Shipwrecks - Time Capsules of Human Civilization

Bad Weather Spoils Underwater Expedition to the Empress

The poor weather and rain that has plagued the Northeast of the USA was readily apparent up in Rimouski, Quebec where our diving to the Empress of Ireland was severely curtailed. The amount of dives that we were able to get in were around 30% of our projected schedule. Undeterred, we were able to get a few notable dives to various areas of the ship that included the complete bow section of the wreck site, a visit to the anchors and ship name, a tour of the forecastle and cargo holds and penetration to the first and second class dining areas. The visibility was horrible as we averaged between 4 -10 feet all week and there was very little ambient light coming down to the wreck site - which made it pitch black. The best visibility on the wreck was when we penetrated her dining room and social room compartments.  Due to the bad weather, ripping currents and limited visibility, we were unable to do much photography or video on the wreck. This was our most devastating aspect of the entire expedition as the purpose of the expedition was to catalogue and chronicle the deterioration of the ship.  Unfazed by this year's lack of success, I am even more excited to be leading a group out next year to mark my twentieth year of diving on this famed Lost Liner.

Empress of Ireland Side-Scan Sonar Imagery

On the Internet are fascinating side-scan sonar (SSS) photographs of the Empress of Ireland taken some years ago by the Canadian Navy Route Survey Office using a Klein 5000 SSS. The web site's URL for seeing these photos are at: 

http://www.northernatlanticdive.com/empress_sss.htm

It looks like the Empress is literally melting into the bottom of the St. Lawrence. What you are seeing is in fact the way she is lying on the sea floor. The upper decks have collapsed and have slid down the starboard side of the wreck exactly like the Klein SSS is showing. It is very difficult to get a view of the whole wreck because you would have to capture small glimpses of the wreck over multiple dives. Visibility is very bad and the lighting is extremely dark. These Klein sonar pieces are dated as the wreck has deteriorated much more than what is seen on these sonar pictures. The center portion of the ship where salvage was undertaken to remove the teak decking in the mid-1990's causing most of the long term damage. I would suspect that the removal of this teak has accelerated the demise of this shipwreck by about 75 years. Additionally, it has caused the stern to partially "cave-in" and its once pristine section where I once sat in a wrought-iron ship deck chair, paying my respects to over 800 still entombed in her wreckage, now totally gone. I will be leading a dive expedition out to the wreck site beginning next weekend with the purpose of capturing video and photographs of the ship's current state of decay.

Busy, Busy, Busy..... New Shipwreck Information Gathered

It has been quite a busy time for me over the past month.  I have logged over 25,000 miles, been to 5 different countries on three continents, given 5 Shipwreck presentations on three different ocean liners and presented a scientific research paper on Titanic.  All of this travel has enabled me to provide my blog readers with firsthand research materials for shipwreck study - so it was extremely productive. Even though the amount of blogs has decreased this month, the quality of materials gained through my travels will allow me present you with new, unique and relevant information on the latest developments on shipwreck exploration in the immediate future.

Much of my work has been focused on the Andrea Doria of which I have made many dives and have done over 25 years of research. The 50th anniversary of the Andrea Doria's collision and sinking is being remembered by many throughout the globe and I have been inundated with media requests. Three of this month's presentations have been about the Andrea Doria and were viewed by over 800 people. In addition, I have been working on the Andrea Doria Survivor's Reunion, two Andrea Doria documentaries, a consultant on PBS (Public Broadcasting Systems) Andrea Doria website  and started publicity on a new Andrea Doria book entitled Alive on the Andrea Doria by Doria survivor Pierette Simpson. Yesterday, a newspaper review by the Daily Collegian of my presentation to a scientific crowd at the Pennsylvania State University's Marine Science Program was published. Although the article did not contain the science behind the collision and sinking of the Andrea Doria, I had a great time interacting with students, professors, administrators and guests at this event. In July, I will be leading the Official Andrea Doria Diving Expedition to the wreck site and will be doing some high definition filming of the current morphological changes to the ship.

The final presentation of this week was to an organization of Lockheed Martin retirees about the tragic sinking of the Empress of Ireland at their group's luncheon. They were treated to a brief historical account of the tragedy and a forty-minute, high-quality digital virtual dive to the shipwreck. The Empress is considered a very dangerous dive due to its cold water temperatures, limited dark visibility and ripping currents. It was great to talk to this group about the Empress as this ship is the most tragic ship accident that most people have never heard about.  Later this summer, I will be leading a diving expedition to the Empress and look forward to broadcasting LIVE from the dive site as I did last year.

I will be continuing the series on my expedition to Turkey on the next blog. I look forward to chatting with you about this adventure to ancient nautical times. Look forward to a new Titanic story from a Titanic passengers' family with a unique twist that we will exclusively broadcast later this month. There is so much to write about!

