The company with exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic wants to make another expedition to the world’s most famous shipwreck next year.
RMS Titanic Inc.’s expedition would be its first since 2004, though two other expeditions have been to the site since then, including one by Titanic film director James Cameron.
The company went before a judge in Norfolk, Virginia, to seek a salvage award for its past expeditions and to inform the court of its plans.
The court will also consider a competing claim from Briton Douglas Faulkner Woolley, who is challenging RMS Titanic’s legal claim to the wreck site and plans his own salvage operation.
Lawyers for RMS Titanic would not discuss the competing challenge.
International protections have been sought for the Titanic almost since the wreck was discovered.
“Obviously we have an interest in going back to shipwreck for a number of reasons but we want to do it with the blessing of the court,” Christopher Davino, president and chief executive officer of RMS Titanic, said after the first of four days of hearings.
“It’s very early in our thinking regarding a strategy for future expeditions.”
They are not only intended to determine a salvage award, but to establish legal guarantees that thousands of Titanic artefacts remain intact as a collection and forever accessible to the public. Some pieces have ended up in London auction houses.
The 5,900 pieces of china, ship fittings and personal belongings are valued at more than £67.5 million and are displayed around the world by Premier Exhibitions, an Atlanta company. RMS Titanic is a subsidiary of Premier.
The first two witnesses told yesterday about management changes at Premier and the perils and costs associated with salvage expeditions to the Titanic. Judge Smith has previously expressed concerns about Premier’s management. The company underwent a board change this year and received a £7.4 million cash infusion from investors. Mr Davino took charge five months ago.
Jack Jacobs, one of the new directors, said Premier had been “an extremely poorly-run company”, but had turned around. He said the mismanagement did not extend to the conservancy of the Titanic artefacts.
Asked by RMS Titanic lawyer Robert McFarland if Premier was committed to properly maintaining the artefacts, Mr Jacobs replied: “Yes, absolutely committed. Unequivocally committed.”
Deep-dive explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet, who has led five expeditions to the Titanic wreck, told the court about the extraordinary expense and risks of deep-sea exploration.
They include 150ft-high icebergs that can threaten ships and the harrowing, claustrophobic voyages 12,000 feet down to the wreck through 0.56C Atlantic waters.
The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage in international waters on April 15, 1912, and has been subject to competing legal claims since an international team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard found it in 1985. Since then, RMS Titanic has retrieved artefacts during six dives.