Farewell, Titanic

Charles Pellegrino

Description

On the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, a prominent Titanic researcher offers a final chance to see the ship before it disappears forever

The Titanic was the biggest, most luxurious passenger ship the world had ever seen; the ads proclaimed it to be unsinkable. When it sank in April 1912 after hitting an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 people, the world was forever changed and the public has been spellbound ever since. Now, a century later, the Titanic is about to disappear again: its infrastructure is set to collapse in the next few years. In this book, scientist Charles Pellegrino offers what may be the last opportunity to see the ship before it is lost to the seas for eternity. The last book to be written while survivors were still alive and able to contribute details, Farewell, Titanic includes many untold stories about the sinking and exploration of the unsinkable ship.

• Author Charles Pellegrino provided source material for James Cameron's Oscar-winning Titanic film, which is being re-released in 3D at the same time as the book
• Includes 16 pages of never-before-published full-color photographs of the sunken vessel
• Includes all-new information about the Titanic research that has been carried out in the last decade
• Written by a New York Times bestselling author who participated in the post-discovery analysis of the Titanic's remains during the expedition that immediately followed Robert Ballard's Titanic discovery in 1985

Foreword by Tom Dettweiler ix

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

1. Convergence 1

2. Far from Okay 12

3. A Slight Trepidation 20

4. Night of the Lightning Dolphins 32

5. Trinity 38

6. Of Nature, Not above It 51

7. The Cascade Point 58

8. Everything Was against Us 72

9. Stalking the Nightmare 76

10. Points of Departure 86

11. The Geometry of Shadows 99

12. How Much Does Darkness Weigh? 112

13. The 46th Psalm 115

14. The Truth about William Murdoch 127

15. To Dream on the Ship of Sorrows 133

16. Falling Stars 140

17. Movements of Fire and Ice 149

18. Frailty 152

19. A Crevice in Time 169

20. Dark Circle 179

21. Explorers, Graves, and Lovers 193

22. Terminal Velocity 213

23. Laying the Music to Rest 218

24. A Fury Scorned 225

25. Sleeping in Light 228

26. Coming Home to Shock Cocoons 231

27. The Long Night of Ellen Betty Phillips 234

28. The Thieving Magpies 241

29. Monsters Down There 245

30. Ghosts of the Abyss 255

31. Persevering 261

32. Destination Unknown 264

Notes 282

Index 323

Sujets

• Histoire
• Charles Pellegrino
• RMS Titanic
• Charles R. Pellegrino
• World
• History
• James Cameron

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 20 janvier 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781118191293
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
1: Convergence
2: Far from Okay
3: A Slight Trepidation
4: Night of the Lightning Dolphins
5: Trinity
6: Of Nature, Not above It
7: The Cascade Point
8: Everything Was against Us
9: Stalking the Nightmare
10: Points of Departure
11: The Geometry of Shadows
12: How Much Does Darkness Weigh?
13: The 46th Psalm
14: The Truth about William Murdoch
15: To Dream on the Ship of Sorrows
16: Falling Stars
17: Movements of Fire and Ice
18: Frailty
19: A Crevice in Time
20: Dark Circle
21: Explorers, Graves, and Lovers
22: Terminal Velocity
23: Laying the Music to Rest
24: A Fury Scorned
25: Sleeping in Light
26: Coming Home to Shock Cocoons
27: The Long Night of Ellen Betty Phillips
28: The Thieving Magpies
29: Monsters Down There
30: Ghosts of the Abyss
31: Persevering
32: Destination Unknown
Notes
1. CONVERGENCE
2. FAR FROM OKAY
3. A SLIGHT TREPIDATION
4. NIGHT OF THE LIGHTNING DOLPHINS
5. TRINITY
6. OF NATURE, NOT ABOVE IT
7. THE CASCADE POINT
8. EVERYTHING WAS AGAINST US
9. STALKING THE NIGHTMARE
10. POINTS OF DEPARTURE
11. THE GEOMETRY OF SHADOWS
12. HOW MUCH DOES DARKNESS WEIGH?
13. THE 46TH PSALM
14. THE TRUTH ABOUT WILLIAM MURDOCH
15. TO DREAM ON THE SHIP OF SORROWS
16. FALLING STARS
17. MOVEMENTS OF FIRE AND ICE
18. FRAILTY
19. A CREVICE IN TIME
20. DARK CIRCLE
21. EXPLORERS, GRAVES, AND LOVERS
22. TERMINAL VELOCITY
23. LAYING THE MUSIC TO REST
24. A FURY SCORNED
25. SLEEPING IN LIGHT
26. COMING HOME TO SHOCK COCOONS
27. THE LONG NIGHT OF ELLEN BETTY PHILLIPS
28. THE THIEVING MAGPIES
29. MONSTERS DOWN THERE
30. GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS
31. PERSEVERING
32. DESTINATION UNKNOWN
Color Insert
Index

