June 24, 2023

It is not for me to judge about the fate of the lost deep-sea Titan submersible. People much more knowledgeable than myself, like James Camera and Dr. Sylvia Earle and many more, have made their views known to the public.

But I do have a couple of concerns.

First, every port that we go into, we are subject to a complete safety inspection. In May of this year, we were given a bow to stern inspection by the British Board of Trade. Two weeks later we were subjected to a costly and thorough inspection by the United States Coast Guard in New York City, and I suspect our next port of call we will be obliged to have yet another inspection.

Now although I agree with safety inspections, I have observed that the rules are more rigorously applied towards us, probably because we are an activist vessel. Despite this, we must, and we should observe every safety regulation.

We don’t carry passengers or cargo. We are not commercial.

Yet this Titan submersible carrying paying passengers, therefore a commercial vessel was never inspected or certified and the question is why? We can’t go anywhere without inspections and certifications. 

The thing that caught my eye is this picture. The monitor screen is screwed into the inner carbon fiber hull. This alone would have compromised the integrity of the hull. This would never have passed an inspection. The vessel was not certified to go to these crushing depths. Every dive this submersible undertook weakened the integrity of the carbon fiber hull.

I assume that the vessel was uninsured because I can’t imagine any insurance company insuring without an inspection and without certification.

The 2nd thing that concerned me is one of the passengers. Four of them were aware and accepted the risks involved. They were adventurers. Nothing wrong with that. I certainly support taking risks in pursuit of an objective. I do this all the time.

But one of the passengers was the son of one of the four, and reportedly he was terrified of going down to the Titanic. His father encouraged him, and the son decided to go because it was Father’s Day. Emotionally he had little choice. His father’s decision killed the son and that to me is the most tragic thing about this entire incident.