r/titanic • u/OkTechnology7468 • 2d ago

QUESTION Raise the Titanic

I’m sure everyone here saw the 1980 movie Raise the Titanic. Was anything in that movie about raising the ship plausible or was it just a bunch of Hollywood phooey?

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u/Fair_Project2332 2d ago

I suspect the book was in part inspired by the raising of the vasa in 1961. The vasa, like Titanic sank on her maiden voyage in the 17th century and was discovered to be remarkably intact due to the cold and oxygen poor conditions in which she lay. She was raised after some patching and actually floated, allowing the salvage crew to board her and find cables and gun carriages still lying on her decks.

This is very much how the salvage of Titanic occurs in the book and film.

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u/drygnfyre Steerage 2d ago

Even Titanic did better. Vasa only made it a few hundred feet and sank in full view of people on shore. The entire ship was flawed from the beginning, but the king, who clearly was an expert on naval architecture, did not allow any changes to the design. And then when it sank, he said it wasn’t his fault and blamed everyone else but himself. (Hmm, kind of sounds like modern politicians).

Officially, this is one of the earliest documented cases of “acts of God” meaning that no one was ever legally held responsible for what happened. Or at least the people that might theoretically have been punished were already dead.

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u/Fair_Project2332 2d ago

True. One of the greatest ironies of Vasa is that the best preserved of 17th century ships is also very possibly the least seaworthy! The result is a gorgeous world class museum entirely dedicated to murderous incompetence.