Comparing Titanic's Decay with the Empress of Ireland, Lusitania, Britannic and Andrea Doria

Although Titanic is deteriorating while subjected to the natural force of the Atlantic Ocean, it has been preserved relatively well throughout the past ninety-three years. More recent shipwrecks, like the ill-fated Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria which sank in 1956, is in much worse shape structurally than Titanic. The Doria lies in 260 feet of water about 40 miles southwest of Nantucket Island. The relatively shallow depths, strong currents, aluminum-alloy- based superstructure and weather conditions have battered the Doria to the point where the top five deck levels have fallen down to the bottom of the ocean. With its entire superstructure gone, the Doria is now a huge steel hull with all of its once-beautiful infrastructure lying next to it on its starboard side in a vast heap of metallic wreckage.

It is important to put the decay of Titanic in the context of other contemporary twentieth century ocean liner shipwrecks. These once-opulent liner shipwrecks like the Lusitania, the Empress of Ireland and Titanic’s sister, Britannic have all sunk in different parts of the world and been exposed to a variety of different environmental factors. Despite their environmental differences, all of these fine liners are in relatively similar states of deterioration to that of Titanic. Judging by these many differences in environmental conditions, the fact that their states of deterioration are similar may prove to be a mere coincidence.

Empress of Ireland-Need a Good Read but have No Time? Audiobook!

One of the best underwater adventure books of 2004-2005 is the dangerous diving to the famed Lost Liner Empress of Ireland called Dark Descent by Kevin McMurray. This book is a no-hold-barred glimpse of the very deadly diving that is done while exploring the Canadian Pacific liner that collided with a Norwegian collier named Storstad in 1914 and sank in 14 minutes. This tragedy killed more passenger lives than both Titanic and Lusitania in the St. Lawrence River near the Quebec town of Rimouski. I have been very fortunate to have more dives to the Empress of Ireland than any other American (currently 124 dives over 18 years); however, this pales in comparison to fellow Canadian divers Steve Brooks, Phillippe Beaudry and Dany St-Cyr. This year, I brought a group of fellow American ( Tony Granata, Ray Stine and Charlie Howlett) divers to the wreck site and our diving logs, videos and other assorted resource information can be found on our web log ( blog) archives .

Dark Descent by Kevin McMurray has been a tremendous success and has received five stars (highest rating) by its reviewers on Amazon. I have contributed several of my diving adventures to this book and have had many people rave to me about my exploits on this famous ship. This book is considered a MUST HAVE from the diving community and this success has been heard by the famed McGraw-Hill Publishers to create an abridged account of the book on audio (Four CD's) that was released a couple of weeks ago. Follow this link to Amazon and order your set of these audiobook CDs as a wonderful Holiday gift. Please note that this extremely popular audiobook is going very fast and you need to get your order in soon! For those that do not have the time to read, this audiobook is a perfect way to experiencing the drama and dangers of diving such a historic shipwreck.

Titanic Logs - July 14th Back in the Saddle

This is our series of supplemental logs that were taken from our scientific research expedition to RMS Titanic earlier last month. I hope that you enjoy!

'Dive Day 4' and everyone is excited to be back in the saddle again! As for me, I will be spending a relaxing day reporting on the dives via this weblog and preparing my lecture tomorrow on the Empress of Ireland. Today's divers are quite the characters and having them all down on Titanic during the day will make for a very quiet Keldysh.  In MIR I will be my original dive partner, Trevor Montgomery AKA Monty from Melbourne Australia and the other diver is Steve Wickens, a UK engineer currently working in the Middle East. Fresh from 'walking' last evening's "red carpet", Anatoly Sagalevitch will be piloting MIR I. Once again, we have had excellent weather and MIR I launched around 9:50 am followed about 30 minutes later by MIR II with Victor Nescheta at the helm. The divers in MIR II are two of the Arizona boys named John Lennon and Chris Vinger. Both of these fine gentlemen brought with them pictures of their wives, children and pets. All throughout the expedition, these great guys talked very fondly of their families and it was nice to see pictures of their home life.

As MIR II was launched, a large pod of pilot whales were seen off our bow. There must of been over a hundred whales that were seen jumping through the water. Following the launch of the submersibles, our resident deep sea organism biologist, Dr. Peter Batson gave us another fantastic lecture about the deep-sea animals that reside at 12,000 feet and include many of the 'critters' that we routinely encounter while down on Titanic. Following lunch, we had some videos of Deep Ocean Expeditions trip to French Polynesia and a viewing of James Cameron's documentary on Bismarck. Bismarck is a wonderful dive and the battleship is in great condition. For those into doing things to the extremes, Bismarck is even deeper than Titanic by almost 1000 meters. I look forward to the day that I get a chance to visit this wonderful remnant of World War II.

Getting Ready for Titanic

Normally it takes us many months to plan a diving expedition but the Titanic research expedition has taken us two years of operational planning, consulting and equipment preparation. Even with this amount of time and effort, there always seems like we might forget even the simplest of things. Once back at our New Jersey home base, a very quick turn-over of gear is necessary as we go from the Lost Liner Empress of Ireland to another Lost Liner Titanic.  Very little of what we brought to the Empress will end up going to Titanic and I am thankful for all the initial preparation that we did before we left for the Empress. All of the cameras and videocams have been packed, the new services prepped and I believe that we are ready to go. I have a direct flight from Newark, NJ to St. John's, Newfoundland where I will pick-up our home for the next two weeks-the Russian research vessel, Akamedik Keldysh. While enroute and on-site over Titanic, we will be beaming live daily reports via satellite.  We have spent months testing this technology and have received direct live feeds during Keldysh's June 2005 dive expedition to Bismarck from our good friend, Belinda Sawyer of Deep Ocean Expeditions. It is time now to execute our plan and I look forward to having you 'on-board' with us as we explore and research the wreck site of RMS Titanic.

