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Deep sea research company takes visitors to the Titanic
It’s not every day that a successful businessman leaves the corporate world for a voyage to the bottom of the sea.
But Stockton Rush did just that, and he could not be happier.
“I wanted to find new life forms. I wanted to be Captain Kirk,” he said. “I wanted to find something new and do something special.”
In his current role, Rush is more akin to Captain Nemo than Kirk; exploring shipwrecks, observing undersea life and leading expeditions into the ocean depths.
And he is willing to take members of the public with him. Provided they can afford it and are willing to serve as a member of the team.
Rush is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oceangate, a private company dedicated to deep-sea research. The company has two submarines, Cyclops and Titan, the only five person undersea research vessel of its kind.
Since creating the company, Rush has led dives into the Gulf of Mexico, San Francisco Bay and the nation’s largest undersea canyon near New York state.
But nothing compares with his expedition to the world’s best known shipwreck, the RMS Titanic in August of 2021.
It’s a legendary story. The luxury liner, touted as “unsinkable” by its owners, sank the night of April 14, 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean 300 miles southeast of Newfoundland.
Approximately 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and crew went down with the ship due to insufficient lifeboat capacity and a disorganized evacuation effort.
As the ship sank, it broke into two pieces. It came to rest more than 10,000 feet below, sinking into the mud and scattering a large field of debris. It rested undiscovered until oceanographer Robert Ballard came upon the wreck in 1985. Since then, more than 250 people have visited the ship including film director James Cameron who made a blockbuster movie about the ill-fated voyage.
To reach Titanic, Rush knew he needed a sub that could reach 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) safely. The Titan was created using high tech carbon fiber technology. Its cylindrical shape allows for five people to descend in pressurized comfort with air conditioning similar to systems used on spacecraft. It’s a far cry from the cramped sphere-shaped submersibles that could hold only two people at a time.
In addition to Rush and a designed scientist, each expedition has room for at least three members of the public who become “mission specialists” during the dives. They can be trained to perform a variety of functions including taking photographs, sub-to-surface communications and operating sonar equipment.
Along with a spirit of adventure, guests need to be well off financially. A Titanic dive costs $250,000 per person. A mission in the Bahamas will set you back $25,000 but a trip in the waters off Everett, Wash.,-the company’s home- is only $5,000 Rush said.
But this is not a tourist outing. All dives are clearly scientific missions often done in concert with universities. Rush hopes the experience will help the mission specialists spread the love of undersea exploration to others.
“The hope with Titanic is to build of cadre of people that there are amazing things to see underwater and great research to do,” he said.
It takes more than two hours to reach the Titanic’s resting place. As the sub leaves the sunlit surface, it descends into a black void populated by creatures who use flashing bio luminescence to communicate or seek prey.
Some stare into the sub.
“Sometimes these bizarre creatures would look at you for a while and decide that you are not worth eating and wander off,’’ Rush said.
During its descent, the sub “drops like a stone” until reaching the bottom, where Rush engages the propulsion system and heads to the Titanic. The dive includes visons of the ship’s stern, the debris field, and finally the bow section.
Despite the surrounding gloom, the shipwreck is a colorful sight, with bright hues of red, orange and blue caused by bacteria eating rusting metal.
“The thing that really struck me is how beautiful it is,” Rush said. “All the shipwrecks that I have been on are generally grey and covered with silt and the colors are from anemones, corals and fish. “
But the ship’s allure as the most famous undersea wreck in history has made it a target for those seeking a piece of history.
Divers working for RMS Titanic Inc., the company that holds salvage rights, have brought up more than 5,000 objects from the debris field including shoes, eyeglasses, dinnerware and a 17-ton section of the bow. Much of the loot is on display in the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.
Officials of the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration insist the wreck should be declared off limits because the ship may still contain human remains. Scavenging by sea creatures and the deep sea chemistry of the surrounding environment make it unlikely that a human body could last for more than 100 years.
But critics say corpses could remain in sealed area of the ship where lack of oxygen would prevent scavenging by worms and other sea life.
Rush said he has not seen human remains when examining the wreck and Cameron agrees.
To protect the wreck, Congress in 1985 passed the Titanic Maritime Memorial Act, but the law was hard to enforce. The United States, Canada the United Kingdom signed a treaty that toughened the regulations but it needs congressional support.
RMS Titanic salvagers plan to retrieve the Marconi wireless radio that sent the famous S.O.S. the night of the sinking, but a deep diving robotic probe will have to enter the wreck to get it. A federal judge has approved the dive over NOAA objections.
