Posted on 05/20/2020 8:13:02 AM PDT by NRx
An underwater salvage company was granted approval this week to cut into the wreckage of the Titanic to try to recover a Marconi telegraph, rekindling a complex debate over access to the ship and maritime law.
The company, R.M.S. Titanic, persuaded a federal judge on Monday to allow it to conduct a salvage operation this summer in the wreckage of the ship, which sank during its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in 1912 after hitting an iceberg. More than 1,500 of the ship’s passengers died, and about 700 survived.
The ruling, by Judge Rebecca Beach Smith of the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., made changes to a 2000 court order that prohibited the company from cutting into the ship’s hull to search for diamonds.
The company sought to loosen the restrictions so it could recover the Titanic’s telegraph machine, which it contends could be lost forever because of the degradation of the ship. The radio transmitter could unlock some of the secrets about a missed warning message and distress calls sent from the ship, said the company, which obtained the salvage rights to the wreckage in the 1980s. The site is about 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
“The Marconi device has significant historical, educational, scientific and cultural value as the device used to make distress calls while the Titanic was sinking,” Judge Smith wrote in her ruling. The company will be permitted to “minimally to cut into the wreck” so it can reach the telegraph room, Judge Smith wrote.
David Concannon, a lawyer for R.M.S. Titanic, said in an interview on Tuesday that the company would try to avoid cutting into the ship and that the ship’s telegraph room could be reached through a skylight that was already open.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Tell it to King Tut. Now THAT was a grave.
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I thought Rose threw the telegraph into the water at the end of the movie?
How the hell does a US court have jurisdiction?
International waters.
British ship
Yes, bert, you are correct.
Those would have to be some really valuable rocks for the labor and expense.
I'd think 108 years of soaking in salt water would do a lot more damage than Hillary did to her hard drives with BleachBit and a hammer.
That said, what are salvage rights that don't allow salvage?
What? It’s not to recover Cal Hockey’s safe?
“ The radio transmitter could unlock some of the secrets about a missed warning message and distress calls ”
It’s probably lost power by now
I busted out laughing on that one. LOL!
I don’t get how a retrieving primitive radio transmitter sitting in a ship which sunk 110 years ago, is 12,500 below the surface and 400 miles from the closest land is really going to tell them anything.
Good luck finding any remains in the Telegraph room.
I think you are spot on. They should examine the records of the Marconi Company and the records of the board of inquiry instead.
Telegram for Mongo! Telegram for Mongo!
I can't really explain it or reconcile it with other situations. Twin Towers after 9/11? Yes, let's clear and rebuild - while being respectful of the thousands who perished there. Raise the battlewagons after Pearl Harbor? By all means, let's get them back in action...
Clearly they are after something else. As I recall the safe with diamonds wasn’t near the radio room. Wonder what they want to “discover”.
How can a court in Virginia have any jurisdiction over this?
Hand cranked generator?
“It’s a wreck. A little more damage won’t hurt.”
It’s a grave site.
That’s like saying let’s go cut a hole into the side of the USS Arizona, USS Thresher, or USS Scorpion to retrieve some artifact or other.
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