Saying Au Revoir to the Empress of Ireland

Following a 3:45 am wake-up call by Captain Jean-Pierre Bouillon, we got great news that the weather had subsided and that we would be getting an early start out to the Empress. Leaving the marina by 6:00 am we were quickly out to the dive site and the Empress. The surface currents were strong and the teams were divided into two groups based on our dive project plan. I was in the first group and took Charlie, our videographer, on a trip to the third class dining room area. Ray and Tony, our photographer, went up towards the crew’s quarters to get some photos of the shoe that I discovered the other day, the cargo area including the winches and the forecastle area.

Entrance to the third class dining area is achieved by access through the hull. It is a bit tricky to find this area but I have spent many years accessing this area and had no problems coming right to it. The day before, I spent plenty of time with Charlie describing the wine, beer and mineral water stores and let him go into this area first, so I would not mess-up his visibility and he could film. It took him about 6 minutes to completely film the stores and he came out of the ship. From that point, I accessed the third class pantry and the third class dining hall. The attached fixtures where the chairs and tables once were are still in the dining room. The room walls back into the food stores and passageways were still in very good condition. At about 15 minutes, I decided to take Charlie over to the grand staircase so that he could film the lower step and the remaining banister.

Because the seas were starting to build, Charlie and I were the only ones to get in a second ( and our final) dive to the Empress. I decided that I wanted to re-explore the first class dining room and carving table. Going through the upper portions of the 1914 explosion hole, there is much damage to this area from the teak salvage operations of the early 1990’s. I was stunned to see all the teak planking uprooted and in some cases, actually block passage in this area. I did not want Charlie to access this part of the ship because it was too dangerous. I spent about 5 minutes in this area and did a quick visit to the carving table and then decided that I would take Charlie back to the second-class pantry for a final visit. After a slow return to our tie-in point, where we saw the remnants of a beautiful leather sofa, it was time to say goodbye. Throughout the course of the dive day, Charlie and I had visited all three dining rooms. During our decompression ascent, I sang my best rendition of ‘Oh Canada’ ( like my good friend,  Dr. Steve Brooks of Burlington, Ontario) through my closed-circuit rebreather that even Charlie complimented me on. 

Nautical Research Group, Inc. has had a great trip to the St. Lawrence and the wreck site of the Empress of Ireland. We would like to thank Captain Jean-Pierre Bouillon and Dany St-Cyr for all their support and assistance. I would like to thank my excellent dive team of Tony Granata, Ray Stine and Charlie Howlett for a wonderful experience diving and filming the Empress. Once we have had a chance to process the data, Nautical Research Group will share portions of our study results to you via this weblog and our corporate website. We hope that you have enjoyed our Live from the Dive Site Coverage of the Empress and encourage you to pick-up a copy of Forgotten Empress by David Zeni and Dark Descent by Kevin McMurray. Another wonderful book that describes this tragedy in detail is Fourteen Minutes by James Croall. We look forward to starting our Live from the Dive Site Coverage over the wreck site of the famous RMS Titanic later this week. After a 14-hour drive back to New Jersey with the diving gear, it is off to St. John's, Newfoundland to board the Russian research vessel, Akademik Keldysh on July 7th for departure to the Titanic. We look forward to having you 'on-board' for this next adventure!

Tiny Bubbles - "Raiding" the Empress of Ireland's Champagne, Beer and Wine Stores

As we finish up our diving expedition to the Empress of Ireland, I thought that it would be appropriate to visit the storage area for all the ship's beverages that include mineral water, beer, fine wine and champagne. This area has many intact pristine bottles of your favorite bubbly drink that is forever preserved in a heavy coat of mud. It is nearly impossible to get the bottles out of this mud intact, as the suction of the mud on the bottle would surely break it.  Underneath this mud is cases and cases of fine wine that still has its straw packing in place.

I have had much fun diving the Empress of Ireland over the many years. Although it has changed quite significantly over the years (as have I-unfortunately), she is a beautiful ship and a throwback to the age of early transatlantic crossings and immigration to the New World. I hope that you enjoyed our dives to the Empress of Ireland. Our goal for the expedition was to capture as much digital video of the ship as possible and compare it to the photos and videos that we collected in the 1980's. It is through this comparative photometric analysis that we can observe the decay and deterioration of the Empress and preserve it for many generations.

Time to pack up the car, drive 15 hours back to New Jersey, in time to drop off my gear, board a plane to St. John's, Newfoundland to board the Russian research vessel Akademik Keldysh and the wrecksite of RMS Titanic.

