Adventures of a Sea Hunter_ In Search of Famous Shipwrecks - James P. Delgado [39]
Under NUMA’S sponsorship, British explorer Graham Jessop mounted a search for Carpathia. In September 1999, he thought that he had discovered the wreck in 600 feet of water, 185 miles west of Land’s End, England, but bad weather drove off his ship before he could verify the discovery by sending down underwater cameras. When Jessop later returned to the site, he found that it was not Carpathia. A dinner plate lying on the sand, marked with the crest of the Hamburg-America Line, was one of several clues that finally identified the wreck as Hamburg-America’s Isis, lost in a storm in November 1936. Only one of the crew, a cabin boy, survived the sinking.
Mike Fletcher headed out to sea in May 2000 for another try at finding Carpathia. He watched the side-scan sonar pen trace black-and-white images of the ocean floor. At the same time, he also checked a magnetometer as it scanned the seabed for a large metallic object—like a sunken ship. After a month of surveying, slowly running straight lanes in what ocean searchers call “mowing the lawn,” he felt that at last the survey was narrowing down where Carpathia should be.
Finally, on May 22, 2000, as Mike watched the side-scan sonar and magnetometer, he was rewarded by the ghostly outline of a sunken ship in profile, rising clear of the bottom, and by the shadowy image of it from reflected sound waves. But the weather was getting bad, and again there was no opportunity to drop in a camera to take a look at the wreck up close. The wreck was the right size for Carpathia and was in the right spot, just a few miles from where Snowdrop had placed it. However, The Sea Hunters kept the news under wraps until we could mount a second expedition to confirm the facts. “You don’t know till you go” is tried and true wisdom in the difficult task of shipwreck identification.
In September, John Davis of Eco-Nova headed for England to visit the wreck we all hoped was that of Carpathia. Nine days later, John and his team set out in the teeth of a storm. Working under difficult conditions, they were able to deploy a remotely operated vehicle with a camera to dive down to the wreck and capture four hours of video. With the precious footage in hand, John flew to Halifax, to meet with the rest of the team.
John, Mike, Clive and I all gather in the theater of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, after hours, as the guests of its director, Michael Moore. The large-screen television in front of us the center of attention as John Davis takes the videotape out of his bag (he has already made a copy in case something goes wrong) and pops it into the machine. I’m ready, leaning forward, with photos of Carpathia and the ship’s plans spread out before me. After more than two decades of shipwreck hunting, diving and research, I’m still as excited as a child at Christmas by a new discovery. So is everyone else.
We watch as the ROV moves across a mottled sand and gravel bottom. Then, suddenly, coming out of the dark gloom, we see a propeller. It is covered with encrustations of marine life, but the outline is clear: three blades, one buried in the sand, attached to a shaft that is braced by a strut that comes out of the hull. So far so good—it’s the right shape, has the right number of blades and is off-center, showing that it is one of two propellers that should be on either side of the rudder.
The ROV swings around, looking up at the hull that curves out from the keel. Then it turns, and we see the rudder, still attached to the sternpost. As John freezes the video frame, we study the ship’s plans and match the rudder—its shape, fastenings and size—to them. Just beyond the rudder, we spot the second propeller. As I watch the screen, I think of how fast those propellers were spinning in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912—faster than they ever had either before or after