Why isn't the Titanic pulled out of the water?

[voype]

Updates

+1 y

but if it stays submerged under water it will disappear completely. I think even if it gets damaged while being pulled out of the water, at least it's better than being completely destroyed.

[SnowedIn]

You're joking right?

Why would anyone?

It cost $1.2 BILLION to salvage the Costa Concordia in 2013. The Titanic would be orders of magnitude more.

But why, SnowedIn? Good question.

Imagine this: build a Lego version of the Titanic. Make it about a foot long. Break it into two pieces. Then, put those two pieces at the bottom of an Olympic dive pool (about 16 feet) and further crumble each of them at the bottom of that pool.

Then, send down a five year old, blindfolded, with a pair of small tweezers.

That's the complexity they're looking at.

And all for what? The ship was amazing in 1912 but was built of iron, steel, and wood. It's weak and rusted and rotted. There's precious little to salvage. And if we did, for what?

Save your money. Leave it be.

[FYI345]

Or risk being imploded.

[SnowedIn]

@FYI345 ... right? Lol

[BCA6010]

Why?

It wouldn't even come close to being worth the effort at that depth.

To put this into perspective, the deepest a ship of even remotely decent size (nowhere near as large as the Titanic) has been raised up is 240 meters, and is about the size of a coast guard patrol ship. The Titanic is at 3,800 meters, and (when it was intact) weighed almost 1,000 times as much. It's also in pieces and would probably fall apart even more even if we could move it. When a big ship gets brought up for salvage, it has to already be close to port, and often close enough to the surface that it's at least partially sticking out of the water. It is a huge undertaking regardless.

[YesterdaysChild]

Not true, they raised a Soviet submarine from the bottom one time.

[BCA6010]

@YesterdaysChild Not successfully. 2/3 of it broke apart during recovery and the mechanism to lift it broke in the process. Again though, a K-class submarine is tiny compared to the Titanic.

[YesterdaysChild]

Now the Titanic is completely falling apart so raising it from that deep a depth would be both very expensive and all they would get is a pile of scrap in the end. Hardly worth the trouble.

[Alli39]

Because it's a giant ship sitting on the bottom of the ocean? Even if you're looking at preservation and study, removing the thing would likely do a TON of damage. The ocean is actually pretty decent at preserving things. One of the few and most famous Ancient Greek bronzes on the world was preserved under water for millennia because it went down in a ship wreck. Lifting the thing would be like popping open a time capsule, but like, if you were to then burn everything in the time capsule and only look at what's left.

[YesterdaysChild]

They made a movie of that very thing.

[AviatorTom]

Several reasons:

1. It's too deep. No ship has ever been pulled up from that far down.

2. It's been down there for 111 years... It's rusting and falling apart. Any attempt to lift it would only break it into pieces.

3. It's a memorial. There are dead bodies still inside the ship. Essentially, it's an underwater cemetery for those people who went downwith the ship. 1,160 bodies sank along with the ship and were never seen again.

[Jersey2]

There are multiple Titanic museums with parts of the ship and items from passengers on display. It is a huge rusting mess though and a grave.

Its a ship that sunk due to a reckless drive to make a speed record in order to spur free advertising in the newspapers for the White Star Line.

Lives were lost due to antiquated calculations based on ship weight for life boat seats instead of passenger and crew carrying capacity… duh. Its just rusting metal that has gained a place in the world’s consciousness. We have enough museums for the Titanic.

[CrimsonAngel09]

Pretty much what everyone else here said.

Been underwater for a hundred something years, broken into pieces. It's also a lot of resources to try and get it up, but even if you try, it has a pretty high risk of breaking up even more.

It can only be studied where it lies.

[voype]

but if it stays submerged under water it will disappear completely. I think even if it gets damaged while being pulled out of the water, at least it's better than being completely destroyed.

[Curmudgeon]

Every 33 feet or so (10 meters or so) is another atmosphere of pressure. That's hard to work with (or against). That stated, a thriller novel was written about this idea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raise_the_Titanic!

[lightbulb27]

or why haven't they drained the ocean to pull it out?

It's quite rusty and hard to get out.

Now the Bismarck, that's another matter... might be able to get that one... although it's deeper.

Sad... what misery people went through. Lets hope we don't repeat any of that.

[BigDog1989]

Ships go down all the time, so, we'd be repeating that sort of thing. The problem was, they thought they were invincible. Nothing's invincible, not even trump, as we see

[Likes2drive]

Because it’s in two half’s under 13,000 feet of water, it would fall apart under its own weight because of the 112 years of rusting under water

[Surely]

It is in too many pieces and would probably crumble if attempted.
With the number of casualties. Better to leave it as a memorial to them.
Some things have already been removed from the vessel.

[Surely]

In a few short generations. With history being rewritten, like is being done. People will say. Titanic, what’s that?

[Kori1236]

It’s been down there so long it’s now disintegrating. If they tried to bring it up it would break apart anyway so there’s no point it would be a waste of money and time

[exitseven]

It is down so deep tht a conventional salvage operation is not possible. Now it is so corroded that it will just fall apart if it is moved. Besides , it is not worth the money to bring it to the surface.

[menina]

That's a great question. I guess it's because it's too heavy and they would need a lot of resources to pull it.

[DeeDeeDeVour]

It's not worth all the funds and efforts to pull off such a huge undertaking.

[Fireguy17]

why?
It is the resting place for many, it would cost way too much and it probably would not hold up to being lifted.

[Annie_LevelUP_ADC]

What would that accomplish? We know where it is, we know what happened, let it stay a relic.

[Anonymous]

The same reason the boiler in your home isn't being powered by gas mined from the core of Jupiter.

[belle_kai]

It will most likely disintegrated. Either way it will be damaged

[KostasKouvalis]

Same reason they don't pull out other shipwrecks, it would probably fall appart

[April_love]

It’s been in there so long that if they where to touch it it would crumble. The titanic is going to be completely gone in the fucture no trace left

[KrakenAttackin]

Let's start with a depth of 12,000 feet bruh.

[Jmmmfi4]

Well this is just a guess but all the water on top of it?

[KrakenAttackin]

@Jmmmfi4. Best answer yet.

[Astarlessnightsky]

It would turn to dust.

[MementoMori777]

Cause they left it as a grave site

[MementoMori777]

Which lets be foreal they didn't wanna waste all the time and money pulling that shit out, they know it's gonna be difficult

[slatyb]

I don't think it's legal.

[Dargil]

Too deep. Too heavy. In pieces. Why do it?

[Wise4myage]

Because its a grave.

[BigDog1989]

What would be the point?

[BigDog1989]

It's going to rust out over time anyway. Bringing it up, only to watch it decay, would be pointless

[OddBeMe]

Because it’ll crumble.

[OddBeMe]

Ehh very very slowly are ships deteriorating underwater. We find Roman skiffs and ships in the Aegean and Mediterranean all the time. Old statues that have been there for centuries.

If we go pulling out the largest ship (non Carnival) ever made we’ll cause more damage. Drones have discovered a lot about the titanic and brought up individual artifacts.

Millionaire sub tours are less safe…

[Anonymous]

Because it's very broken and very old.