Batten Down the Hatches – Winds Blowing Hard on the Empress

The weather front has finally arrived with full 35-knot winds and even higher gusts. I was hoping for another 4 am start but never got the call from our boat captain, Jean-Pierre Bouillon. Although I had my gear ready at this early hour, it was not to be :^(  Small craft warnings and raging seas with whitecaps greeted us this morning.

Because of this extreme weather, we will have our first "down" day of diving. We have been extremely fortunate to get in 9 dives to the Empress already on this expedition-so I can not complain. It is time for me to catch-up on my writing and sleep. We are all disappointed in the blown-out day as tomorrow will be our last diving day on the Empress of Ireland for 2005.

Journey to Deep within the Ship - Empress of Ireland Food Stores

Having over one hundred dives to the ship has given me an opportunity to penetrate into areas on the Empress of Ireland  that are fairly exotic. Two of my most exotic trips are : 1) to the barbershop where the barber's chair is sticking out of the side surrounded by red and white checkered flooring and 2) the deep food stores of the Empress where all the wheat, oats, vegetables etc are stored.

Since we have just visited the third class pantry, I thought that we would go deep down into the food storage area. When I got down there, I was very fortunate to find a friend who decided to give me a guided tour of the food storage area. Unfortunately, my guide was going a bit too fast and was getting me to go deeper and deeper into this unexplored area.  I think that he wanted to introduce me to all his other friends but I thought that it was a better idea to decline their offer to converse and get back to more familiar grounds. The amount and diversity of the sea life around the Empress is astounding. One time while I was exploring the stern exterior of the ship, I was startled and scared half to death by a playful seal that wanted to get to know me better!

Weather-front Moving Down on the Empress

We decided to get a very early start this morning as weather forecasts predicted a strong weather front moving into the area. We left our living quarters at 4:30 am and anticipated a bumpy ride out to the Empress. Once outside the shelter of the Rimouski marina, the seas were relatively calm but the waves were rolling. This is a good indication for rougher waters ahead.

Charlie and Ray started the morning dives while hooked into the bow tie-in. Utilizing his video camera, Charlie went towards the crew's quarter where he captured some wonderful shots of this section of the Empress. An extremely close-up from his video revealed a black, leather shoe - another reminder of this monumental tragedy.  Charlie went as far as the end of the crew's mess until the area narrowed due to slit and mud. On exiting this area, he decided to go back and get better film footage of the second-class pantry area and carving table. As time was soon ending for this dive, Charlie made the long swim back to our bow tie-in. On his journey, he observed some black and white tiles that were in another collapse piece of the superstructure.

The beginnings of the weather front began to slowly move in and Charlie made a second dive to the area of the grand staircase between the first-class cabins and the first-class dining room. Because of the swells, it was decided not to bring a video camera on this dive. He did not go as far as the railing and lower stair of the grand staircase from this vantage point but decided to observe this area from the top portion of the superstructure. Sometime over the past ten years, the staircase step and railing could be viewed from above and outside the ship, rather than visiting this area during a penetration dive. The Empress is slowly decaying and many of the external and internal features are losing their structural integrity.

A Taste of Third Class - Empress of Ireland's Third Class Pantry

Being the first to visit an area of a shipwreck is a great feeling. I had an opportunity to have this exhilarating feeling when I visited the Empress of Ireland's third class pantry with my dive partner and good friend, the noted Canadian diver Dr. Steve Brooks in 1987.  This part of the ship at about 150 feet is fairly deep compared to the outer portions of the ship. This can be easily explained as the ship settling on the bottom of the river, where the pantry is now actually submerged in the muddy bottom. Initially Steve and I dove the dining room portion of the third class area together but mucked-up the visibility so bad, it made for an interesting trip out of the ship. On subsequent dives, one person would go in while the other would stay out of the area. In that way, if you messed up the visibility, then it was your fault. Once I saw this area devoid of the silty mess, the wall structures became apparent and going through the doorway aft of the dining room, you would go in and see the pantry where foods were prepared and plated for the passengers. Please note the stack of beautiful Minton porcelain plates that are stacked together and waiting 91 years for someone to come by. The wire that is hanging down was used for lighting the pantry and can easily wrap around an unsuspecting diver. Care is always taken when penetrating a vessel and the Empress gives you a lot of slack-enough to hang yourself with! The Empress of Ireland is a protected wreck, therefore the only thing that we recovered this day was some great video. Our expedition will be shooting some very high-end digital video using some of the latest SONY technology and revisiting all the notable areas of the ship.

Perfect Day for Visiting the Empress

This morning at 5:15 am, our dive boat captain, Jean-Pierre Bouillon, greeted me at my hotel door with an important message. Our original plan was to leave the marina at 8 am but the captain felt that the time to go was now. Although, I was up already and had the computer fired up for a little writing before our scheduled later dive time, I immediately shut-down and woke up the rest of the dive team. The seas were very calm and the weather was in the high 60's – just perfect for a dive out on the Empress. We made our way down to the Rimouski marina by 6:15 am and we were out of the harbor on our way to the Empress by 6:30 am.

