Shipwrecks can teach us a lot. But the submersible incident is a warning: Experts to DTE

Even as global attention is currently fixated on the fate of five billionaire tourists who are on board an ill-fated submersible that has lost all contact with the outside world, experts Down To Earth spoke to said while shipwrecks are excellent time capsules, the incident is a warning to us all.  

The Titan, belonging to private company OceanGate Expeditions, had taken the tourists to the wreck of RMS Titanic in the waters of the North Atlantic.

Contact with the Titan was lost one hour and 45 minutes into its dive on the afternoon of June 18, 2023, according to the US Coast Guard.  

“We do not know what the exact cause of the loss of contact is: climatic conditions? Technical failure? But it is a lesson to us all and we have to be careful in the future,” Sila Tripati, marine archaeologist who has worked with the CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography in Goa and retired last year, told Down To Earth (DTE).

“I believe shipwrecks are time capsules that should be put on display in museums. But since it is not always possible to do that, I think they should be studied. Information from them should be carefully recorded. They should be allowed to rest in cases where it is not possible to retrieve them,” Anirudh Kanisetti, public historian, told DTE.

‘Wreck tourism’

The incident involving the submersible comes almost two decades after Robert Ballard, the man who co-discovered the wreck of the Titanic in waters off Newfoundland, lobbied the US Congress to approve a treaty signed by the State Department aimed at protecting the wreck.

Clearly, Ballard’s warnings were not heeded to and lucrative ‘shipwreck tourism’ is to be squarely blamed for the disappearance of the five people on board the Titan.

DTE queried both Kanisetti and Sila Tripati about the scene regarding such tourism in Indian waters.

Sila Tripati, who has written several academic papers and books on marine archaeology in Indian seas, said wreck tourism in India mostly took place in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Goa, off Visakhapatnam and Lakshadweep.

“But it is very limited. That is because India is a tropical country. Because of the monsoon and wind currents, such tourism usually happens only for 2-3 months,” Sila Tripati said.

The clientele is select because the charges are very high. So only those who can afford or those who are really interested in examining a wreck or the seafloor usually engage in such activities.

“Mostly five star hotels catering to tourists take permission from the tourism department, and take tourists for an underwater sojourn for an hour or so. But this is very common in southeast Asian countries,” Sila Tripati noted.

Conditions are perfect for the growth of wreck tourism in India though.

Sila Tripati had authored the chapter An overview of shipwreck explorations in Indian waters, part of the book Shipwrecks around the World: Revelations of the past (October 2015).

He had written that while India’s maritime history was 5,000 years-old, details on ancient or historical period shipwrecks was very inadequate.

“The recorded shipwreck history of India starts from the European period onwards. Since the initiation of shipwreck studies in Indian waters shipwrecks have been explored in (Sunchi Reef, St George’s Reef, Amee Shoals, SailRock, Grande Island) off Goa, (four in Minicoy Island and one in Suheli Par) off Lakshadweep Islands, and one each off Poompuhar and Konark in Tamil Nadu and Odisha waters respectively,” the chapter had noted.

“We have plenty of references in literature about shipwrecks. But their exact locations are not known. Most shipwrecks are discovered globally by fishers who usually come across items from a wreck in their nets. The other way can be if industrial organisations carry out a survey of the seafloor may stumble across a wreck sometimes,” Sila Tripati told DTE.

Kanisetti said medieval shipwrecks were worth searching for as they could be immensely valuable for understanding of history and the actual mechanics of trade.

“Many wrecks are waiting to be discovered. There is a very strong case for systematic archaeology along the entirety of India’s coast. There is so much that we do not know about how Indians conducted trade by sea. Shipwrecks are the best way to answer that,” he said.

But if and when the wreck tourism industry booms in India, operators should be sure to remember the unfortunate episode that took place on June 18, off Newfoundland.

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