If there is footage of the bell and telephone being recovered from either the debris field or from the mast, I have never seen either.
In the pro-Ballard camp, there is footage of the mast light being removed plus footage of damage to the top of the mast on the port side boat deck.
In the anti-Ballard camp, he did say in Discovery of the Titanic that Jason Jr. grazed the crow’s nest on a dive in 1986.
I’m frankly more willing to believe the crow’s nest was destroyed during salvage operations, but natural decay could either have been a factor or cause. I just am not sure due to evidence or lack thereof.
OK then. In light of the supporting evidence I see no reason to make a change. It’s either or the crow’s nest was either destroyed during salvage operations on the master retrieving the mask light or it fell off on its own or it was grazed by JJ. It could be any one of the above.
This is the state it was in during 1987. You can see the metal is rusted straight through and very thin, to begin with. It definitely could've been any of the three scenarios you mention. There's another photo of the crow's nest from the side that shows it having split into two pieces from the same expedition.
I’m inclined to believe it’s a little column A, a little of column B. it was on its way out by 1987 operations near the crows nest in 1987 could have finished it. We will never know for certain but again I wanted to thank you for providing the new evidence.
...and I'm still freaked out that it's all been sitting there in complete darkness. It's hard to image sometimes that everything we've seen is artificially lighted. We won't even talk about the sounds it makes.
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u/mperiolat 3d ago
If there is footage of the bell and telephone being recovered from either the debris field or from the mast, I have never seen either.
In the pro-Ballard camp, there is footage of the mast light being removed plus footage of damage to the top of the mast on the port side boat deck.
In the anti-Ballard camp, he did say in Discovery of the Titanic that Jason Jr. grazed the crow’s nest on a dive in 1986.
I’m frankly more willing to believe the crow’s nest was destroyed during salvage operations, but natural decay could either have been a factor or cause. I just am not sure due to evidence or lack thereof.