From: istre@ricevm1.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Titanic salvage
Organization: Rice University  
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 22:10:27 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.155003.1370@ccsvax.sfasu.edu>
Kelly Cunningham  (Random Deviate)) writes:
 
>
>Just fyi.
>
>Copyright 1992 by UPI
>Reposted with permission from the ClariNet Electronic Newspaper newsgroup
>clari.local.texas.  For more info on ClariNet, write to info@clarinet.com or
>phone 1-800-USE-NETS.
>
>        NORFOLK, Va. (UPI) -- A federal judge has ruled a Texas oil man has no
>right to dive for artifacts from the wreck of the Titanic, and ordered
>him to call back his high-tech salvage crew that was poised above the
>wreck in the North Atlantic.
>        U.S. District Court Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. said Jack Grimm's
>Marex-Titanic salvage group has no rights to the contents of the ill-
>fated ocean liner, which hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in
>1912, killing more than 1,500.
>        The salvage rights still belong to Titanic Ventures of Southport,
>Conn., Clarke ruled Friday. The group last conducted a dive at the site
>in 1987 and plans another expedition in 1993.
>        Grimm's group, based in Memphis, Tenn., contended that Titanic
>Ventures had abandoned the wreck by failing to return for five years,
>but Clarke agreed with the rival salvage group, which argued that the
>sheer difficulty of the project made the delay unavoidable.
>        Grimm's crew had circled the wreckage site -- the Titanic lies 2 1/2
>miles beneath the sea south of Newfoundland -- during stormy conditions
>this week, waiting for Clarke's ruling.
>        After the judge's order, Grimm, 67, went to his rivals' attorneys
>with a proposal to make exploration of the wreck a joint venture. His
>offer was rejected.
>        ``We're not interested,'' Arnold Geller, president of a New York firm
>that raises money for Titanic Ventures, told reporters.
>        Grimm said he expected to lose $1 million on the aborted expedition.
>But he compared it to the risks involved in drilling for oil.
>        ``Once, I drilled a 22,000-foot hole in the desert in New Mexico,''
>recalled the wildcatter and explorer from Abilene, Texas. ``It took me
>six months, and it was dry. This (expedition) is just another dry hole.
>When these things happen, you just go on your way and put together
>another deal.''
>        The wreck of the Titanic was located in 1985 by a U.S.-French team
>led by Robert Ballard, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
>Insititution in Massachusetts. Two years later, Titanic Ventures -- with
>the help of the French government -- explored it with a television-
>equipped robotic diving device and recovered more than 1,800 artifacts.
>        The group plans to collect enough artifacts to fill a museum in New
>York honoring the ship and its victims.
>        The expedition planned in 1993 will be conducted with the aid of two
>manned Russian submarines.
>
This is good. I recall when Ballard explored the wreck, he was very adamant
that no one come to the wreck searching for treasure and artifacts. He felt
due to the nature of the disaster that put the Titanic on the bottom that
that would be improper. When Titanic Ventures subsequently went to the site
and collected their artifacts, he was very upset.
 
That incident played a large role in his decision in 1989 when he located
the German battleship Bismarck. That decision was to NOT disclose the exact
location of the ship except to the German goverment. I heartly agree with
him on that one.
 
Fortunately for the Bismarck, due to the fact that she is a warship, she
is property of Germany under international law and therefore is protected
from salvagers and treasure hunters. Personally, I would like to have seen
the Titanic protected in such a manner.
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