When the Titanic sank in the Atlantic after hitting an iceberg in 1912, attention turned almost immediately to how to raise the ship.
Many plans to raise the luxury liner from its resting place were made decades before the wreck was discovered by expert Robert Ballard in 1985.
These included a 1914 proposal to use electromagnets and then drag the ship from the ocean floor, and a 1960 bid to float the Titanic to the surface using gas-filled balloons.
But those were less crazy bids, with more bunny schemes involving ping pong balls, glass spheres and even the use of 180,000 tons of Vaseline.
The most serious attempt to raise the ship came in the late 1980s from British salvage expert John Pearce, who wanted to use newly-developed inflatable bags to do the job.
When the Titanic sank in the Atlantic after hitting an iceberg in 1912, attention turned almost immediately to how to raise the ship.
The idea of salvaging the ship from the seabed has also fueled popular culture, with the 1980 film Raise the Titanic (above) depicting a fictional successful bid to do so.
He claimed ‘nothing can stop us’, but ultimately the project never got off the ground.
The idea of recovering the ship from the seabed has also fueled popular culture, with the 1980 film Raise the Titanic depicting a fictional successful bid to do so.
The film was based on the book of the same name by Clive Cussler, which depicted how the mission unfolded
and the late bestselling author Clive Cussler’s adventure novel Raise the Titanic! told the story of a bid to bring the ship to the surface to retrieve a cache of exotic materials aboard.
The first bid to raise the Titanic began months after the disaster, when the families of the three wealthy passengers who died came together.
John Jacob Astor, who was worth more than $2 billion in today’s money, was one of the richest men in the world.
He died after being refused permission to join his pregnant wife in a lifeboat on the Titanic.
The first bid to raise the Titanic began months after the disaster, when the families of three wealthy passengers who died together clubbed. Above: John Jacob Astor (left) was one of the richest men in the world. Industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim (right) and streetcar magnate Dunton Widener also died.
Industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim and streetcar magnate Dunton Widener also died.
The families of the three men contracted with the Merritt & Chapman Derrick & Wrecking Company to raise the ship and recover the bodies and belongings of the passengers.
It quickly became clear that the plan was unlikely to succeed and was therefore abandoned.
In March 1914, less than two years after the disaster, a Denver architect named Charles Smith unveiled a plan to use electromagnets to restore the ship.
The magnets will be attached to a specially designed submarine that will descend from the Titanic’s last radioed location.
The theory proposed that Titanic’s steel hub would pull the submarine towards it, establishing its position.
More electromagnets will then be sent and attached directly to the ship’s hull.
And the cables connecting the magnets to the winches – attached to barges on the surface – would then pull the Titanic up.
However, Smith noted the need for $1.5 million to carry out the mission meant it never took off.
Englishman Douglas Woolley, from Baldock, Hertfordshire, then joined the work from the late 1960s.
The factory worker’s initial plan was to use a submersible to reach the ship using nylon balloons attached to its hull before lifting her.
They would be pumped full of air, allowing the ship to ‘gently rise to the surface’.
However, Woolley made no mention of how the balloons would inflate 13,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic.
Most recently, in 2009, Woolley made headlines by claiming to own the Titanic after registering his rights in the UK in 1981.
He even launched an unsuccessful legal battle against salvage company RMS Titanic Inc to secure the rights to the ship.
After Woolley’s scheme failed, other schemes continued to abound.
They incorporated the idea that molten wax could be pumped into ships in the belief that, once solidified, it would become buoyant and lift the ship to the surface.
Englishman Douglas Woolley, from Baldock, Hertfordshire, then joined the work from the late 1960s. The factory worker’s initial plan was to use a submersible to reach the ship before lifting her using nylon balloons attached to her hull.
In 1985, a team led by Navy officer Robert Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic.
The Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg in April 1912. Above: An image of the sinking
Titanic started her maiden voyage from Southampton in 1912. The ship was bound for New York
British salvage engineer Tony Wakefield raised the Veslin proposal in 1985, shortly after the wreck was discovered.
He proposed pumping the substance into polyester bags that would be placed on the wreck’s hull and buoyed up once solidified.
Another plan suggested that the ship could be cranked to the surface using a winch, or that it could be encased in ice in the belief that it would rise like a simple ice cube in a drink.
The scheme launched by Mr Pearce – whose expertise helped locate the wreckage – involved a system of hydrogen-filled bags.
Launching it shortly after the wreck was discovered in September 1985, the expert said: ‘This operation will represent a major step forward for the prestige of British science,’ he said.
‘I don’t want egg on my face.’
One Titanic survivor was quick to say that ‘digging a human grave’ would be wrong, and other experts were quick to point out that no attempt had ever been made to salvage a ship from such depths.
The British engineer’s project ultimately proved unsuccessful.
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