We decided to moor over the extreme bow section as I had a little project that I wanted to do with visiting the entire length of the downed mast. I decided to have Charlie Howlett dive with me the entire day, as he had a video camera and wanted to checkout some novel places on the Empress. It only took about 3 minutes to get down to the bow railings at about 85 feet as we were positioned on our downline between the bow letters 'of' from the brass portside letters that say EMPRESS of IRELAND. I took Charlie aft of the downline and we proceeded to the entranceway to the third class cabins. From this area we could see a piece of porcelain china that has the logo "Canadian Pacific Railways" on it. The mast was easily recognizable and had fallen over the starboard railing and out into the muddy waters of the St. Lawrence. The mast was not as thick as Titanic's mast and the lookout had to climb into the crow's nest from the outside. The crow's nest was fairly intact and relatively low to the deck. Following the mast into the mud, we decided to visit the stairs where crewmen and third class passengers made their way down into the bowels of the ship. Although the stairs were missing, the railings were perfectly in place. One poignant item that we saw in this area was a passenger's leather shoe-this is a constant reminder that 800 people are still entombed here and to treat the wreck with much respect and dignity.

Following an hour and a half surface interval, I decided to take Charlie to the Second Class Dining room and pantry area. This section of the ship has collapsed quite significantly since a salvage operation that took massive amounts of fine teak decking from the mid-ships of the Empress in the early 1990's. From the narrowing view into the pantry, clearly visible is the carving table where passengers lined up to get their food. Additionally, there are several plate racks still standing but with their fine Minton porcelain missing or slid off the starboard area down to the lower parts of the ship. On returning to the downline, I discovered a beautiful intact First Class porcelain pitcher with the familiar flower pattern. I left this wonderful pitcher where is was and will have Tony film this later this week on our subsequent dives to the Empress.

Empress of Ireland - View from the Bridge

Much of the superstructure on the Empress of Ireland is starting to lose its structural integrity. The enclosure of the bridge has collapsed and the ship's wheel has been recovered (and placed in the Empress of Ireland museum at Father's Point Pointe au Pere) - but the walkway to the sides of the ship from the bridge are intact. The teak decking in this area is very well preserved as is the teak railing.  The following video will place you on the bridge of the Empress of Ireland-almost frozen in time to the day it sank.

The place where we are diving here is where the officers would be taking directional sightings off the bridge. As we move from the bridge, we will be coming to the teak railing and the entrance-way to stairs that allows the officers to go down to the cargo hold area. As we look down the stairs, we can easily see the huge cargo winches that were used to hoist steamer trunks, cars, materials and other items from the docks into the vast cargo hold of the Empress. This is one of my favorite areas of the Empress as I can virtually look over the majestic surrounding that this beautiful shipwreck has become.

Schizophrenic Day of Weather out on the Empress

A weather front has finally taken over the Rimouski area and replaced the hot and humid weather (thank goodness) with a more temperate and comfortable climate. The winds came from all directions throughout the course of the night into the morning with the exception of the east. This unsettled weather pattern produced severe whitecaps out on the river and it was doubtful whether we would get out to dive today.

Just when we were about to give up the dive day, the winds calmed down and the seas flattened. All of a sudden, it was beautiful day! Although we got a late start at noontime, conditions on the wreck site could not of been more optimal. Calm seas, no current and a short run out to the Empress were great ways to lift our spirits. Unfortunately, due to business matters (Titanic), I was not able to go out with the other divers today :^(

The following is a report from my three divers (Tony, Ray and Charlie) that were taking photos and video of the Empress. Conditions on the Empress were pretty near perfect with about 15 feet of visibility and not so dark underwater. With no currents, it made the dive to the ship fairly relaxing. The divers decided to stay exclusively in the bow section of the ship, so they descended a down-line tied in near the bowsprit. The objective of the first dive was to clear of the portside letters that make up the name Empress of Ireland and then photograph/film them in their entirety. There was a piece of metal railing that was covering the N in Ireland but they were able to move it away for their photo shots. Following these pictures, they descended towards the crew's quarters and the third class entranceway to the front of the ship. Within the confines of this space you can see two distinct stairwells leading downward to cabins. This made for a very spectacular dive! On their second dive, they repeated their survey of the portside bow to include a visit to the huge anchor and the remainder of the area surrounding the cargo hatch.

Following the dive, Captain Jean-Pierre Bouillon, Dany St Cyr and my divers gave me a surprise birthday lobster dinner and a birthday cake with sparklers! Wow-what an evening! Hey, I like being twenty-nine every year!

Empress of Ireland - Lifeboats Could Not Help!

Because the Empress of Ireland sank so quickly in fourteen minutes, many of the lifesaving procedures could not be accomplished. Most passengers were in bed at the time and were only on board the ship for a few hours; therefore, they were very unfamiliar with the layout of the ship. Although the Empress carried more than enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew, the time that it took the Empress to sink would make the lifeboats useless-as no one could lower and man them in such a brief time period.

