RMS Titanic – Schemes to Raise the Titanic…and personal stories

When I was a kid, I dreamed of finding and raising the Titanic. I could picture what it would look like and then take her to New York. Back then, many people thought she went down in one piece. Then, in 1980, they made a movie called To Raise The Titanic. Although it wasn’t a good movie, it was fun seeing their version of the raised ship. It actually matched my naive vision. I wanted so badly to walk on its deck. I’m keeping this post a little lighter at first anyway. Along with Walter Lord’s book, I remember hearing about crazy plans to raise her. Then, we will get into something more serious. 

Before it was finally found in 1985, there were many ideas about how to raise her, many of them based on guesses about where the ship was and what condition it might be in. Since nobody had seen the wreck, engineers and dreamers came up with plans that ranged from serious engineering proposals to ideas that sounded like science fiction. Because again, most people thought the ship was in one piece. 

One early idea was to attach giant electromagnets to the hull and lift the ship with cables from salvage ships above. Another proposal involved filling the Titanic with ping-pong balls or petroleum jelly to create buoyancy. In the 1960s and 1970s, some suggested pumping liquid nitrogen (it would take only 500,000 tons) into the wreck to freeze the water inside and out and make the ship buoyant enough to rise. Ironically, encasing it in an iceberg! You can’t make this stuff up.  Others thought about attaching enormous flotation tanks or inflatable balloons to the hull. There was also an idea to use millions of hollow glass spheres that would sink down and displace water around the ship, helping lift it from the bottom. But you had to find it first!

Even back right after she sank, there were plans to get the family’s possessions off the ship. Little did they know where it was, and nothing at that time could have got even near it. The maximum they could dive in 1912 would have been 90 to 100 meters (300–330 feet). Much shorter than the 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) it would take. 

Personal Stories

Most of the male passengers who survived the Titanic had to live with the stigma of surviving the wreck. That was because people automatically thought they took a child’s or a woman’s place. The truth is, there weren’t many at all like that. People did not want to get into a lifeboat at all at first. They wanted the warmth and the lit Titanic. They were sending out boats that were not completely full. They soon let some male crew members row, and if there were no women or children around, they would let a man get in. Boys over 13 years old were considered men. The crew was not immune to this stigma either. Although no one would want to put inexperienced men, women, and children in a lifeboat in the Atlantic without an experienced hand. 

Some of the crew were ridiculed by passengers when they woke them up and tried to get them on a lifeboat. The ship was never advertised as “unsinkable,” but many of the passengers believed that. The press used phrases like “practically unsinkable“. The company stated that the ships were “designed to be unsinkable as far as it is possible to do so,”  and many did think it was unsinkable. 

Frederick Fleet was one of the lookouts aboard the RMS Titanic and is remembered as the crewman who first spotted the iceberg that led to the sinking. Stationed in the crow’s nest with fellow lookout Reginald Lee, Fleet saw the dark shape directly ahead and rang the warning bell three times before telephoning the bridge with the famous message, “Iceberg, right ahead!” Although the officers reacted quickly by attempting to turn the ship, there was not enough time to avoid impact. Fleet survived the sinking by escaping in Lifeboat 6, but he later testified during official inquiries about the events of that night, including the absence of binoculars in the crow’s nest. Fleet struggled financially and emotionally and died by suicide in 1965 after his wife died, and he was evicted from his home at age 77 by his wife’s brother. He carried the weight of that night for decades.

Bruce Ismay was painted as the villain at the time, but not as much now. Ismay survived, and that was not what people wanted to hear. He was the chairman of the White Star Line and traveled aboard during its maiden voyage. As one of the most senior company officials connected to the ship, Ismay became controversial after surviving the sinking while many passengers and crew died. During the evacuation, he helped load lifeboats and eventually entered a collapsible boat shortly before the ship made its final plunge. After being rescued by the RMS Carpathia, Ismay faced harsh criticism in newspapers and public opinion, with many accusing him of saving himself while others stayed behind. Official inquiries found no evidence that he had disguised himself or taken a place from a woman or child, but his reputation never fully recovered. He resigned as chairman of the White Star Line and president of the International Mercantile Marine (IMM) in 1913. He lived the rest of his life close to his family, staying out of the public light as much as possible. His wife forbade anybody from bringing up the Titanic tragedy around him. 