Oceangate does not salvage objects from the wreck, Rush said. A second expedition planned for this year will be strictly scientific and he hopes to catalogue the fish and other life living on the ship.
“We’re not going to pick up artifacts, that not something that I want to do,” he said.
Upcoming expeditions will include a dive to the Great Bahama Bank to study sharks, whales and more shipwrecks. Rush also hopes to journey to the South Pacific to observe ships sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea in World War II. And all in the spirit of science, Rush said.
“We are doing what I think everybody wants,” he said. “Getting information and ocean awareness.”
But Stockton Rush did just that, and he could not be happier.
“I wanted to find new life forms. I wanted to be Captain Kirk,” he said. “I wanted to find something new and do something special.”
In his current role, Rush is more akin to Captain Nemo than Kirk; exploring shipwrecks, observing undersea life and leading expeditions into the ocean depths.
And he is willing to take members of the public with him. Provided they can afford it and are willing to serve as a member of the team.
Rush is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oceangate, a private company dedicated to deep-sea research. The company has two submarines, Cyclops and Titan, the only five person undersea research vessel of its kind.
Since creating the company, Rush has led dives into the Gulf of Mexico, San Francisco Bay and the nation’s largest undersea canyon near New York state.
But nothing compares with his expedition to the world’s best known shipwreck, the RMS Titanic in August of 2021.
It’s a legendary story. The luxury liner, touted as “unsinkable” by its owners, sank the night of April 14, 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean 300 miles southeast of Newfoundland.
Approximately 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and crew went down with the ship due to insufficient lifeboat capacity and a disorganized evacuation effort.
As the ship sank, it broke into two pieces. It came to rest more than 10,000 feet below, sinking into the mud and scattering a large field of debris. It rested undiscovered until oceanographer Robert Ballard came upon the wreck in 1985. Since then, more than 250 people have visited the ship including film director James Cameron who made a blockbuster movie about the ill-fated voyage.
To reach Titanic, Rush knew he needed a sub that could reach 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) safely. The Titan was created using high tech carbon fiber technology. Its cylindrical shape allows for five people to descend in pressurized comfort with air conditioning similar to systems used on spacecraft. It’s a far cry from the cramped sphere-shaped submersibles that could hold only two people at a time.
In addition to Rush and a designed scientist, each expedition has room for at least three members of the public who become “mission specialists” during the dives. They can be trained to perform a variety of functions including taking photographs, sub-to-surface communications and operating sonar equipment.
Along with a spirit of adventure, guests need to be well off financially. A Titanic dive costs $250,000 per person. A mission in the Bahamas will set you back $25,000 but a trip in the waters off Everett, Wash.,-the company’s home- is only $5,000 Rush said.
But this is not a tourist outing. All dives are clearly scientific missions often done in concert with universities. Rush hopes the experience will help the mission specialists spread the love of undersea exploration to others.
“The hope with Titanic is to build of cadre of people that there are amazing things to see underwater and great research to do,” he said.
It takes more than two hours to reach the Titanic’s resting place. As the sub leaves the sunlit surface, it descends into a black void populated by creatures who use flashing bio luminescence to communicate or seek prey.
Some stare into the sub.
“Sometimes these bizarre creatures would look at you for a while and decide that you are not worth eating and wander off,’’ Rush said.
During its descent, the sub “drops like a stone” until reaching the bottom, where Rush engages the propulsion system and heads to the Titanic. The dive includes visons of the ship’s stern, the debris field, and finally the bow section.
Despite the surrounding gloom, the shipwreck is a colorful sight, with bright hues of red, orange and blue caused by bacteria eating rusting metal.
“The thing that really struck me is how beautiful it is,” Rush said. “All the shipwrecks that I have been on are generally grey and covered with silt and the colors are from anemones, corals and fish. “
But the ship’s allure as the most famous undersea wreck in history has made it a target for those seeking a piece of history.
Divers working for RMS Titanic Inc., the company that holds salvage rights, have brought up more than 5,000 objects from the debris field including shoes, eyeglasses, dinnerware and a 17-ton section of the bow. Much of the loot is on display in the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.
Officials of the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration insist the wreck should be declared off limits because the ship may still contain human remains. Scavenging by sea creatures and the deep sea chemistry of the surrounding environment make it unlikely that a human body could last for more than 100 years.
But critics say corpses could remain in sealed area of the ship where lack of oxygen would prevent scavenging by worms and other sea life.
Rush said he has not seen human remains when examining the wreck and Cameron agrees.
To protect the wreck, Congress in 1985 passed the Titanic Maritime Memorial Act, but the law was hard to enforce. The United States, Canada the United Kingdom signed a treaty that toughened the regulations but it needs congressional support.