The Empress lies on it starboard side in the slightly muddy bottom of the St. Lawrence. If we dive straight down to where the impact area was, we see that the top deck levels have slid downward towards the starboard side. Slightly forward of the midships area, you can observe the framework of several wooden lifeboats that never got released from their davits. These lifeboats are in very good condition and their woodwork is fairly pristine. The depth of these lifeboats are about 147 feet depending on the swift tidal currents. Although relatively shallow in depth, the Empress is very cold with water ranges of 28-37 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the summer, the currents are extremely swift and it is very, very dark on the ship-as very little surface ambient light can make it down to the wrecksite.

Dive Site Live - Early Call to the Empress

I received a knock on my door at 4:30 am from Jean-Pierre Bouillon that I was to have our dive group meet at the Rimouski pier at 5:00 am. It appears that there were small craft warnings with 30-knot winds that would be a problem the later we got into the day. I got everyone up and did my fastest time for putting together the closed-circuit rebreather than I ever had. As we were putting all our gear together and rushing down to the marina, we could see the flags whipping straight-out with the winds from the southwest. Jean-Pierre told me ahead of time that because of the weather we would only be getting in one dive so we had to make it a good one. Once out on the wreck site the winds were brisk and there was a slight chop to the water. We had a beautiful seal feeding off some scattered sea growth that greeted us as we moored over the same position on the Empress of Ireland-amidships forward of the explosion hole. The first team to hit the water was Tony Granata and Charlie Howlett as they were going to do some photography and video. The second team would be Ray Stine and myself with the plan to give Ray a similar tour of the bow. Because of his rich Nitrox mix, he was limited to only about 125 feet depth so no stairs and lifeboats. The water was much clearer on the surface but the wreck site was much darker than yesterday. Slowly swimming on the promenade, I noticed that there was a pretty good current running from the stern to the bow. This would make our swim to the bow very easy but we would have to fight the current coming back to the tie-in spot. I wanted to show Ray the cargo area and the plaques. By seeing the plagues, it gives you a quick jar into the realities of the sinking of the Empress as well as the dangers in diving the ship. The water temperature was about 35-37 degrees Fahrenheit and the visibility was about 5-8 feet and VERY DARK. As I was checking my PPO2 readings on the rebreather, Charlie bumped me to get me attention. I did not immediately know what he wanted and assumed that he wanted me to take him to the letters on the bow. After another nudge, I realized that he was having some regulator problems and that we would have to abort the dive. It appears that his primary regulator was free flowing and that he had to change over to one of his back-ups. All our divers carry many different redundant support systems so although it aborted the dive, Ray handled the situation like the pro that he is. Once on the surface the seas had picked up and we decided to head in for the day. Back at the hotel, we had a mini-entertainment session looking at the photos and videos that Tony and Charlie took-very beautiful! A quick run to Tim Horton's for coffee, a viewing on the CPR gravesite between Father's Point and Rimouski and a visit to the Empress Museum at Father's Point will be the highlights of the day.

Tragedy in Fourteen Minutes - The Sinking of the Empress of Ireland

One its first outboard journey of the 1914 season, the Empress of Ireland was leaving its Quebec City port in the late afternoon. The temperature was quite mild and the Salvation Army band, that was making its way to Britain for a conference, was on board playing music as the passengers embarked the ship. Following a delicious meal, many passengers were out on the deck admiring the twinkling lights that dotted the St. Lawrence River's banks. Many passengers were tired after their full day of getting to the ship and went to bed early. Slowly the Empress made itself down river and proceeded to pick-up and drop off the harbor pilot at Father's Point (Pointe au Pere) where the last of the mail was gathered for its trip to England. At approximately 2 am, while tacking into the deep channel in fog, the Empress was struck on the starboard amidships and between the funnels by a Norwegian collier named Storstad. The Storstad had an ice-breaking, reinforced bow that literally melted the steel plating of the Empress like a hot knife in butter. Immediately the Empress heeled-over and she was mortally-wounded while sinking fast. Captain Kendall tried all that he could to keep Storstad in the wound but to no avail. Kendall had the Marconi radioman, Ferguson give a distress call and to have the pilot boat return for assistance. Unfortunately, nothing could be done and the Empress of Ireland sank in FOURTEEN MINUTES with the loss of more passenger lives than both Titanic and Lusitania. Overall, more than one thousand lives were lost on this ship with over 800 bodies still entombed on the ship. We treat this lady with a lot of dignity and respect while considering this ship a grave site.

