Since the Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic the night of April 14, 1912 and sank in up to 15,000 feet of water, it has occasioned a popular song, much verse, at least 28 books and five feature-length movies. Yet until the 180-foot H.J.W. Fay sailed from Fort Lauderdale July 15, there had been no major expedition to try to locate the liner's position—roughly 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland.
Then Jack Grimm of Abilene put together the financing from fellow Texas oilmen for the voyage of the Fay. He is staking $1 million on the potential publishing and film rights to the trip as well as on any future retrieval of the ship's contents, reported to include millions of dollars in diamonds. What makes the venture feasible for the first time is a 15-member scientific team headed by Dr. William B.F. Ryan, 40, a Columbia University geophysicist. Unlike the Texas wildcatters, Ryan figures he can't lose. He is less interested in the Titanic or in a treasure hunt than in what searching for it can teach him about the ocean bottom and how the earth was formed.
His closest previous affinity with the Titanic, Ryan joked as he prepared to sail, is that "I live in a Victorian house." (He and his wife of 18 years, Judy, reside with their three children in South Nyack, N.Y.) But he added, "My team is as excited about this as anything we've done. It has given us a chance to buy or build some equipment we couldn't have afforded, and it allows us to do some tests from our wish list." Columbia will keep the $175,000 worth of gear developed for the Titanic search because Texan Grimm—whose previous ventures included a pursuit of the Loch Ness monster—needed an experienced chief scientist. Says Ryan: "I struck a pretty hard deal with Grimm."
After majoring in physics at Williams College, Ryan began probing the ocean's depths in 1961 as a research assistant at Wood's Hole on Cape Cod. Three years later, while doing graduate work at Columbia, he helped design the magnetometer used to locate the sunken U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher. By the time he received his Ph.D. in 1971, Ryan had become expert in the underwater exploration techniques pioneered by Dr. Fred N. Spiess of the University of California, who is co-leader of the expedition.
Before sailing, Ryan mapped out a 15-by-15-mile search area, using as a guide the SOS messages from the liner (which gave two different fixes on its position) and the logs of the rescue ships. The Fay will systematically sweep that area, towing an underwater sled at the end of a four-mile-long cable. The sled holds sonar equipment and a magnetometer to detect the presence of metal. Computers on the Fay are programmed to reproduce images of what the sonar finds.
Ryan estimates that there is a 50-50 chance of finding the Titanic during the 10 days the Fay is provisioned to spend in the search area. If a likely object is located, then video, movie and still cameras will be lowered. A definite sighting could be followed by a far more costly expedition next summer, using a manned submarine.
The weather poses two problems for Ryan—the sophisticated search equipment is useless in rough seas, and so, to all intents and purposes, is Ryan himself. "Ninety percent of the time in this area," he notes, "it's a sea state of four or five [five-to-eight-foot swells], which is when I start throwing up." Though the pills he takes to prevent seasickness bring on mental lethargy, he is ready for every contingency. "I know I've got the computer tape to deal with any problem someplace," he says, "if I can find the right cassette." Ryan summed up his mission in a metaphor his Texas backers could appreciate: "Somebody else pays the ante. Nature deals the cards, and it's my job to stay in the hand and win."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
