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!
Examining Titanic's port side Officer's Quarters reveal a very similar morphological structure to that of the starboard side. Several windows of these quarters were opened and I used both my video camera's optical and digital zoom to get some nice internal shots within these cabins. At no time did we come in contact with Titanic as this was always our primary consideration. I took additional pictures of the expansion joint on this side of the ship to compare with the photos taken on the starboard side. It will be interesting to see if the widening of the expansion joint is uniform for each side or not. Going forward of the expansion joint, the officer's quarters show a marked structural decay. On this side of the ship, we can see a couple of lifeboat davits lying on the boat deck. During this latest pass of Titanic's bow, we ended up on the port side of the wheelhouse where the bridge wing would of been located.
Before we left the bow section of Titanic, I had two places that I wanted to visit to assess the ship's structural deterioration. The first place was the starboard side hull, aft of the anchor and forward of the first lifeboat davit. There is a huge hole in the starboard side of Titanic that is getting bigger and bigger. This hole is so large that it could literally "swallow" the MIR and the integrity of the bow is certainly compromised by this ever-widening gap. The bow section of the ship is settling into the ocean floor and is creating torque on the rest of the intact bow section. In 2003, we discovered a new tear in the starboard hull just aft of this huge hole and we took some additional pictures to assess the changes over the past two years. We will be revealing the changes to this area in the next few weeks.
The second place that I wanted to visit was the boiler room area at the farthest aft portion of the bow section. In 2003, we did not visit this area as we spent time looking at the Grand Staircase instead. This time, we decided not to go to the Grand Staircase but to spend our time at the Boiler Room. I am very glad that I did. These boilers are HUGE! No pictures, video or 3-D IMAX can portray the immense size that these boilers are. There were a total of 29 boilers - 24 double-ended and five single-ended. Seeing these boilers embedded in the aft section of the bow was a humbling experience. Before we left the bow section, we stopped our video and had a moment of silence for all the people that perished on Titanic. It was hard to keep our composure during this moment of silence as we paid our respects to the dead!
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