RMS Titanic salvagers plan to retrieve the Marconi wireless radio that sent the famous S.O.S. the night of the sinking, but a deep diving robotic probe will have to enter the wreck to get it. A federal judge has approved the dive over NOAA objections.
Oceangate does not salvage objects from the wreck, Rush said. A second expedition planned for this year will be strictly scientific and he hopes to catalogue the fish and other life living on the ship.
“We’re not going to pick up artifacts, that not something that I want to do,” he said.
Upcoming expeditions will include a dive to the Great Bahama Bank to study sharks, whales and more shipwrecks. Rush also hopes to journey to the South Pacific to observe ships sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea in World War II. And all in the spirit of science, Rush said.
“We are doing what I think everybody wants,” he said. “Getting information and ocean awareness.”
Sharks plague New England swimmers
Story and photos by Dave Boitano
Tourists scan the ocean at the Cape Cod National Seashore looking for Great White Sharks, (top) warning flags tell swimmers that sharks are present and to stay out of the water, (bottom) and a video at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows a shark attacking an underwater drone.(middle)
A cold wind swept across the sands of the Cape Cod National Seashore as a pair of college-enrolled lifeguards kept watch on the waves hitting the beach.
Not the kind of day that would encourage beach goers to take a dip in the water or go Boogieboarding in the surf.
But the crowds were gone for a more sinister reason. The lifeguards' post was flying a red warning flag and a purple banner with the outline of one of the ocean’s top predators: the great white shark.
In what could only be termed a case of life imitating art, great whites have returned to the waters off the Cape, the scene of the hit movie “Jaws”.
In the film, based on the novel by writer Peter Benchley, a marauding shark kills bathers near Martha’s Vineyard, a popular tourist island.
The story became frighteningly real in September 2018 when a 26-year-old man, Arthur Medici, died after he was attacked while boogie boarding off Newcomb Hollow Beach..
Only weeks before, a swimmer was bitten off Truro Beach, but the victim survived by hitting the animal as it attacked his legs.
Medici’s death was the first shark fatality in the area since 1936.
There were no attacks on the Cape this summer because public safety crews took steps to warn and protect bathers.
If a shark was seen feeding nearby, lifeguards would raise the flags and evacuate the water until the animal left. Warning signs urging beach goers to “Be shark smart” were put up at all beaches
Swimmers had to get out of the surf several times this year and an annual charity swim was cancelled due to concerns about shark activity.
Beach goers can report great white sightings by logging onto the Sharktivity app created by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, a non-profit focused on educating the public about the fierce fish.
The information may be useful but cannot replace scientific methods of measuring shark populations according to Greg Skomal, senior fisheries scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
“If I put a plane in the air and count 20 sharks over six hours it’s hard to determine if that’s 20 individual sharks or the same four sharks seen five times each,” he said.
The great whites hunt the shallow beach waters in pursuit of their favorite meal, grey seals whose numbers have increased dramatically over the years after the seals became a protected species under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. passed in 1972. And given that some estimates place the number of Grey seals on the Cape at 50,000, the sharks will likely continue their summer visits for a long time.
Great whites are most active in New England waters between June and October and can be found in as little as six feet of water while pursuing their prey. During winter Great Whites migrate to warmer waters off the coast of South Carolina and the Gulf of Mexico.
Attacks on humans are rare and are often a case of mistaken identity; the shark assuming that a surfer or swimmer’s splashing contour is that of a seal. But the 2018 attacks convinced tourists and emergency crews to take precautions when sharks are lurking offshore, according to Skomal.
“The chances of being attacked are extremely low, but it doesn’t take many to alarm the general public,” he said.
Since 2009, Skomal and other Department of Marine Fisheries scientists have been conducting research into all aspects of great white behavior. To study the predator’s movements, they have used high tech tagging systems, including acoustic transmitters that register data with strategically-placed buoys when the fish swims by.
Working with engineers at nearby Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Skomal has traced tagged sharks using an autonomous underwater drone that follows the animal as it travels through deep water. A video in the institution’s visitor’s center shows a shark attacking the torpedo-shaped drone only to give up when it becomes obvious that he cannot eat it.
The device itself, complete with huge bite marks, is on display nearby.
That incident took place in clear deep waters off Guadalupe Island in Mexico. Skomal who had tagged the shark, said the animal was not biting because he was irritated at being followed by the device.
“We think it was predatory behavior,” he said.
