August 11, 1998. Copyright 1998. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

LEGAL ROW FAILS TO SINK TITANIC TOURS
by Oliver Burkeman

LONDON, August 11, Graphic News: DECADES after it sank on April 15, 1912 off the coast of Canada, with the loss of more than 1,500 people, the Titanic is once again the subject of a head-on collision Ð this time over rights of access to the wreck.

Isle of Man-based company Deep Sea Explorations is due to begin the first-ever tours to the wreck on August 31, charging wealthy enthusiasts £19,500 ($32,500) for a nine-day voyage including a 2-3 hour journey down to the hulk Ð 12,460ft (3,798m) undersea Ð in a 7ft diameter (2.1m) pressurised submersible. But the plan has ploughed headlong into lawyers acting for RMS Titanic Inc, a U.S. firm granted exclusive salvage rights in 1994 after it retrieved the first artifacts from the ship, discovered by a team of French and American scientists in 1995.

RMST have obtained a U.S. court preventing anybody else from entering an area around the wreck of several square miles, or taking photographs of the sunken ship, which lies in two parts separated by almost 2,000 feet (600m). An anonymous consultant for the tour organisers was reported as comparing the ban to a building owner objecting to a tour bus.

The trip now seems likely to go ahead anyway. But the row between RMST and Deep Sea Explorations is only the tip of the iceberg.

RMST earlier succeeded in restricting access rights after they claimed that the crew filming the wreck for James Cameron's blockbuster Titanic Ð which has set world box-office records of around $1 billion Ð had left debris on the ship and dislodged one of its skylights. The company has turned the demise of the White Star liner into a lucrative business, running travelling exhibitions of recovered artifacts, although it does not sell items recovered from the wreck. It is also collaborating with the Discovery Channel, which will broadcast live footage from a dive to the Titanic on August 17 at 1am GMT (repeated Aug 17, 9pm; Aug 20, 10pm; Aug 23, 9pm. All times GMT).

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Sources: Wildwings International (agents for Deep Sea Explorations): 0117 984 8040; Discovery Channel Europe (44 171 462 3640)