The 1987 Titanic recovery dives

Nautile · 1987 CE · Earth

The 1987 Titanic recovery dives — Nautile · 1987 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Dive the wreck from the support ship Nadir and recover objects from the debris field, under a contract that forbade their sale.

Historical context

In 1986 Woods Hole's team had dived on the Titanic without bringing anything up, and Ballard had asked that the wreck be left alone; that October the United States Congress asked that it become an international memorial and that no one alter, disturb or salvage it. In July 1987, two years after the joint French and American discovery, Ifremer, paid by private investors under a contract that forbade any sale, returned with its submersible Nautile. From the support ship Nadir, Nautile made thirty-two dives and raised objects from the debris field, approximately 1,800 by the count of later American court records. A survivor called the salvors fortune hunters, vultures and pirates; the salvors answered that the objects would be conserved and shown to the public, never sold. They were exhibited, and the argument about whether a grave can be a museum has run ever since.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Nadir sails from Toulon

    10 July 1987

    On 10 July 1987 Ifremer's support ship Nadir leaves Toulon carrying the three-person submersible Nautile, bound for the wreck of the Titanic. The expedition has not yet been announced.

  2. Out through Gibraltar

    1987 CE

    Nadir passes the Strait of Gibraltar into the Atlantic. The passage from Toulon to the wreck, from 10 to 22 July by the New York Times's dates, takes twelve days, the better part of a fortnight.

  3. On station over the wreck

    22 July 1987

    On 22 July 1987 Ifremer announces that Nadir has reached the site of the Titanic, some 3,800 metres above the wreck, and will begin diving. It is the start of a campaign that will run to thirty-two dives.

  4. Along the bow

    25 July 1987

    On 25 July 1987 Nautile makes its first dive. After a descent of one hour and forty minutes, its three occupants see the bow of the Titanic in their searchlights.

  5. The debris field

    1987 CE

    Around and between the two halves of the ship lies the debris field. The day after the first dive, by Ifremer's statement, Nautile's arms bring up the first objects: dishes and bottles.

  6. A safe and a leather valise

    19 August 1987

    On 19 August 1987, on Nautile's twenty-first dive by Le Monde's account, a leather valise holding jewellery and banknotes comes up from the debris field. A small safe, spotted on 11 August, is raised as well.

  7. Grave or museum

    September 1987

    Diving ends in the second week of September 1987 after thirty-two dives, and the objects leave for a laboratory in France. The argument over whether any of them should have been lifted does not end.

Outcome

Thirty-two dives from 25 July to the second week of September 1987; approximately 1,800 objects raised by the count of later American court records (Le Monde wrote of some eight hundred); a television opening of a safe and a leather bag in October; and a lasting quarrel about whether any of it should have been touched.

Nautile

French crewed submersible rated to 6,000 metres, which in 1987 made thirty-two dives on the Titanic and raised what the Associated Press called the first objects ever recovered from the wreck, approximately 1,800 of them by the count of later American court records.

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