Dive Site Live - Visit to the Empress of Ireland

The weather gave us a welcomed break and we met the dive boat A.B. Marie and our captain, Jean-Pierre Bouillon at the marina at 10 am. Although this is a bit late to start the day, it gave me an opportunity to check and re-check the closed-circuit rebreather that I will be using throughout the course of my dives to the Empress. I will be using air as my diluent and my deep PPO2 setpoint will be 1.3. In my dive group, I will have some of New Jersey's upincoming leading wreck divers named Tony Granata, Charlie Howlett and Ray Stine, all making their first dives to the Empress. The trip to the Empress from the Rimouski marina is only a brief 25 minutes and the seas were very calm. I had Jean-Pierre place our mooring right at the forward mid-ships section of the Empress of Ireland. The first dive team to the shipwreck consisted of Charlie Howlett and myself. Our plan was to circumnavigate the entire bow from the tie-in at the mid-ships area. Our tie-in is through two portholes that are in the first class dining salon forward of the explosion hole that hard-hat divers used to get the mail and silver from the Empress back in 1914. Once on the wreck, it was very dark and I led Charlie down to the promenade level where beautiful teak flooring is readily apparent. We proceeded to the remnants of the ships bridge, where we saw the port side access way where the bridge officers would walk out to take their daily readings. As we move forward, we went over the bridge area and down the forecastle where several decks are seen. Their empty portholes and window seem to call us to take a peek inside. While down on deck the huge cargo winches are clearly seen and I took Charlie down to an intact stairwell that connected the crew's quarters and the cargo area to the rest of the ship. As we passed over the huge expanse of the cargo hold, we can see two plaques that were dedicated to three divers who lives were lost on the Empress and another plague that marked the 80th anniversary of the loss of many Salvation Army lives while going over to England for a band competition. Going forward, we saw the crew's quarters with very wide access that could entrap an unsuspecting diver. I proceeded to go to the extreme portion of the bow so that I could showcase the beautiful port side letters that spell out the ship - EMPRESS of IRELAND! No mistake about what we are diving here. While making our way back amidships, I decided to show Charlie one of the remaining lifeboats on the ship. I took an unconventional route that saw us take a diagonal swim right across the collapsed bridge, over the collapsed music room where a beautiful glass dome once stood and down to the bottom of the murky St. Lawrence where a starboard lifeboat was still in place on its davit. The wooden lattice of the lifeboat was very apparent. Now it was time to end our dive but before we surfaced, I showed Charlie some beautiful black-and-white checkered tiling from one on the social rooms that were very pristine. Small pieces of broken porcelain littered this area of the wreck. As we hit the portside railing, we were right at our tie-in spot. Having over 100 dives to this shipwreck gives you the opportunity to be that precise on a wreck where visibility was about ten feet and the temperature was between 34-36 degrees Fahrenheit. We spent about 25 minutes decompressing and then got back on our dive vessel. Following a ninety-minute surface interval, we got in a second dive where I treated Tony to a similar dive that I had initially completed with Charlie.

View of an Empress - Interiors of the Empress of Ireland

The Empress of Ireland was a very beautiful ship and had many fine comforts aboard the ship. She had three classes of passenger accommodations - first, second and third. The first class cabins and furnishing on the Empress were quite grand for its rich and wealthy passengers. In many ways the decor was a small scaled-down version of another John Brown liner named Lusitania. The dining saloon was very exquisite with private tables and booths, leather upholstery, fine Minton's porcelain china etc.  The second class catered to businessmen and wealthy individuals who did not want the attention that going first class brought to the passengers. The third class were usually immigrants and less wealthy individuals that wanted a good meal and bedding for their sailing across the Atlantic. Overall the Empress of Ireland was a favorite ship of Irish immigrants and the many Canadian passengers that returned to England on business or pleasure.

The weather was normally very cool on board the transatlantic journey. Most of the time, the Empress was engulfed in fog during its excursion through the rough landscape of the Canadian terrain. Strolling the deck was a favorite pastime of the passengers and it was not uncommon to see the passengers wrapped in blankets. The ship was stocked with good food and beverage where, even in third class, one received a hearty and delicious meal. Because of the Titanic disaster two years earlier, the Empress of Ireland had more than enough space in their lifeboats for all passengers and crew. Despite this reassuring fact, what lies ahead for this once-proud liner is so disastrous that all Canadians will never forget the tragedy of the Empress of Ireland.

Dive Site Live - Welcome to Quebec

After a lively 13-hour drive from our home offices in New Jersey, we arrived in the early afternoon of Sunday, June 26th to Rimouski. Our first day of diving is scheduled for tomorrow June 27th and we spent the rest of the day meeting with the dive boat captain, Jean-Pierre Bouillion, chatting with local dive legend Dany St-Cyr and getting ourselves settled in our "new" home at the LaNavigateur Village in St. Luce with our splendid host Mark Doucet.
The seas looked fairly rough looking beyond the pier with many whitecaps. Our plan is to check the marine weather report at 3:30 am to see when we could dive. The weather is very tricky in this part of the St. Lawrence and the tides, currents and winds all conspire to determine when or if we can dive that day. If Jean Pierre does not phone us at 4:00 am then we are to meet him at the marina at 10 am.

Empress of Ireland - An Introduction to a Forgotten Beauty

The Empress of Ireland was one of the largest ships built in1906. She was made in the John Brown Shipyards up in the Clyde and was made for the upstart Canadian Pacific Railways Line. Although she did not have the prestigious Southhampton to New York route, this beautiful liner plied the North Atlantic between Liverpool and Quebec City and made countless trips without incidence.

In 1914, the new captain of the Empress of Ireland was Captain Henry Kendall. Captain Kendall had taken over the ship only four weeks earlier and he was preparing for returning to England on a mild day of May 29th, 1914. Captain Kendall had an impeccable record as a ship captain and had been a captain of several other Canadian Pacific liners before the Empress. While captaining the Montrose in 1909, he was instrumental in capturing the famed murderer Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. It is rumored that Dr. Crippen was so inflamed over his capture that he set a curse on Captain Kendall.

