8:00 a.m. — We've been steaming through the night at 10 knots, which puts us approximately 120 nautical miles southeast of St. John's and about a third of the way to our invisible North Atlantic destination. Fog still hangs over the Grand Banks. Ironically, the captain and crew are mindful of the possibility of encountering icebergs, less likely than in April when the
Titanic met her fate, but still distinctly possible.
After a hot and hearty breakfast, the captain stops the boat so that James Cameron and crew can deploy the RHIBs for the first time to undergo sea trials. The crew prepares Cameron's two 28-foot aluminum-bottom inflatable boats fitted out with twin 250 HP outboard engines for launch. Affectionately nicknamed "Prime RHIB" and "Spare RHIB," both boats are strapped into custom-made metal frames welded to the aft deck. Leading the boat crew is Cameron's youngest brother Dave, a former U.S. Marine and experienced boat skipper.
Dave and his mate stand in Prime RHIB as the Russian deck crew hooks it up to a huge crane and hoists them over the rail. With little wind and a light fog now, the North Atlantic is as welcoming as it can be to a small boat. Dave Cameron fires up the engines and puts Prime RHIB through her paces, circling the Keldysh a few times for good measure. After Spare RHIB is launched and the sea trials are complete, the crew decides to follow in the wake of the Keldysh for an hour or two to help break in the new outboard engines.
2:30 p.m. — James Cameron and our team of historians and archaeologists meet in the command center on deck seven to discuss specific areas of the wreck they hope to explore. They plan to make their first dive in two days, taking two Mir submersibles, each with a crew of three people, to the bottom. The subs are equipped with robots called ROVs, or remotely operated vehicles, which will be launched from the subs to explore the wreck.
Cameron and the team pour over archive images and Titanic deck plans to discuss their research targets. Of specific interest is the coal bunker between boiler rooms five and six where a coal fire was reported during Titanic's maiden voyage. Could it be that the heat from that fire compromised the hull or adjacent bulkheads and contributed to the tragedy? Attempting to solve that mystery may be an impossibly difficult task, but James Cameron and the Discovery Channel team are determined to try.
5:15 p.m. — A loud bell sounds: seven short peals and one long blast. It's a lifeboat drill. Everyone dons life jackets and hurries out to the boat deck. The crew directs us into two completely enclosed orange lifeboats mounted high above the deck. The boats are equipped with food, water, diesel engines and several sets of long oars. A Russian starts the diesel and the boat fills with its roar and the unmistakable stench of diesel exhaust.
We scurry out of the lifeboats at the conclusion of the drill, enjoying the communal experience and a good laugh, but the irony is lost on no one. Here we are approaching the Titanic wreck following safety procedures that largely resulted from that disaster. When Titanic set sail with 2,234 passengers and crew aboard, there were no lifeboat drills. Back then the emphasis was on the passenger experience. There was no way the well-heeled in first class could be bothered with a safety drill. That would be unnecessarily frightening.
It occurs to me that even from tragedy some good inevitably results. On that April evening in 1912, 1,529 people lost their lives in the frigid North Atlantic Ocean. But since then, countless lives have been saved by the safety and lifeboat regulations that were put in place as a result. We may all have had a good laugh in the smelly orange lifeboats but none of us doubted the importance of the drill.
Stephen Reverand is Executive Producer and Vice President of Special Projects for Discovery Channel.
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