a seat on this year’s trip that benefitted Make-A-Wish Canada.