Copyright © 2012 by Charles Pellegrino. All rights reserved
Design by Forty-five Degree Design LLC
Photo insert credits: pp. 1 (top left, top right), 2 (top left, top right), 13 (middle), Southampton City Council, courtesy of William MacQuitty; pp. 1 (bottom), 2 (bottom), 3, 5, 6, 8 (bottom), 9 (top), 14, Charles Pellegrino; p. 4 (top), James Cameron and Charles Pellegrino; pp. 4 (bottom), 10, 11, 16, Lori Johnston, NOAA; pp. 7, 8 (top), James Cameron; p. 9 (bottom), Leigh Bishop; p. 12, NOAA; p. 13 (top), courtesy of Walter Lord; p. 13 (bottom), Roy Cullimore and Charles Pellegrino; p. 15, Roy Cullimore
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pellegrino, Charles R. Farewell, Titanic : her final legacy / Charles Pellegrino. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-87387-8 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-19128-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-19129-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-19130-9 (ebk) 1. Titanic (Steamship)–History. 2. Shipwrecks–North Atlantic Ocean–History. I. Title. G530.T6P443 2012 910.9163′4–dc23 2011049807
To the first responders and other rescuers—past, present, and future
Foreword
by Tom Dettweiler
When I first met Charlie Pellegrino, we of the Dr. Robert Ballard team were in hiding. We had just done the most incredible, wonderful thing: we found the Titanic ! Our lives were suddenly turned upside down. Everybody wanted to know everything about it. We had, however, just experienced an event so exciting yet so disturbing that it was hard to relate to those who had not been there. The world's response was so overwhelming that we had to get away, return to our world of comfort, and return to sea, where life was on our terms and simpler. We had to escape, Bob and all of us, to give ourselves time to come back to reality, fathom what had been seen and accomplished, and put it into proper perspective, one we could deal with. So we set off on a research cruise designated as Argo-RISE, using our robotic sleds to explore the ridge systems in the mid-Pacific, where the planet is creating new volcanic material and new life, which then spreads toward the continents.
Upsetting this escape was the fact that Charlie was going with us with the goal of penetrating our team and finding out everything he could about how similar robots would someday travel into space and be used to explore the distant ice-covered oceans of Europa. As Charlie later told me, this cruise was a life-changing expedition for him. As we reviewed the Titanic pictures we had taken a few short weeks before and talked among ourselves about our find, Charlie was soon infected by the Titanic legend. His questions shifted from space to the Titanic and the voyage of discovery—the very thing we were hiding from.
What we soon realized was that Charlie's questions were coming from a place different from that of the questions we had been bombarded with at home. The question we had grown especially tired of was “Did you see any bodies?” Charlie was different. Instead of the morbid question about bodies, Charlie asked, “Did we see the humans ?” In other words, did we see those little bits of evidence that told of their presence, the shreds that defined each individual's character and told his or her unique Titanic story—among them the story of the forward davit, still turned inboard, a testament to William Murdoch's futile attempt to launch the last lifeboat.
Charlie collected little bits of evidence from us and began piecing together the actual process the Titanic had gone through during the sinking, tracking the debris field backward in time to explain why the wreck appeared as it did on the bottom. Talking to Charlie was like a session on a psychiatrist's couch: he was able to draw out of us the precise things that had such an impact on us when we saw it live. The human drama we were seeing seventy-three years after the fact proved surprisingly disturbing, as our attention was drawn with increasing intensity to that cold Atlantic night in 1912. Finally Charlie was asking the questions that needed to be answered. This began a professional relationship between me and Charlie that has lasted more than twenty-five years, covering many discoveries and topics in ocean exploration, but always firmly tied together by a unique, direct perspective into the Titanic story.
When James Cameron was looking for someone to help develop the characters and add authenticity while making the movie Titanic I introduced him to Charlie. That led to another fruitful professional relationship, one that took Charlie down to the Titanic to experience firsthand the special hold that ship put on all of us, a mystery Charlie describes so well in this book. It's a unique club, and Charlie is one of the few individuals who is able to make his readers feel like a member.
The real treasure that Charlie shares with us in his three Titanic books—especially in Farewell, Titanic —is the intimate human details that resided in such places as the volumes of files accumulated by Walter Lord, the acknowledged dean of the Titanic story. For decades, Titanic survivors had shared their stories with Walter in personal correspondence, and Charlie's access to these files along with his forensic abilities to piece together events and evidence has woven an unprecedented, detailed account that takes you right to the decks of the Titanic on that horrible April night.
When my teenage son used to answer the phone and talk for half an hour or so before telling me the call was for me, I knew it was Charlie calling. After I got off the phone, my son would spend hours enthusiastically telling me all the incredible things Charlie and he had discussed, ranging from the bottom of the ocean to deepest outer space. It is Charlie's ability to make science exciting and to put it into terms we can all understand—and to bring out science's practical effects and often long-ranging impacts—that will make Farewell, Titanic as much an enjoyable, educational, and exciting r