The Empress of Ireland was about 550 feet long, 65 feet wide and weighed almost 15,000 tons.  She had capacity for 1860 passengers and was used primarily for new immigrants coming to Canada. Because she spent so much time within the close boundaries of Canada, it was believed that she was a very safe ship that only had 4 days of travel in open ocean sailing.

Guest Article: Noted "Forgotten Empress" Author David Zeni

The Empress of Ireland is not just another shipwreck but it is a wreck of monumental importance in the history of transatlantic travel.  In magnitude of loss, this was a big disaster.  Add the loss of passengers on Swiss Air 111, Egypt Air 990, TWA 800, and Pan Am 103 and the total is still 100 short of the 1102 lost on the Empress. Consider also that the Titanic's loss two years before the Empress "solved" the shipwreck potentiality.  Wave a shipbuilder's magic wand and lifeboats were added to the Empress as well as to all transatlantic vessels. The public's faith in safely crossing the North Atlantic was assured. Wrong!  The Empress shattered this myth. More improvements to ensure safety were needed.  One that resulted from the loss of the Empress was to design liners with a raked bow that projects forward to absorb the impact of a collision.

The Empress's contribution to the colonization of North America is yet another example of her legacy. While Titanic failed to complete a single crossing...the Empress made 191 successful crossings.  She delivered over 200,000 people many of whom settled in Canada and the border states of America.  Many people are unaware that a Canadian Pacific ship would have many Americans on board but any crossing would find a handful to several hundred Americans sailing.

Sadly, the Empress is the forgotten of the "big three" liner losses beginning in 1912 with Titanic and ending with Lusitania in 1915. Many historians say the Empress faded overnight with the outbreak of hostilities in World War I.  A thousand lives lost at sea in peacetime pales in comparison to the public's rising threshold for wartime deaths.

As an author and student of transportation disasters, I believe the travelling public wanted to erase the legacy of the Empress.  She reminded people that travel is a lottery at a time when everyone thought that danger had been mastered.  A confident, Edwardian-era public did not want to contemplate their vulnerability so they allowed the Empress to fade from contemporary memory and hence from history.       ---  David Zeni, Author, FORGOTTEN EMPRESS, Available through Amazon Canada ( in stock) or Amazon (4-9 days) in the United States.

Live from the Dive Reports from the Lost Liners Empress of Ireland and Titanic

Nautical Research Group, Inc. will be reporting LIVE from our diving expeditions to two of the "Lost Liners" this summer. Daily reports on our dive, augmented with history and video clips will be included from both of the dive sites.  From June 27th - July 3rd, we will be diving to the Empress of Ireland, which is sometimes referred to as Canada's Titanic. The Empress sank on May 29, 1914 in fourteen minutes and claimed over 1100 passenger lives - more than Titanic and Lusitania. Our second Lost Liner will be the famous RMS Titanic and we will be broadcasting via satellite from the Russian research vessel, Akademik Keldysh, which will be stationed over the wrecksite of the Titanic. Every other day, the two MIR submersibles will descend over 12, 600 feet of cold North Atlantic waters to the remains of this once-proud liner. We will be commencing our live reports from the Titanic expedition on July 6th - 18th. Since this expedition is a scientific research venture, at NO time will any items be salvaged nor recovered. Additionally, the submersible will take close-up shots of various areas of the ship without ever coming in contact with Titanic. By close-up examination of Titanic, we can observe its rate of decay and provide vital information that the scientific community can use to protect and preserve the ship. This weblog can be syndicated using RSS or by direct bookmark access from your browser.

The Titanic of Canada - the CPR Liner Empress of Ireland

Within the month, Nautical Research Group will be doing some research diving on the Lost Liner - the Canadian Pacific Railways (CPR) ocean liner Empress of Ireland. This beautiful ship sank on May 29th, 1914 following its collision with the coal collier Storstad in only 14 minutes with the loss of more passenger lives than both Titanic and Lusitania. The ship lies in the St. Lawrence River north of the town of Rimouski. Our corporation will be broadcasting 'live from the dive' with daily webcasts that will give you the feeling of being on our dive team. We invite you to syndicate our blog as we have already reported live from Bismarck; and will be globally syndicated LIVE for our dives out to the Empress of Ireland and the White Star Liner, RMS Titanic in mid-July.

To provide you a feel for the diving down to the Empress of Ireland, we are providing you a video stroll across the port-side promenade of the Empress. The teak decking is in great shape although has been uprooted in many spots (due to salvage operations in the 1990's). Please observe all the wonderful marine life that call the Empress their home. On the day of this filming, the waters were very clear and the visibility was fantastic.

The slightly brackish waters in this area of the St. Lawrence River are very cold with strong currents and normally quite dark. A good book to read that describes the diving history on the Empress of Ireland is Kevin McMurray's book, Dark Descent, which we have provided a link for on the left panel of this blog. In order to view this video (as well as all our videos) you need to load the FREE Macromedia Flash 7 plug-in.