Skomal and the fisheries department are ending a five-year study to determine the actual number of Great Whites that visit the Cape seasonally. They used a spotter plane to locate the sharks and relay their location to a waiting boat. Skomal and others would then photograph the animals using an underwater camera. By comparing the shark’s individual coloring patterns, the scientists could determine if this animal was a new visitor or had been to the cape before.
This procedure was admittedly time consuming and it will take a few months to analyze all the data. But the study is now more important than ever in light of the 2018 attacks, Skomal said.
“It really did step up the urgency not just with our research but within the public safety community,” he said. “It captured everyone’s attention. "
But perhaps there is a silver lining to the cloud surrounding the shark situation. Some visitors are visiting the seashore in hopes of seeing a great white from a safe distance. The predators should not be hard to find. Just look for the purple flag.
Not the kind of day that would encourage beach goers to take a dip in the water or go Boogieboarding in the surf.
But the crowds were gone for a more sinister reason. The lifeguards' post was flying a red warning flag and a purple banner with the outline of one of the ocean’s top predators: the great white shark.
In what could only be termed a case of life imitating art, great whites have returned to the waters off the Cape, the scene of the hit movie “Jaws”.
In the film, based on the novel by writer Peter Benchley, a marauding shark kills bathers near Martha’s Vineyard, a popular tourist island.
The story became frighteningly real in September 2018 when a 26-year-old man, Arthur Medici, died after he was attacked while boogie boarding off Newcomb Hollow Beach..
Only weeks before, a swimmer was bitten off Truro Beach, but the victim survived by hitting the animal as it attacked his legs.
Medici’s death was the first shark fatality in the area since 1936.
There were no attacks on the Cape this summer because public safety crews took steps to warn and protect bathers.
If a shark was seen feeding nearby, lifeguards would raise the flags and evacuate the water until the animal left. Warning signs urging beach goers to “Be shark smart” were put up at all beaches
Swimmers had to get out of the surf several times this year and an annual charity swim was cancelled due to concerns about shark activity.
Beach goers can report great white sightings by logging onto the Sharktivity app created by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, a non-profit focused on educating the public about the fierce fish.
The information may be useful but cannot replace scientific methods of measuring shark populations according to Greg Skomal, senior fisheries scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
“If I put a plane in the air and count 20 sharks over six hours it’s hard to determine if that’s 20 individual sharks or the same four sharks seen five times each,” he said.
The great whites hunt the shallow beach waters in pursuit of their favorite meal, grey seals whose numbers have increased dramatically over the years after the seals became a protected species under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. passed in 1972. And given that some estimates place the number of Grey seals on the Cape at 50,000, the sharks will likely continue their summer visits for a long time.
Great whites are most active in New England waters between June and October and can be found in as little as six feet of water while pursuing their prey. During winter Great Whites migrate to warmer waters off the coast of South Carolina and the Gulf of Mexico.
Attacks on humans are rare and are often a case of mistaken identity; the shark assuming that a surfer or swimmer’s splashing contour is that of a seal. But the 2018 attacks convinced tourists and emergency crews to take precautions when sharks are lurking offshore, according to Skomal.
“The chances of being attacked are extremely low, but it doesn’t take many to alarm the general public,” he said.
Since 2009, Skomal and other Department of Marine Fisheries scientists have been conducting research into all aspects of great white behavior. To study the predator’s movements, they have used high tech tagging systems, including acoustic transmitters that register data with strategically-placed buoys when the fish swims by.
Working with engineers at nearby Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Skomal has traced tagged sharks using an autonomous underwater drone that follows the animal as it travels through deep water. A video in the institution’s visitor’s center shows a shark attacking the torpedo-shaped drone only to give up when it becomes obvious that he cannot eat it.
The device itself, complete with huge bite marks, is on display nearby.
That incident took place in clear deep waters off Guadalupe Island in Mexico. Skomal who had tagged the shark, said the animal was not biting because he was irritated at being followed by the device.
“We think it was predatory behavior,” he said.
Skomal and the fisheries department are ending a five-year study to determine the actual number of Great Whites that visit the Cape seasonally. They used a spotter plane to locate the sharks and relay their location to a waiting boat. Skomal and others would then photograph the animals using an underwater camera. By comparing the shark’s individual coloring patterns, the scientists could determine if this animal was a new visitor or had been to the cape before.
This procedure was admittedly time consuming and it will take a few months to analyze all the data. But the study is now more important than ever in light of the 2018 attacks, Skomal said.
“It really did step up the urgency not just with our research but within the public safety community,” he said. “It captured everyone’s attention. "
But perhaps there is a silver lining to the cloud surrounding the shark situation. Some visitors are visiting the seashore in hopes of seeing a great white from a safe distance. The predators should not be hard to find. Just look for the purple flag.