Posted on 07/25/2005 12:20:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
ATLANTA — This is the story of RMS Titanic.
You may have heard of the ultra-ambitious nautical endeavor that collided with a mammoth obstacle, causing it to teeter precariously and start to sink — only to right itself before reaching smoother waters.
No, not the supersized luxury sea vessel, but RMS Titanic Inc., the business, anchored in Atlanta.
In seven elaborate dives 2 1/2 miles to the Atlantic Ocean floor, the company has retrieved 5,500 artifacts from the most infatuating ship since Noah's Ark and displayed them globally for 16 million ticket-buyers. The relics range from coins and dining utensils to a 17-ton section of the hull and the bell that rang in the crow's nest as the lookout cried, "Iceberg dead ahead!"
The company's impediment was no mountainous floe, but a mass of cold, hard courtroom decisions, government wrangling and in-house turmoil.
Bailing water for many of its 18 years, the past 12 as a publicly traded concern, RMS Titanic Inc. is not quite on cruise control. But the company whose sole purpose until recently was fetching and exhibiting goods that spilled from the sinking ship, discovered in 1986, has reached a rare degree of stability. Premier Exhibitions, its parent, logged $6.9 million in revenue for the latest fiscal year, up from $2.9 million. Profit was $3.7 million, a million more than in fiscal 2004. It indefinitely retains U.S. salvage rights to the Titanic, awarded by a federal court in 1994.
"We're on the right track," President Arnie Geller said from his 23rd floor office in Atlanta.
Four U.S. cities are staging exhibitions, with up to 300 artifacts each, but the allure of the Titanic knows few borders. One batch of mementos is headed for Bangkok, another for Kuala Lumpur. Australia has arranged a five-city tour, Japan has booked three, with each stop running six months.
"Titanic is in constant demand," said Geller, who regrets that he's never been able to make an exhibition happen in hometown Atlanta. "There has been a fascination with this ship since the day of the incident." (More than an incident, actually, the disaster cost about 1,500 lives in 1912.)
— Most items can't be sold
At first, the ship was strictly business to Geller, who professes a fear of water. The Titanic was a nearly buried treasure, and the company has since placed a value of $225 million on its collection, which is stored in an undisclosed street-level building in Atlanta. For every item the company has fetched, 19 more remain at the bottom of the ocean.
The company supplements ticket income with the sale of the only souvenirs approved by the courts — coal, considered to hold no historical value. Pieces are packaged in a wooden box, with a video and a certificate of authentication. A seven-pound chunk recently sold for $10,000.
For Geller, enterprise eventually was joined by a sense of mission, and of mystery.
"It would have been easy to not bring up anything and let the story of Titanic turn into the myth of Titanic," he said. "We thought it would be important for people to come and see these things, and touch them."
For items that can be linked to passengers, such as personalized jewelry or stationery, the company tries to track down descendants, resulting in the occasional tearful meeting. A woman, 96, received a "lifetime loan" of her father's pocket watch. (The company is forbidden from permanently parting with artifacts.)
"You feel like you brought some of the person back," Geller said. "It's a marvelous and very fulfilling experience."
Geller overcame hydrophobia to go on three expeditions, but the only diving he has done is deep into the Titanic's legacy, emerging with enough evidence to wonder if the crash were entirely an accident. He speculates that negligence by the ship-maker may have played a part.
The artifact he finds most fascinating among the thousands brought to shore is a simple children's toy — a marble. It probably came from the third-class section, where children sustained a disproportionately high number of casualties.
The cost of hunts to the wreckage, 450 miles from the nearest coast, are paid for in part by the sale of exhibition tickets, priced up to $20. The excursions have cost $1.5 million to $7 million apiece, though sponsor Discovery Channel did ease the sticker shock on the most expensive.
Manned submersibles, which must resurface after eight hours, were the main mode of rescue until last year. Now, remotely operated vehicles gather objects, making the work safer and more efficient.
Excursion expenses were foreseeable. What could not be built into the budget were staggering legal fees.
From the get-go, the company's capital was wading-pool shallow. So Geller shuddered when, following one retrieval, he faced off with 705 insurance firms that issued claims for the items.
"I had no idea how we could pay our lawyers," he said. "I had the feeling we were going to see a lot more courtrooms before all this was over with.
"Everybody figures, 'These are little guys, and we should be able to wrest Titanic away from them.' We're a small company willing to fight for what we believe in."
Among the courtroom setbacks, the most serious was a U.S. appeals court ruling in 2002 that the company did not own the artifacts, as Geller had believed, reversing a federal district court ruling eight years earlier.
Instead, the appeals court classified the company as a caretaker, with a lien on the collection. It did not further clarify who owned it. "An interesting turn of events, one that got us frustrated," said Geller, who nicknamed the company "the law offices of RMS Titanic."
— Rough legal waters
Twice in the late 1990s, a federal district court denied the company the option of selling articles piecemeal. Though Geller chose to comply without contesting the ruling, he maintains that no other salvagers have been prevented from peddling their wares, so why him?
"We've done all the work. We've taken all the risks. We've spent all the money," he said. "I finally said, 'Fine, we'll keep it together.' "
Attorneys also stayed busy sorting out the company's internal power struggles, none more tumultuous than in 1999. An executive led a takeover coup, triggering a stream of litigation. He was fired, and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued reprimands for violations. Three years later, Geller rebuffed an effort by shareholders to call off future expeditions.
The company's main legal nemeses are the State Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Its lawsuit against both was dismissed.
The government entities, both of which declined comment, are advancing a treaty, an evolution of the 1986 Titanic Maritime Memorial Act passed by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan, involving the four nations with the most fervent interest in the Titanic. The treaty is intended to provide legal protection to the ship's remains. It would require permits for dives and prohibit the sale of artifacts. The United States and the United Kingdom have endorsed it; Canada and France have not.
"That treaty, if it's ever enacted, will not do what it purports to do," said Geller, who has lately taken the offensive in court in an effort to ban rogue scavengers from the site. He said divers were etching their names on the ship's skeleton, leaving junk, even staging weddings. The treaty, he acknowledged, might curb such activities but would also allow other nations to contest the company's salvage rights.
Critics do not differentiate substantially between the company and the matrimonial couples. Explorer Robert Ballard, chief of the American-French crew that discovered the ship's remains, is among those who argue that the scene should be treated as a memorial, with little — if anything — removed.
"It's really sad to watch," Ballard, who is on an extended expedition, told National Geographic. "The ship deserves much more than this. Can you imagine them doing this kind of thing on the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor?"
The clock is ticking — rapidly, said Geller; slowly, say others — to procure many of the remnants. The ship's bow is gradually caving in and, partly because all salvagers are forbidden from drilling or breaking off pieces, its contents could be sealed forever.
"So many important objects we still believe are onboard," said Geller, who especially covets a book with 1,251 precious stones embedded in its cover. "Anything can collapse at any time."
— 'We know the ship'
An eighth expedition has not been scheduled. The company's current exploration involves searching for some entity, possibly a government body, to purchase the entire set.
Interested parties, he said, include New York state, the ship's intended destination, and Belfast, the Northern Ireland city where it was assembled.
Though the company is branching out into other exhibitions — the first is Bodies Revealed, an expo of preserved human specimens and organs that demonstrates how the body functions — there is no intention to cut ties with the Titanic.
Even if the company sold the collection, it would plan to continue salvage missions and administering tours.
"We know the objects that need to be recovered, and we know technically how to recover them," Geller said. "We know the ship better than anybody."
Mike Tierney writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Of course not. U.S. Navy personnel don't carry a lot of valuables.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.