A team of the top scientists including members of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, have launched the most ambitious survey of the wreck of the TITANIC, by mapping in photographic detail, the entire wreck site and reconstruct in electronic form the pieces of the wreckage scattered across the sea floor.
By melding photographs, high defination video and computer imaging, the scientists plan to create a three-dimential computer model that will allow the public to virtually "swim" through the wreckage on line, even though the site is more than 2 miles below the ocean surface.
The 20 day voyage is to leave from New foundland this month. Other objectives, are to catalog countless artifacts stewn across the seabed and determine how quickly the ship is corroding and how long the wreckage will remain intact.
Researches hope to post the digital model of wreckage on the Internet. Most of the project funding is by R.M.S. TITANIC, Inc.
The company, R.M.S. TITANIC,Inc and its parent holding, Premier Exhibitions, Inc has been batteling in court for years to obtain title for 5,500 TITANIC artifacts, such as the currency recovered from a safe, that were salvaged over the past 20 years. U.S. District Judge, Rebecca Beach Smith issued an opinion in Norfork, VA, granting R.M. S. TITANIC, Inc., an award equal to 100 percent of the fair market value of the artifacts. The court has maintained a tight control what the company can do with the artifacts and a prohibition of the sale of the objects.
Most people are familiar with the TITANIC story as retold in director James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster film, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. However, few people are aware of the story which preceded the TITANIC's doomed maiden voyage from Southampton in 1912.
At that time, Britian was in the grip of a nation wide coal strike. The TITANIC owners, the White Star Line, feared that there would not be enough fuel to power the mammoth ship.
To deal with this crisis, George Frederich Bull, a company bursar, traveled with his colleague , R. McPherson to the coal loading site at Merseyside , where the pair forced strikers at gunpoint to load coal onto the TITANIC. This bit of bravado enabled the doomer liner to sail into the historical record.
Almost a century later, the 104 year old pistol used to intimidate striking coal loaders, is up for sale for L 200,000 by Antique Storehouse of Portland. The firearm will be sold in the origional flare box that has Bull's initials engraved on the handle.
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A team of Sheffield engineers have created an exact replica of one of the TITANIC's anchors. Weighing 16 tons, the anchor is the result of more than 6 months of planning, casting, forging and machining at the company's Brightside lane base
The finished anchor will be transported for display at Netherton, Dudley, where the origional anchor was manufactured early in the 20th century.
None of the engineering drawings have survived. The design team had to carry out extensive research, collect photographs and patents of the anchor and calculate its dimensions from its known weight.
Montani semper liberi ! Happy modeling to all and every one of you.
Crackers 