Search and Discovery

Much of the team then transferred to the Woods Hole research vessel Knorr. The operation continued, using the sonar and underwater video cameras aboard Argo. For two weeks Argo was hauled back and forth, but nothing was found, even when the search area was extended farther east. But early in the morning of 1 September, the watch monitoring the images from Argo began to see man-made wreckage, and then a vast boiler appeared. There could be no doubt about it — they had found Titanic.

In the following two days, a storm blew in, with winds gusting up to 40 knots and waves of 4 metres (14 feet) smashing against Knorr. But Argo continued to transmit pictures from 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) below, and at the end of the long debris field the investigators found the bow of the ship, sitting upright on the ocean floor. With time running out fast before Knorr had to go to another scientific project, they carefully guided Argo's passes over the sunken ship, knowing that if the cable to the surface snagged on any of Titanic s features the invaluable piece of equipment could be lost forever.

On their final day, Ballard sent down Angus, an unmanned sled with an array of still cameras, and it snapped thousands of pictures of the ship - the bow, the debris field and, at the far end of the debris, 600 metres (1,970 feet) away, what careful analysis would later reveal to be the stern.

Ballard and company then turned regretfully back towards Woods Hole, not yet realizing that they had only experienced the first step in the new existence of Titanic.

ABOVE: The bow of Titanic silhouetted by the spotlight from the Mir 2 submersible, which was sitting at the time on the anchor crane of the ship’s foredeck.