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

33 thoughts on “RMS Titanic – Schemes to Raise the Titanic…and personal stories”

  1. Pingback: RMS Titanic – Schemes to Raise the Titanic…and personal stories – MobsterTiger

  2. Everyone wants to point fingers about the sinking of the Titanic, but it was a combination of events that cascaded out of control. This is a classic example of a “perfect storm” in maritime history, where a series of compounding technical, human, and environmental factors cascaded into a disaster.

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    1. Yea…bad idea at that depth! They would instantly implode…but they have used ping pong balls to raise small ships in shallow water…so believe it or not…it works on smaller ships…it’s the nitrogen part that gets me. What they were told is you would need a factory built close by to manufacture enough nitrogen lol.

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      1. wow, that’s amazing. It never really occurred to me that it would be such a problem, but I never stopped and considered it I guess. I would’ve guessed they’d just throw a bunch of chains around it and hoist it up with a powerful crane but I guess there’s no way with a ship of that incredible size

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      2. 2.5 miles down…pulling up a ship that is almost 3 football fields long. To get the stuff off the bottom they have to send a robot down with electrical arms.
        I went to a Titanic museum before…that stuff they brought up is amazing! They only bring up stuff in the debris field…not in the ship.

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      3. So let it and it’s final inhabitants rest in peace is the moral I guess. And take expensive tourist voyeurs, err ‘voyages’ down there in a tin can to see it at your own risk!

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      5. not me man! I mean, sure , interesting but I beleive my basic knowledge of science says you can’t take a metal container about 30 000 feet down and have 30 000 feet of water pressing on it and not have it implode like a gorilla stomping on a Red bull can.

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      6. LOL… I would have never stepped foot in that dudes submersive…EVER. I already read enough about him…he used carbon fiber and everyone told him….no no no…it works for airplanes because the pressure is oposite than underwater…he was told it would implode…but that didn’t stop him.
        The submersive that Robert Ballard used…in 1985 was built in 1964. I saw an interview with a sub guy….and he said that you should never worry about imploding…that should never happen…he said what you worry about is getting tangled in something….that is when it gets bad and no other sub to get you.

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    1. I might have to look that book up. This is a subject that laid dormant in me for years…I think I saw a film clip of To Raise The Titanic and it rekindled it all again. I have spent hours watching the underwater discovery.

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      4. I just watched a documentary on that one recently. Some are horrifying. Look up the SS Eastland…that was crazy. Sinking at the dock but still killing a lot of people when she capsized.

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  6. The idea of raising it was hamstrung early on by the lag in technology. By now, as the guy says in the lower vid, with every passing year it all gets more and more fragile and raising it is impossible to… fathom. (sorry Max🙄.) So it just ain’t gonna realistically or technically happen. Ah well, it’s all… water over the bridge now. (Sorry sorry sorry again Max.😬😬.)

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    1. Oh yes…when they found her in 85…all of those dreams vanished…also…this is a gravesite…it’s easy to lose focus with that. On the other hand it’s also an archaeological site… so they only take from the debris field not the ship.
      You are breaking my heart! I did get to see a huge piece of the hull at a museum which was really cool. She would probably fall apart now…IF you get her off the bottom. The stern is pulvarized because of the sinking…the bow…is still in decent shape… her sister ship Brittanic…it almost fully intact…looks great.

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  7. I remember the 1976 book ‘Raise the Titanic’ by Clive Cussler and the subsequent (terrible) 1980 film.

    Lew Grade, the impresario behind the movie said ‘It would’ve been cheaper to lower the Atlantic!’ 😂😂

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    1. I’m going to have to read that book. Yea that film was really bad…at the time though I was 13 and it was cool seeing that ship rise out of the water. The sad part is…they had Ken Marschall working for them on that movie, he is a Titanic historian and painter… and many times they refused to listen to him and finally didn’t ask him back after they changed directors.

      Oh that is a GREAT quote Mark…thanks!

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